stopped losing

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I seem to be stuck at a weight loss of 20 pounds with 20 more to go. Any suggestions?

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  • Panini911
    Panini911 Posts: 2,325 Member
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    how long have you been "stuck"? and by stuck do you mean exact same weight?

    have you started a new exercise?

    Do you use a food scale for all solids?
  • californiagirl2012
    californiagirl2012 Posts: 2,625 Member
    edited February 2019
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    Stalls definitely suck. It's tough to give specific advice with a closed diary and few details. If you're willing to answer some of the questions people ask or share more about your routine or even set your diary to public for a bit, we might be able to give better advice. 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.

    Perfect advice right here. It goes slower the less fat you have and also the smaller (shorter) you are as a person.

    The most common errors are; under estimating food intake, eating too low some days thus a little too high other days, and not knowing or trusting your TDEE, relying on HRM's for calorie burns that are not really as high as it says they are (I ignore them but at the same time know some days I might need a small more amount of food). Remember a deficit doesn't have to be super deep, as long as it's slight most days each week, and you can't gain weight at TDEE, and anything under TDEE is a deficit no matter how slight. Consistency with calories produces better results - so look at your 30 day calorie report, if it's wildly up and down with peaks and valleys, bring it to a more consistent line closer to your TDEE - it works great every time if you are patient - you are where you are at as a result of the last 90 days of food intake - guaranteed, every time.
  • lin_be
    lin_be Posts: 393 Member
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    The last 20lbs take for. ev. er.

    From,

    A person trying to lose the last 20lbs