Plateauing as I approach goal weight

koalathebear · August 2019

I'm a 46 year old female, five feet tall. Prior to this year, very sedentary and never did any exercise. I was 86.6kg at the start of the year and obese according to BMI.

I've now lost 28kg and am teetering around the 57-58 kg weight mark. I originally aimed for 50kg but as I approached my original goal, I've revised my goal to 54-55 kg as I think that's about right for me.

I do a lot of exercise - cardio (elliptical, walking the dogs, zumba) and strength training. More than a month or so ago, I decided to slow down the rate of loss since I was so close to goal - in the sense that I maintained the exercise but allowed myself to eat more (ranging from 1,300 all the way up to 2,000 calories depending on how much exercise I'd done) but always maintaining a deficit of around 400 - 900 calories a day. I eat healthy for the most part but do eat sweets - all within calorie budget and maintaining a deficit.

It went ok for a while, but for the last few weeks I have been stuck at the around the 57-58 kg mark:
2 Jun 62.5kg
9 Jun 61.5
16 Jun 60.5
23 Jun 60.1
30 Jun 59.5
7 Jul 59.4
14 Jul 58
21 Jul 57.8
28 Jul 58
4 Aug 57.7
Today 58.8

I'm not sure what I'm doing wrong given that my exercise regimen is roughly the same - if not more. I'm eating more but I'm definitely maintaining a decent deficit. Given that I am literally only 4-5kg away from goal weight, I don't understand what's happened and why I'm stalling. Any thoughts? I know that if I cut right back on the food and didn't let myself eat more than 1,200 calories a day I could lose the weight, but I was really hoping to transition to a more maintenance state of affairs. I like the idea of being able to eat more so long as I exercise more but I'm wondering whether my body is telling me - "too bad, doesn't matter how much you exercise, you shouldn't eat more than x calories a day."

xelsoo · August 2019

The less amount of weight you have to lose, the harder it gets! Plateauing is normal at your stage of weight loss and, though it can be disheartening, you have to stick to it. Cutting back on your calories is not a good idea as it will later be harder to maintain you new weight once you reach maintenance and have to increase them. Slow and steady wins the race!

Maybe you can try and spice up your workouts? Not spending more time, instead trying something different like going for a bike ride, a swim, take the dogs on a hike, a new gym class... It could be your body has become used to certain activities and has a more efficient response to the exercise. By surprising it with new forms of exercise, you can up your heart rate and caloric expenditure again. Also drink enough water!!

quiksylver296 · August 2019

Do you use a food scale?

http://community.myfitnesspal.com/en/discussion/10634517/you-dont-use-a-food-scale/p1

https://community.myfitnesspal.com/en/discussion/10697068/how-i-stopped-kidding-myself/p1

koalathebear · August 2019

quiksylver296 wrote: »

Do you use a food scale?

http://community.myfitnesspal.com/en/discussion/10634517/you-dont-use-a-food-scale/p1

https://community.myfitnesspal.com/en/discussion/10697068/how-i-stopped-kidding-myself/p1

Yes, I use a foodscale. I've been training with my PT for the last 8 months - exercise and nutrition. I supplement home cooking with calorie controlled meals so tend to know exactly what I'm eating. I record everything religiously and when eating out, tend to err on the side of counting too many calories rather than undercounting.

middlehaitch · August 2019

If you feel your calories in are dialed in as tight as possible, it is your calories out that you need to look at.

How are you deriving your exercise calorie burn, and have you been applying it consistently throughout your weight loss?

From my own experience when I started, 54yo, 5’1 and 59kg/130lbs, 1200 cals at sedentary gave me just under 1lbs a week loss. By the time I was at 56/57kg, 123/126lbs it was down to ~0.5lbs a week.

My calorie burn was on average 200 cals per 60min class, 350 for Zumba, 100 for 30min weights, and 40cals per mile walking.

You may want to look through your data for the past 6-8 weeks and look for inconsistencies in your cals out. I know I couldn’t have eaten 2000cals and have a deficit of 400-900cals a day with quite similar stats.

I could be well off the mark, but I think you are eating more exercise cals than you are burning.

Have you adjusted your weight recently so your deficit is appropriate for the weight you are now? (I know you have adjusted your rate of loss)
And, have you adjusted how many cals you eat back from your exercise as you have lost weight? That, unfortunately drops too.

What feedback have you had from your trainer?

Cheers, h.

koalathebear · August 2019

middlehaitch wrote: »

I could be well off the mark, but I think you are eating more exercise cals than you are burning.

Have you adjusted your weight recently so your deficit is appropriate for the weight you are now? (I know you have adjusted your rate of loss)
And, have you adjusted how many cals you eat back from your exercise as you have lost weight? That, unfortunately drops too.

What feedback have you had from your trainer?

Cheers, h.

Hi I use my Garmin not the gym equipment to measure calories. I never eat back all my exercise calories. It's possible that the Garmin is overestimating but to date the deficit seems to have worked out ok given weight loss to date.

The 2000 calories is on the upper end and only on days when I have exercised a lot eg on Saturdays when I do a lot of exercise. For instance last Saturday when I ate about 1,900, I did around 1,500 in exercise:

My trainer is pretty relaxed about it. Given I have lost 28-29 already and there's just a few more kg to go, he thinks it's fine for the loss to be slower. He also thinks that as the body gets fitter it gets harder to burn off as many calories and there is also just less fat to lose. I am just perplexed because I have just assumed that I could always offset additional food with additional exercise but that might not be the case. 😜

sijomial · August 2019

"He also thinks that as the body gets fitter it gets harder to burn off as many calories "

Your trainer is wrong about that - the fitter you get the more energy you can burn. Higher power, faster, stronger, better endurance, higher intensity.

My cycling power output (and hence calorie output) increased by 30% by improving my fitness plus I can now ride much further so it's not just my rate of burn but the duration as well. Elite Tour de France riders can burn twice as much as me despite being lighter due to their extraordinary fitness level.

The lighter you get you would burn less for a weight bearing exercise but only if you did exactly the same exercise as you did before. For example when heavier running a 5k you would have burned more now that you are lighter and run a 5k.

But as fitness improves people tend to push themselves harder, might be running 10k instead.

koalathebear · August 2019

xelsoo wrote: »

The less amount of weight you have to lose, the harder it gets! Plateauing is normal at your stage of weight loss and, though it can be disheartening, you have to stick to it. Cutting back on your calories is not a good idea as it will later be harder to maintain you new weight once you reach maintenance and have to increase them. Slow and steady wins the race!

Maybe you can try and spice up your workouts? Not spending more time, instead trying something different like going for a bike ride, a swim, take the dogs on a hike, a new gym class... It could be your body has become used to certain activities and has a more efficient response to the exercise. By surprising it with new forms of exercise, you can up your heart rate and caloric expenditure again. Also drink enough water!!

Thanks for the encouragement, it was actually really nice to have someone providing insight without automatically assuming I was doing the wrong thing. Don't get me wrong, I'm actually really happy with the progress I've made so far:

I'm just trying to figure out how to get through the last 4-5kg!!!

But the tip about mixing up the exercise is a good one. I'll restart HIIT classes and try to vary up my exercise routine a bit. I've tended to do the 'same' sort of thing simply because it was working, but there can certainly be no harm in trying different things.

koalathebear · September 2019

Update from me. It seems to have been a temporary plateau. Week 38 and I've now lost 31-2 kg (last kg is still teetering a bit) and am now at goal weight. I continued eating the same but just changed up the exercise regimen just a little and that seems to have done wonders. I didn't do more exercise, just slightly varied it up a bit. Thanks again for the support

kshama2001 · September 2019

Hooray! Thanks for the update. Great job

mmapags · September 2019

I am within 10lbs of goal weight. The last 3 lbs each come after 6 weeks of nothing. Dropped 2 lbs after 6 weeks. 6 more weeks, 1 lb. It happens as you get closer. Keep logging accurately and be patient.

BTW, people weren't accusing you of doing things wrong. Just pointing out common errors that cause stalls.

koalathebear · September 2019

mmapags wrote: »

I am within 10lbs of goal weight. The last 3 lbs each come after 6 weeks of nothing. Dropped 2 lbs after 6 weeks. 6 more weeks, 1 lb. It happens as you get closer. Keep logging accurately and be patient.

BTW, people weren't accusing you of doing things wrong. Just pointing out common errors that cause stalls.

Ha, I know. It's just that it was frustrating because after all this time, I know about weighing my food, not overestimating exercise and under-estimating food ... I wouldn't have even been able to get to this point if I didn't have that clear in my head so it was a little frustrating to to have people assume that I was deluding myself when basically what I was saying was - I was losing weight, nothing's changed in my eating and exercise - why am I plateauing? In the end, all it seemed to need was some patience and changing up the exercise a bit rather than increasing or decreasing it. Phew!