Stuck really need help!

mossyoakmomma20 · February 2019

Hey everyone I could really use some help, I was doing really great at loosing weight I was on a 1500 calorie diet was loosing 2 pounds a week if not more dropped a bunch of water weight before I started this app and was exercising 6 days a week walking about 3.5 miles and then doing a half hour work out at home. I got down to 240 and hit a rock, so ive tried to push harder on working out. I work out and burn about 600 calories doing p90x now a day with still a rest day. I dont feel that much hungry anymore I get full faster I'm lucky enough to make 1300 calories on a good day. But I still cant get under 240 am I doing something wrong? What else can I do. I used to be 280 when I first started so I know we all hit a point but ive been stuck on this point for 3 weeks now and cant even drop one pound

csplatt · February 2019

how many days in a row have you been 240? how do you know you are burning 600 calories with p90x--are you wearing a heart rate monitor? i only get about two good workouts in per week, but i don't weigh myself the day after because i can always tell i have retained water for muscle repair.

Teabythesea_ · February 2019

It's been three weeks, you're not at a plateau. Weight loss can be masked by normal water weight fluctuations, especially if you've just started a new exercise routine.

diannethegeek · February 2019

If the P90X is new, have you waited long enough for the water weight bump you can expect with new exercise to dissipate (3-4 weeks)?
Would you be comfortable opening your diary for a bit so that we can see if there are more specific things to suggest?

Stalls suck. These would be my very generic suggestions without a lot of info, though:

1. If it's been less than 3 weeks or so, don't sweat it! Normal fluctuations happen and unfortunately sometimes we stall for a week or two even when we're doing everything right. Give your body some time to catch up with the changes you're making.

2. If you aren't already, be sure that you're logging everything. Sometimes people forget about things like veggies, drinks, cooking oils, and condiments. For some people these can add up to enough to halt your weight loss progress.

3. Consider buying a food scale if you don't already have one and use it for everything. Everything. For a couple of weeks to see what kind of discrepancies you're running into. They're about $10-$20 dollars in the US and easily found at places like Amazon, Target, and Walmart. Measuring cups and spoons are great, but they do come with some degree of inaccuracy. A food scale will be more accurate, and for some people it makes a big difference.

4. Logging accurately also means choosing accurate entries in the database. There are a lot of user-entered entries that are off. Double-check that you're using good entries and/or using the recipe builder instead of someone else's homemade entries. Don't trust the barcode scanner or restaurant entries 100%.

5. Recalculate your goals if you haven't lately. As you lose weight your body requires fewer calories to run. Be sure you update your goals every ten pounds or so.

6. If you're eating back your exercise calories and you're relying on gym machine readouts or MFP's estimates, it might be best to eat back just 50-75% of those. Certain activities tend to be overestimated. If you're using an HRM or activity tracker, it might be a good idea to look into their accuracy and be sure that yours is calibrated properly.

7. If you're taking any cheat days that go over your calorie limits, it might be best to cut them out for a few weeks and see what happens. Some people go way over their calorie needs without realizing it when they don't track.

8. If you weigh yourself frequently, consider using a program like trendweight to even out the fluctuations. You could be losing weight but just don't see it because of the daily ups and downs.

9. Some people just burn fewer calories than the calculators predict. If you continue to have problems after 4-6 weeks, then it might be worth a trip to the doctor or a registered dietitian who can give you more specific advice.

mossyoakmomma20 · February 2019

I normally only weigh myself every other week to every two week but these past week I have done it every 2 days yes I know bad but because I'm getting worried because I don't want the weight to come back and like I said I haven't seen it drop in the past 3 weeks not evwn down even one pound. Ive worked so hard to get where I'm at that I'm starting to worry. As the program states on average each workout burns 600 calories, but of your keeping a more definded track and counting calories it even states that there is ways to keep track of that so it comes with a calorie calculator and obviously you have to do math to figure it out after each work out and I normally do the cardio which is high intensity. I don't of my body is going into starvation mode so its holding on to the food and fat and not letting me burn any because I'm not eating enough and burning to much or what.

mossyoakmomma20 · February 2019

Oh and I have been 240 for almost 19 days

Panini911 · February 2019

i weight myself daily, it's not weighing daily that is a problem but reading too much into it.

are you using a food scale? would you be open to opening your food diary?

how long did you go loosing 2lbs/week? What was your starting weight?

the scale has not moved at ALL in 19 days?

also, under-eating at 1300 is not a "good day". you need to eat enought o ssutain your body and the exercise.

swirlybee · February 2019

I've done p90x in the past. Calorie burn varies depending on the workout and how much effort you're putting in. For instance, core synergistic and yoga x are going to have different calorie burns. Then calorie burns are going to be different from week to week. One week, my HRM shows a burn of 585 and then the following week is 457. This is as measured from a chest strap HRM. I only ate back half of those calories and continued to lose at a steady rate. You may not be actually burning 600 calories and if you're eating back 600 calories, that coule explain your stall.

apullum · February 2019

Starvation mode is not real.

As others have told you, you are almost certainly retaining water due to your new exercise. This is a normal part of the muscle repair process. It is completely expected. This water retention can easily mask fat loss on the scale.

Three weeks is not a plateau, especially if you have a menstrual cycle. Besides retaining water from your exercise, your weight also fluctuates due to hormones, more/less waste in your digestive tract, sodium intake, and all sorts of other things. You shouldn't expect to lose weight at a consistent pace.

Finally, you don't mention whether or not you use a food scale to weigh all your food. If you don't use a food scale, then you're almost guaranteed to be eating more than you think you are.

mossyoakmomma20 · February 2019

I normally do the extreme home Fitness cardio x I know yoga doesn't burn as much. I only do yoga if I'm wanting a light day or need a second work out. Ive been doing the cardio for about a week and half now. So far they the calorie range has gone from 600 to 689 the lowest ot ever got was 598 but that was on my Saturday the day before my rest day and I was beyond sore but normally its been staying up above the 600, normally I'm not eating back half those calories by the time by day ends it normally say I still have about a 1000 calories left to still eat on this app if not a little more. My starting weight was 280, I would say I was loosing 2 pounds a week for maybe 2 months if not a little more I'm in my third month of my weight loss now. No it hasn't moved at all in 19 days or well from all the times I have checked. No I don't use a scale right now but I have a friend who has a scale and she has to weigh all her food so shes been able to tell me how much 4 or 2 ounces is using cups or tablespoons. But I do plan on getting one hopefully next payday to make sure I'm more accurate.

mossyoakmomma20 · February 2019

apullum wrote: »

Starvation mode is not real.

As others have told you, you are almost certainly retaining water due to your new exercise. This is a normal part of the muscle repair process. It is completely expected. This water retention can easily mask fat loss on the scale.

Three weeks is not a plateau, especially if you have a menstrual cycle. Besides retaining water from your exercise, your weight also fluctuates due to hormones, more/less waste in your digestive tract, sodium intake, and all sorts of other things. You shouldn't expect to lose weight at a consistent pace.

Finally, you don't mention whether or not you use a food scale to weigh all your food. If you don't use a food scale, then you're almost guaranteed to be eating more than you think you are.

Yes starvation mode is very real and very dangerous to your body I was acutally able to confirm that today. But it also depends on what your eating what vitamins your taking how active you are how much you weight and if your under a doctor's supervision. It does more damage to someone's body them more know or understand.
If I have only been doing the work out for about a week and a half maybe a little longer could I really be retaining water already? Even though I'm loosing fat in just holding water because my muscles are trying to heal correct? And if I'm expected to start my menstrual cycle say in the next week or two could that be a reason why I'm holding water on or why my numbers havent dropped at all?

MichelleSilverleaf · February 2019

mossyoakmomma20 wrote: »

apullum wrote: »

Starvation mode is not real.

As others have told you, you are almost certainly retaining water due to your new exercise. This is a normal part of the muscle repair process. It is completely expected. This water retention can easily mask fat loss on the scale.

Three weeks is not a plateau, especially if you have a menstrual cycle. Besides retaining water from your exercise, your weight also fluctuates due to hormones, more/less waste in your digestive tract, sodium intake, and all sorts of other things. You shouldn't expect to lose weight at a consistent pace.

Finally, you don't mention whether or not you use a food scale to weigh all your food. If you don't use a food scale, then you're almost guaranteed to be eating more than you think you are.

Yes starvation mode is very real and very dangerous to your body I was acutally able to confirm that today. But it also depends on what your eating what vitamins your taking how active you are how much you weight and if your under a doctor's supervision. It does more damage to someone's body them more know or understand.
If I have only been doing the work out for about a week and a half maybe a little longer could I really be retaining water already? Even though I'm loosing fat in just holding water because my muscles are trying to heal correct? And if I'm expected to start my menstrual cycle say in the next week or two could that be a reason why I'm holding water on or why my numbers havent dropped at all?

No, starvation mode is not a thing in the context you're using it. Adaptive thermogenesis doesn't kick in until you're pretty much starving to death. New exercise will always cause brief water retention, and your cycle will too. If you're not using a food scale the first thing to try and eliminate are logging errors. You may have been able to get away with guesstimates when you started, but that doesn't last forever.

Get a food scale if you don't have one, weigh everything, track accurately for a month, eat back about half of your exercise calories and see how your progress is. Adjust from there.

estherdragonbat · February 2019

mossyoakmomma20 wrote: »

apullum wrote: »

Starvation mode is not real.

As others have told you, you are almost certainly retaining water due to your new exercise. This is a normal part of the muscle repair process. It is completely expected. This water retention can easily mask fat loss on the scale.

Three weeks is not a plateau, especially if you have a menstrual cycle. Besides retaining water from your exercise, your weight also fluctuates due to hormones, more/less waste in your digestive tract, sodium intake, and all sorts of other things. You shouldn't expect to lose weight at a consistent pace.

Finally, you don't mention whether or not you use a food scale to weigh all your food. If you don't use a food scale, then you're almost guaranteed to be eating more than you think you are.

Yes starvation mode is very real and very dangerous to your body I was acutally able to confirm that today. But it also depends on what your eating what vitamins your taking how active you are how much you weight and if your under a doctor's supervision. It does more damage to someone's body them more know or understand.
If I have only been doing the work out for about a week and a half maybe a little longer could I really be retaining water already? Even though I'm loosing fat in just holding water because my muscles are trying to heal correct? And if I'm expected to start my menstrual cycle say in the next week or two could that be a reason why I'm holding water on or why my numbers havent dropped at all?

No, it's really not. Starvation is real and dangerous. Starvation mode? Not a thing.

https://www.aworkoutroutine.com/starvation-mode/

jdog022 · February 2019

I burn about 600 calories for an hour and half of competitive college level ice hockey. If your doing 600 on p90x then you must be going harder then anyone ever . It’s probably half that. Maybe a quarter. It’s grossly over estimated to sell you a product

cheryldumais · February 2019

I feel your pain. First of all how fast did you lose the 40 lbs? If you have been dieting for a while a diet break might be in order but a true stall takes more than 19 days. As your weight is reduced your calorie requirements go down but at 1500 you should still be losing. I agree that you absolutely must weigh your food to get a true measure of how much you are taking in. If the stall continues for another 3 or 4 weeks then I would consider a diet break which is eating at maintenance calories for a couple weeks. Finally patience... You have lost 40 lbs! That's amazing.

musicfan68 · February 2019

Starvation mode as you have described it does not exist period. Whoever told you this was lying to you.

You most likely are overestimating your calorie burns by about 50% and underestimating your calorie intake since you aren't using a scale. A friend with a scale who tells you what size portion is so many calories isn't accurate.

whitej1234 · February 2019

Here is a technical suggestion, if you haven't done it before...
If you don't expect a big jump on the scales (due to the new routine, the fluctuations, etc...) some scales has a memory function, which means if the difference is up to X from your last weigh in they will show the last weigh in (where X is many times a couple of lb). I would suggest you weight yourself with something heavy in your hand (couple of 2l bottles for example) and then again without it, you might find you lost 1-2 lbs compared to the 240 you have seen all the time.

Stuck really need help!

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