Stuck at 219 from 226 since Nov 6

Not sure what the issue is here. You've lost 7 pounds in a month. How much more were you expecting?

Carbs, macros, and doing liquid breakfasts aren't going to impact your rate of weight loss at all - only calories will, so if you're unhappy with how fast you're losing weight, that's the thing to focus on. But again, going from 226 to 219 in a month and 3 days seems like excellent progress to me.

Off the bat, I suspect people are going to discuss some things about how to log; and I think that in this case and at this point of time, it doesn't really matter whether your logging is as technically proficient as it could be.

So let's discuss past that.

First of all you HAVE achieved very good weight loss results. Weight doesn't go straight down and I don't know for how many days you've been seeing your average "stalled" but it is entirely common for this to happen.

In order to establish your general weight level, grab something like Libra (android), Happy Scale (iphone), or use something like trendweight.com (by entering your data in a free fitbit.com account which does not require the purchase of anything) or weightgrapher.com or similar web sites or apps. Enter your past weight ins and continue with this moving forward.

One way to establish a consistent weigh-in setup is to get on the scale in the morning after using the washroom and before eating or drinking. Or to do so under fairly consistent conditions. It helps if the scale is on an utterly un-yielding surface and it helps if you occasionally calibrate it and check the batteries. Also some scales show the same value between weigh ins unless they detect a change that is larger than an internal setting.

How much do you move around? Do you do any exercise formal or otherwise? (walks and weights both count Your 2000 Cal target, according to MFP, what kind of weight loss are you expected to have if you follow it?

Hey, who would have thunk it. My excel spreadsheet and macros worked on your diary: hadn't used them for a while!

While your total Calories do come close to 2K at 1923 overall, your food calories are around 1533 Cal per day.

Out of the 1533 you're doing about 29.6% Carbs, 42% Fats and 28.4% protein (114g C, 72g F, and 109g P). Fiber is 16g, which is a bit less than half of what it should be for a guy. You might feel much fuller and be somewhat healthier if you manage to increase that over time.

So.

You might tweak the foods you intake some... have you checked out the calories of tomatoes? salsa? do onions make you feel full? have you tried mixing eggs and egg whites? How about an apple before dinner? There are many "options" you might play with!

Since you mention spuds... have you tried a plain baked potato (or boiled potatoes) with maybe some salsa or plain 0% greek yogurt as a topper and traded it for example, for the same calories as what you might have spent on tortillas or pork rinds?

Basically tweaks to make you feel more full.

But with 25% of your calories devoted to lifestyle choices, I don't see that there is much room to reduce the calories of your food intake.

Which then brings us to your rate of loss and as to how you might want to approach your weight loss.

If you go all out, cutting out everything and eating in a way that doesn't satisfy you, you might lose some weight. maybe even lose a lot of weight. But you won't be able to eat like that for very long.

And as soon as you go back to normal... you will get all that weight back! Because you haven't, fundamentally, changed anything. Plus your hunger hormones will be out of whack from the intense weight loss. So you keep regaining till you're back to where you were plus a tiny bit more. At least that's what seems to happen to most people!

So you may want to look at accepting that you might lose slower while you continue to look for foods that fit your caloric budget longer term and which you will be able to eat both now and in the future!

Ranching is a very labor intensive activity (or at least that's the image I have). Law enforcement has long shifts out of the house and, while it may not be as active as construction, on average it is probably NOT sedentary! Drumming and practicing and hauling a set of drums around town, is also quite a bit of activity.

So you have cut down *significantly* on your activity these past few years. Have you replaced that activity with anything? Mall walking IS an option! A friend who is currently on vacation ahead of his forced retirement on December 31 by transport Canada regulation (this being the year of his 71st birthday) is currently ahead of me on my Fitbit leaderboard with over 150,000 steps this week. His sister has 120,000!

I don't know what your daily caloric expenditure is, but 2500 to 3000 seems a reasonable guess for a relatively sedentary guy of your weight and assuming you're not very tall.

If you manage to stay in the 2000 to 2300 range you WILL continue to make progress, probably for quite a while, especially if you tweak your food around so that you feel a bit more full and this becomes more sustainable.

As you lose weight, though, and move towards a "normal" weight, your caloric budget will slowly drop unless you increase your activity level.

Ultimately, and I am sure that if you look at your logs you will spot it, you have a "reserve" equal to almost 1lb a week that you can choose to sacrifice to the cause either partially or completely. I know what you would say if you saw me eat a couple of candy bars a day while suggesting that I wasn't seeing the results I wanted! That part is up to you!

I would NOT drop my food calories below 1500. In fact you could probably use a bit more protein (closer to 128g than 108g) and at least twice as much fiber as you currently consume (aim for 36 to 38g). More veggies and fruits would probably not hurt you either.

Being active and strong are excellent goals in and by themselves. Sustainable weight loss when starting in the obese range is probably better than going all out and then giving up!

Take care!

mikebxb wrote: »

@cmriverside. I opened up Food Diary. It's public but probably will change to a password or friends only in a week..Thanks for all your help.

PAV did a great post above and I'm not going to pick apart your FOOD diary a whole lot, either. My goal in asking to view a diary is not just about judging food choices, because God knows I've made many a dinner of beer and chips so no shade will be thrown by me about food choices.

I do look for a few things though, so here's my take on it or my additional thoughts to add to PAV's post.

First, well done for logging so consistently. It looks like you are making a good effort to get decent nutrition, too. That part isn't so important right now. I do think you could eat more than 1600-1700. I think you would still lose at 2000, or maybe more, but that's not the main point.

I can't really tell if you are in fact weighing your portions, a lot of them seem really small for what an average man would likely be eating. A two ounce portion of meat is really tiny. Like it's about two inches by two inches uncooked. Very tiny. When I cook breakfast steak I have it pre-portioned into two ounce pieces and it's just a few small bites when cooked. Like maybe three or four bites. I'm a woman and even for me it's really small. So if you aren't actually weighing out meat, I would start there. First, it's important to get enough protein and second, it's easy to get way more calories than you would think with salmon, steak, burgers, etc. Same with "a half cup" of things like mashed potatoes. I mean again, I'm a smallish woman and I wouldn't be happy with a half cup. I usually have about 145g of potatoes when I make them mashed. It cooks up to more than a cup. Okay, so I can't possibly know if you are logging correctly, but well done on logging consistently. No judgement on the pork rinds.

Keep doing that.

Then the rest of it comes down to patience with the process. I think you're doing great, seven pounds in a month is a very respectable rate, but don't expect that to continue. Expect more like one pound per week and expect weeks with no losses. Just keep going. The thing about weight loss is it has to become your Way Of Life. It has to be manageable, it has to go slowly and it has to involve a lot of change. I changed everything about my life and it took time. I had a lot more weight than you to lose, I lost a total of about 80 pounds but I didn't do it perfectly, I just kept at it. I took a lot of days off and many times I ate like I'd never see food again. Like you I went from an active job/day to retired. Luckily that meant I could devote a lot of time to learning about this whole thing.

You're on the right track. I would eat more, to be honest. I lost most of my weight eating around 1900-2100 (including exercise cals, and at the end making all my own food with my food scale) and like I said, I'm a woman. What you don't want to do is try to speed up the process by doing the typical Type A response of, "I'll just wrestle my body into submission!" and by trying to make it happen faster, throw your hormones out of whack. Slow and steady wins the race, turtle.

When you get to your goal, you ideally want to ease into it with good habits to carry you forward. Weight maintenance is its own little tricky thing.

At 6ft I would suspect that MFP has you down at a daily expenditure of 3K calories and you get a target of 2K based on choosing 2lbs a week. This is acceptable in the beginning perhaps, but be prepared to transition to a lower rate fairly quickly especially since your nutrients are even more limited.

^^ Yes, agree.

And by "Lower Rate" PAV does not mean, "Lower calories eaten" - he means a lower rate of weight loss.

Set your Goals at, "Lose 1 pound per week," right now. Enter any additional purposeful exercise into the Exercise page and eat more on those days.

As you get closer to Goal, you'll want to decrease your rate of weight loss to, "Lose 1/2 pound per week," because the less body fat you have, the greater your calorie needs. Right now you are using your excess body fat as fuel. That won't last.

When it's set to, "Lose 1 pound per week," your daily deficit is about 500 calories below your Maintenance calorie needs.

You want to ease into Maintenance with a tiny calorie deficit, and, "Lose 1/2 pound per week," is about [minus] 250 calories.

Yeah, I don't "share" my food diary with people either.

I learned my lesson on that one early on.

That 216 - it's in the right direction, keep going. :flowerforyou: It's a process. Two steps forward, sometimes one step back and it's not usually in step with the music.

I don't remember, did someone mention getting a weight-trending app/program? It evens out the daily ups/downs/stagnations and gives you a steady trend. I don't use one, but there are many out there. Since you're a details guy, you'd probably like it.