I've hit a rough patch.
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confidenceinrain
Posts: 104 Member
Hi everyone,
Stats: female, 28, weigh 165 pounds, 5'5 (and a half but I just put whole inches into MFP), sedentary and goal calories are 1350 per day to lose 1 pound per week. Starting weight was 191 last June and goal weight is 150 (for now--was just a starting point to reevaluate whether to lose more or maintain when I got there). I do cardio at the gym 3-4x per week, hike once per week, and do strength training at the gym 2-3x per week (this I have started doing more frequently in the last few months).
So far I've lost 26 pounds but only the last 2 have been since the new year. I'm getting really discouraged. The last time I weighed in a pound down was a month ago today. I tend to only weigh on Fridays because when I weigh up or the same it really bothers me and I don't want to ruin more than 1 day per week for myself. I understand weight loss isn't linear but have been having such a long stretch of not really losing anything (not even half a pound).
I do know I am getting smaller--both through measurements, how my clothes fit, and how I look in the mirror--but I am still a number of pounds overweight on the BMI scale and it is really frustrating.
I do use my food scale consistently, and eat back about 50% of my exercise calories. This week I have deliberately eaten 100 calories less than my goal calories to see if the MFP estimate is too high and this morning am still the exact same weight. When we eat out I make sure it is within my calorie allowance and leave some room for error either that day or the day before or after. I make sure I am getting protein esp through chicken and fish and beans, and half my plate for the vast majority of meals is vegetables.
This is driving me insane. If 1350 is the amount I need to apparently maintain my weight and not lose a single ounce then to lose 1 pound a week I would need to only eat 850 calories a day. I know that isn't healthy but even if it were I can't do it, you guys. I am already hungry and grumpy and tired like, all the time, at this level. (I HAVE BEEN HUNGRY FOR 9 MONTHS UGH.)
What do I do? I am going to do another few sessions with a personal trainer but I am not expecting this to be some magical solution. I don't know if I should be weighing daily, or if that would just make this whole thing even more upsetting. I understand water weight fluctuations but after 4 weeks of no movement, it seems kind of unlikely to me that it's water weight for that long.
Stats: female, 28, weigh 165 pounds, 5'5 (and a half but I just put whole inches into MFP), sedentary and goal calories are 1350 per day to lose 1 pound per week. Starting weight was 191 last June and goal weight is 150 (for now--was just a starting point to reevaluate whether to lose more or maintain when I got there). I do cardio at the gym 3-4x per week, hike once per week, and do strength training at the gym 2-3x per week (this I have started doing more frequently in the last few months).
So far I've lost 26 pounds but only the last 2 have been since the new year. I'm getting really discouraged. The last time I weighed in a pound down was a month ago today. I tend to only weigh on Fridays because when I weigh up or the same it really bothers me and I don't want to ruin more than 1 day per week for myself. I understand weight loss isn't linear but have been having such a long stretch of not really losing anything (not even half a pound).
I do know I am getting smaller--both through measurements, how my clothes fit, and how I look in the mirror--but I am still a number of pounds overweight on the BMI scale and it is really frustrating.
I do use my food scale consistently, and eat back about 50% of my exercise calories. This week I have deliberately eaten 100 calories less than my goal calories to see if the MFP estimate is too high and this morning am still the exact same weight. When we eat out I make sure it is within my calorie allowance and leave some room for error either that day or the day before or after. I make sure I am getting protein esp through chicken and fish and beans, and half my plate for the vast majority of meals is vegetables.
This is driving me insane. If 1350 is the amount I need to apparently maintain my weight and not lose a single ounce then to lose 1 pound a week I would need to only eat 850 calories a day. I know that isn't healthy but even if it were I can't do it, you guys. I am already hungry and grumpy and tired like, all the time, at this level. (I HAVE BEEN HUNGRY FOR 9 MONTHS UGH.)
What do I do? I am going to do another few sessions with a personal trainer but I am not expecting this to be some magical solution. I don't know if I should be weighing daily, or if that would just make this whole thing even more upsetting. I understand water weight fluctuations but after 4 weeks of no movement, it seems kind of unlikely to me that it's water weight for that long.
5
Replies
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Well, as I'm sure you already know, you have reached a plateau. This means that you are currently eating at maintenance for your weight. To break the plateau, you've got to recreate the calorie deficit. Are you logging consistently and weighing everything? Could you possibly be eating out a lot and underestimating calories there? Weight loss becomes more difficult as we go along because it's harder to maintain a calorie deficit with a decreased TDEE. I think some measurement is off here. You just need to figure out what it is.3
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1350 is not the calories you need to maintain. Using the stats you provided, your basal metabolic rate - the amount of calories you need to maintain your weight with your body constantly at rest, is 1547. Your TDEE with a sedentary lifestyle is 1775.1
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I am logging consistently and weighing everything. Eating out happens but is rare and as I mentioned above, I leave a healthy amount of extra calories in the budget for estimation errors.
1350 doesn't sound like maintenance but I truly am logging everything and using my food scale. If that is maintenance what is the darn point, honestly, it is already so little and I have to really restrict myself.
Where is this 1547 coming from? The numbers I have here are from MFP and they say I should be losing a pound a week on this. Also, my body is not constantly at rest--I chose sedentary as I have a desk job. I don't own a car so I do walk to everything, although work is only ten minutes from home. 'Constantly at rest' seems like coma territory?-1 -
So you are losing inches but the scale isn’t moving? I wouldn’t call that a plateau. If you are losing inches you are losing fat. It doesn’t always show on the scale. The BMI scale is bogus. I wouldn’t use that to measure your success. Your activity level you described I wouldn’t call sedentary either.10
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If you aren't losing weight, it's a calories-in issue. I understand that you weigh and log everything, but would you be willing to open your food diary so we could try to assist you?5
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confidenceinrain wrote: »I chose sedentary as I have a desk job. I don't own a car so I do walk to everything, although work is only ten minutes from home. 'Constantly at rest' seems like coma territory?
If you're walking to and from work every day, I wouldn't consider that sedentary at all! I also have a desk job, and I don't walk much of anywhere, but because I'm a fidgeter, I put myself at Lightly Active and have still been losing (0.5/week). I agree with PP that still losing inches isn't a plateau and that you're doing great, and maybe changing your status to Lightly Active will help with the hunger since you'll be able to eat a bit more.1 -
You may be weighing everything but that does not necessarily mean that your entries or methods are good. For instance, there was a guy using a 60 calorie entry for a serving of rice for over a year. Some people go years using raw meat entries but weighing their meat cooked. A lot of people blindly trust barcode entries but in my experience most of them have errors. Little things like that can really make or break a deficit.13
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Have you taken any planned diet breaks? I think you may be due for one. It might help you focus on the journey instead of the destination and provide you with a psychological and physical break to eat at actual maintenance calories for a week or two.
I would also recommend planning to lose 0.5 per week with only 15 lbs left.8 -
Your weight plateaued and you're still losing inches. It started around the same time as you became more diligent at weight training. And you have a personal trainer who is pushing you at every session.
Are you sore after every session? Are you getting stronger? Rebuilding muscle does cause a very slight weight gain (I think for women our max is half a pound of muscle a month) but more importantly, it causes your body to retain more water as the muscle fibers rebuild. A significant amount in my experience. All that delayed onset muscle soreness is also accompanied by a slight swelling of the injured muscle, and that swelling is caused by (you guessed it) water that your body is retaining in a desperate attempt to put it all back together.
Side note: I would be hesitant to eat back any calories burned solely during weight training, if you are doing so. It varies too widely from person to person to be useful in my experience. How many calories on average are you eating on a weight training day?
50% back on cardio sounds about right, though.
Weight training also makes me gain weight because I get ravenously hungry, but that doesn't seem to be the cause of your particular plateau
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emmamcgarity wrote: »Have you taken any planned diet breaks? I think you may be due for one. It might help you focus on the journey instead of the destination and provide you with a psychological and physical break to eat at actual maintenance calories for a week or two.
I would also recommend planning to lose 0.5 per week with only 15 lbs left.
Also I second all this! Being hungry for 9 months straight sounds like the worst thing ever.3 -
We are very close in stats and goal and trajectory, and I hear your frustration. I eat most of my exercise calories back and don’t do much strength training (yet—I am training for a half marathon and plan to incorporate more after that).
What struck me about what you wrote (besides all the good choices and habits!) is that if you’ve upped your strength training in this time, it’s really common to have extra water retention. I wouldn’t assume you’ve totally hit a plateau, and instead would keep up what you’re doing and make sure to stay very well hydrated, and see if you get a whoosh in the next couple of weeks.
That you’re losing inches is generally a result of some kind of recomp, I think, so it seems like the strength training is effective.5 -
I reached a point where the scales didn't move but the inches did keep coming down. Now I'm in maintenance I rarely weigh myself, I just keep measuring (about every 2 weeks) and if the numbers go up I hop on the scales and eat at a deficit til everything is back where it should be. I eat all my cardio calories (not necessarily on the day, I often save them for meals out, kick-back Fridays etc) and log all "deliberate" exercise - so if I walk TO somewhere then I log that, but don't count moving around the house of course.
Change your goal to 1/2lb a week, keep weighing and logging food and exercise, and measuring, but only weigh yourself every couple of weeks or once a month.1 -
Thank you everyone for your replies. A lot of people are saying to lose .5 a week. If that's the case it would be nice because I could eat a little more and be less hangry all the time, but it makes me worry to add calories when the scale has been the same for 4 weeks.
It's interesting that a lot of you consider me to not be in a plateau. I am definitely smaller so that is something to focus on.
Sorry, no. I don't want to go into the whole story, but having been the subject of some very food specific harassment in the past (not here!!) makes me very very careful who I show what I eat to--because when that happened it was terrible for my mental health and I ended up having to spend several years rebuilding a healthy relationship with food.quiksylver296 wrote: »If you aren't losing weight, it's a calories-in issue. I understand that you weigh and log everything, but would you be willing to open your food diary so we could try to assist you?
I would love to eat more but it seems counterintuitive?allieeveryday wrote: »
If you're walking to and from work every day, I wouldn't consider that sedentary at all! I also have a desk job, and I don't walk much of anywhere, but because I'm a fidgeter, I put myself at Lightly Active and have still been losing (0.5/week). I agree with PP that still losing inches isn't a plateau and that you're doing great, and maybe changing your status to Lightly Active will help with the hunger since you'll be able to eat a bit more.
I am checking it all against the package and USDA and not just trusting the database. I started a thread a while back actually where I had noticed there was a discrepancy in the database.Teabythesea_ wrote: »You may be weighing everything but that does not necessarily mean that your entries or methods are good. For instance, there was a guy using a 60 calorie entry for a serving of rice for over a year. Some people go years using raw meat entries but weighing their meat cooked. A lot of people blindly trust barcode entries but in my experience most of them have errors. Little things like that can really make or break a deficit.emmamcgarity wrote: »Have you taken any planned diet breaks? I think you may be due for one. It might help you focus on the journey instead of the destination and provide you with a psychological and physical break to eat at actual maintenance calories for a week or two.
I would also recommend planning to lose 0.5 per week with only 15 lbs left.
I did 2 weeks in September at maintenance and another 2 weeks in December. Since I have only lost 2 pounds since the one in December I kind of feel like I haven't earned a diet break.
If I wanted to go below 150 do you think it would still be ok to switch to .5 a week? It feels like I have 15 minimum to go.
Definitely sore after every session, and I think I am getting stronger but it's hard to tell 100%. My stamina has improved for things like hikes, and tabata, so I think so.tomorrowperfume wrote: »Your weight plateaued and you're still losing inches. It started around the same time as you became more diligent at weight training. And you have a personal trainer who is pushing you at every session.
Are you sore after every session? Are you getting stronger? Rebuilding muscle does cause a very slight weight gain (I think for women our max is half a pound of muscle a month) but more importantly, it causes your body to retain more water as the muscle fibers rebuild. A significant amount in my experience. All that delayed onset muscle soreness is also accompanied by a slight swelling of the injured muscle, and that swelling is caused by (you guessed it) water that your body is retaining in a desperate attempt to put it all back together.
Side note: I would be hesitant to eat back any calories burned solely during weight training, if you are doing so. It varies too widely from person to person to be useful in my experience. How many calories on average are you eating on a weight training day?
50% back on cardio sounds about right, though.
Weight training also makes me gain weight because I get ravenously hungry, but that doesn't seem to be the cause of your particular plateau
I forgot to mention that I actually don't eat back calories from weight training generally, I do it on the same day as cardio though so I am eating slightly more on those days. When I log weight training it seems like a negligible amount of calories to eat back so I don't really. Yesterday I ate about 1450 calories as I burned around 200 cardio calories, and also did weight training.1 -
Just an idea as this happened to me, do your scale batteries need to be changed? I kept getting the same weight daily on mine for a couple of weeks - even though I knew for sure I was in a deficit. It could be any number of issues, I just haven’t seen anyone mention that yet unless I missed it.10
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FWIW I am 5’1” and 144 lbs and 51 postmenopausal. I am averaging 1500-1600 calories daily and losing 0.5 every 7-10 days. I am a daily weigher to help emotionally detach myself from the bouncing numbers that come with fluctuations. A weight trending app can help with that too. (Happy Scale, etc)1
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Try EITHER upping your profile setting by one (to Lightly Active?) OR reducing your target per week to 1/2 a pound. That will give you more pre-exercise daily calories to play with. DO eat all the pre-exercise calories, but you can always choose to eat back fewer than 50% of the cardio-exercise calories provided that leaves you feeling satisfied on a day-to-day basis.
What you need to aim for is building habits that will ultimately support a "Sustainable Lifestyle for YOU". Only you know what that means in terms of activity type and level, sufficient calorie intake to be comfortable, and the mix of foods included in that calorie intake envelope.0 -
Have you reentered your lower weight into the setup to get a new calorie goal?
The reason I ask is because I’m also 5’5” and at 185, 1 lb a week for me is 1250 but that might be because I’m 60?
I mention it because sometimes people think it adjusts automatically.2 -
Have you reentered your lower weight into the setup to get a new calorie goal?
The reason I ask is because I’m also 5’5” and at 185, 1 lb a week for me is 1250 but that might be because I’m 60?
I mention it because sometimes people think it adjusts automatically.
I have done it every 5 pounds for the current weight. Until I was 167 it worked (not in a linear way necessarily but would lose weigh regularly enough I didn't worry).Just an idea as this happened to me, do your scale batteries need to be changed? I kept getting the same weight daily on mine for a couple of weeks - even though I knew for sure I was in a deficit. It could be any number of issues, I just haven’t seen anyone mention that yet unless I missed it.
Interesting--I hadn't thought of this.1 -
I wanted to follow up to update that I did have a small whoosh (almost but not quite 3 pounds down overnight). So whoever said that would happen, was correct. I'm going to try to remember this going forward as I had been doing the right things but holding on to some spare water weight.14
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Yay! Glad to hear that after reading this thread! I used to weigh weekly because I thought there was a bigger chance I’d see a drop every time. Now I weigh everyday and use Happy Scale and I find I’m less stressed and emotional about what the scale says. The fluctuations happen all the time. You could try this and see if it works better for you.2
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