Plateaus

Your calories are too low. You shouldn’t go under 1200 calories. You should also be eating back your exercise calories when you are at that low of a calorie goal.

How do you measure your portions? Do you use a scale to weigh everything?

Tighten up your logging of everything - food, exercise calories burnt, overall activity level with step count. Recalculate your advisable calories for a loss of 1/2 lb per week and eat those for a few weeks. If the scale doesn't move, take *all of your logs* to a doctor and consult with them about what is going on.

For the doctor visit to be helpful, you'll need as much good data as possible, which is why I advise you to tighten up your logging of EVERYTHING - not just food. Log headaches, insomnia, hours of sleep, ALL OF IT. If you notice a problem like not enough rest, correct it and see if it doesn't help. If you *can't* seem to correct it, then it's definitely something to mention to your doctor. (When I don't sleep, I put on water weight. When I *can't stay asleep for longer than 4 hours* that's a *symptom* of something going on with my general health.)

You should see a doctor before undertaking a VLCD *anyway* and your doctor may have a few *much easier fixes* for the ROOT PROBLEM than eating fewer calories.

There are a number of very helpful stickies, too, on troubleshooting your plateau. Things like zig-zagging calories have helped others break through. Look through the stickies, tighten up your logging of all the things, talk to a doctor, and see if you can't come up with a plan to move forward.

What is your age, height, weight, and goal weight? How long have you been stalled? How long have you been doing that much exercise?

Without more information here are my guesses:

1. Your weight hasn't been stalled long and you are not actually in a plateau, just being understandably impatient.
2. You're experiencing water retention from all of the exercise.
3. You aren't weighing your food and are actually eating more than you think.

As @shortgirlrunning stated, you should not be eating 1000 calories per day. Unless your are very very short, that is undereating and unhealthy.

I am worried about your thirst level and headaches, but I also think you should drink more fluids. I'm only 5'4 and I drink about 90+ oz of water per day, not including coffee and tea. (I try to drink about a quart of water with each meal. I have to take rather a lot of pills, so it's easy to drink that much just to wash down all my maintenance drugs and vitamins.)

I would increase your calories to the 1300 to 1500 range where you had the best success and feel free to go over and under calories as long as your *weekly* calories add up to the same amount. That should increase your energy and enable you to move more. I take a med every other day that makes me a bit nauseated. Those days, I tend to eat 70-150 calories less, and I generally try to eat those calories back the next day when I'm not taking the med and it's easier to find food appealing. Long as I keep my weekly total calories in the right ballpark, everything seems to work according to plan.

I'd suggest you not put the pressure on yourself about the *date* by which you'd like to lose x amount of weight. Watched pot never boils and all that. Instead, focus on how you feel each day and doing what you can to get more/better sleep and eat healthy things that still make you happy to be eating rather than bone crushingly sad to be in deficit.

I myself am up about two and a half pounds after just hitting 160.8 earlier this week. Last night I had ramen for dinner at a restaurant, AND I got a flu shot. That's gonna have me retaining water for DAYS, but I know that if I stick to the plan I laid out and don't stress, the water will go away and I'll drop.

I, too am really excited about seeing weights in the 15x range, so I'll be cheering for you and completely ready to fist bump you when it happens.