Plateaued With Heavy Exercise. Troubleshooting?

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  • PAV8888
    PAV8888 Posts: 13,652 Member
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    You can compare your purported caloric balance against your weight trend results and adjust (either your goal or your eat back percentages) based on that.

    Weight trend is important. You can't see actual fat changes in less than a few weeks, especially if monthly hormones and changes in exercise interfere.
  • IDeserveBetter
    IDeserveBetter Posts: 59 Member
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    PAV8888 wrote: »
    You've changed your exercise. That can cause water retention. It can also cause compensation with reduction to your NEAT if you're more tired.

    Your inches may or may not be real. Hopefully they are. I find it harder to measure than get on a scale.

    I don't know what you specifically mean by real, but I know they are taken the same exact way each time, based on my background of once upon a time measuring people day in and out selling men's suits on commission. Still though, it is just a tool.
  • emmamcgarity
    emmamcgarity Posts: 1,594 Member
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    How long has it been since you lost weight?
  • IDeserveBetter
    IDeserveBetter Posts: 59 Member
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    How long has it been since you lost weight?

    I've been fluctuating the same four pounds for ten weeks
  • IDeserveBetter
    IDeserveBetter Posts: 59 Member
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    PAV8888 wrote: »
    PAV8888 wrote: »
    You've changed your exercise. That can cause water retention. It can also cause compensation with reduction to your NEAT if you're more tired.

    Your inches may or may not be real. Hopefully they are. I find it harder to measure than get on a scale.

    I don't know what you specifically mean by real, but I know they are taken the same exact way each time, based on my background of once upon a time measuring people day in and out selling men's suits on commission. Still though, it is just a tool.

    You're self measuring. You can't eyeball yourself the same in a mirror as you do looking at someone else. When you measure someone for a suit I am not sure that a 0.2" is critical.

    If you have lost FULL inches, this is large, not small progress and this whole kerfuffle is about nothing.

    Given your background it sounds as if you're most likely than most to have measured accurately and the inch reduction is really there.

    The 'kerfluffle' (love that word) is mostly about the frustration of not seeing the scale change.

    I posted something like an hour before I did the tape measurement
  • PAV8888
    PAV8888 Posts: 13,652 Member
    edited April 2019
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    How long has it been since you lost weight?

    I've been fluctuating the same four pounds for ten weeks

    Stick the numbers in weightgrapher.com (or if you use fitbit and you've logged your weight there already connect trendweight.com to fitbit instead--I prefer trendweight anyway since it's the one I use :smiley: ).

    What is your actual trend?
  • IDeserveBetter
    IDeserveBetter Posts: 59 Member
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    PAV8888 wrote: »
    How long has it been since you lost weight?

    I've been fluctuating the same four pounds for ten weeks

    Stick the numbers in weightgrapher.com (or if you use fitbit and you've logged your weight there already connect trendweight.com to fitbit instead--I prefer trendweight anyway since it's the one I use :smiley: ).

    What is your actual trend?

    Started at 224 Dec 2017 down to 184 now.
  • IDeserveBetter
    IDeserveBetter Posts: 59 Member
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    PAV8888 wrote: »
    [quote="IDeserveBetter;c-43631444"
    Started at 224 Dec 2017 down to 184 now.

    First of all, if you hadn't taken a diet break in all that time, now would have been the time to take one. But, if I recall correctly, you've already said you lost and regained this year. So you've taken diet breaks.

    The weight trend for the PAST 10 WEEKS is what is the issue right now and your perception at ground level that you're losing and regaining the same x lbs doesn't mean as much as seeing a graph of where you were 20 weeks ago and how you were progressing, then looking at what is happening during the past 10 weeks, then observing the point in which you changed your exercise and how that affected your weight, then looking at your food logging and seeing how much food you've been eating and whether you're compensating for the increased exercise or not, nor does it give us exercise tracker data to see whether the rest of your day changed in response to the increased exercise.

    So the point remains... have you plugged your weight in a weight trend application that replaces your perception of un-changing weight trend with a graph showing the same?[/quote]


    I have not. I was not aware of that tool until I read the suggestion in this thread today.
    Will though.
  • PAV8888
    PAV8888 Posts: 13,652 Member
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    Might help. Happy Scale iphone. Libra Android. Auto-connect trendweight.com to fitbit.com and MFP (single entry to both via fitbit.com). Or manual entry (or connected scale) to weightgrapher.com. Or spreadsheet with running 10 day averaging.
  • kgeyser
    kgeyser Posts: 22,505 Member
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    First, congratulations on your progress so far. I wanted to address each point in turn.
    1: I'm not allowing myself enough rest. I'm having a hard time wrapping my brain around exercise more and eat less isn't gospel.

    I see where you are going with this - you decrease food and increase activity and see results, so surely adding more activity will yield better results, right? Those rest days leave you feeling antsy, like you should be doing something? You're not the only one who has struggled with this. Yes, on its face it doesn't make sense, but think of it as recharging a battery. Everything works better full charged than just charging part way and going again, because the partial charge means it burns out faster. Your muscles need time to repair in order to perform at the same high level during your workouts. I find that doing something on a rest day helps - that's my day to go for a walk, or do a really good long stretch session (there are some good videos out there). That's my workout, I check the box and move on. I saw huge improvements in my workouts when I stopped fighting the rest days.
    2: I realize that the huge deficits I'm recording (my food recording is very accurate. I'm very practiced and suuuper careful with it. How I lost 40 pounds) may not exist. I understand that once you hit a peak, you stop burning calories despite what my Fitbit versa might record.

    Is the Fitbit a new addition to what you've been doing? It seems like you were going pretty well before. Have you made sure to keep up with adjustments reflecting your weight loss? Admittedly I am not a Fitbit expert, I just see posts about it and issues with calculating burns. I would probably take those numbers with a grain of salt.
    3: I academically know I need to vary my exercises; I've started incorporating some weight training and I'm about to start yoga, but I'm having a hard time not doubling those days up with cardio instead of giving cardio a break. I'm not internalizing the lesson

    Ok, so you know what you need to do here. Back off the cardio, and give other workouts a chance. The weight training will be awesome for your running. You could add 5-10 minutes of light cardio before a weight workout to warm everything up. That could help check the cardio box without undoing the benefits of the weights and the needed repair time.
    4: I'm unsure if I should be eating less, or more. If the deficits are accurate, eating more may help because of avoiding starvation mode. If they aren't, I may barely have deficits at all. I'm aware muscle weighs more, and I AM seeing tape measure differences, but not big ones.

    If you just added new exercises to your routine, you could be retaining water, which would explain the scale staying the same while seeing a drop in measurements. By and large, no scale movement means not in a deficit. However, since you indicate your Fitbit measurements might be screwed up, my approach would be to go back to basics. Use your MFP number, pick a reasonable estimate for calories burned during exercise, eat back 50-75% of those calories, and just track for a bit and see where you are.

    You also might want to look into the TDEE method, in which you eat the same number of calories each day regardless of activity that day. It's more of a weekly calorie count approach than a daily fluctuation based on activity. I found it easier when doing weights/running/rest days because it also helped with the rest day/need to exercise worries; I got the same calories every day, so I didn't pressure myself into feeling like I need to get out and be active on rest days. However, even with TDEE, if you've added in a super long run that is outside the norm for your regular mileage, you may want to eat a little extra to compensate for the extra activity.