Stuck on the last 10 lbs

I am down to the last 10 pounds as well and had a 2 month plateau so I know how frustrating it is. I’m not sure what you’re doing currently, but here are some things to try:

•Green tea—I added in 1 cup a morning 1 month ago and have lost 4.5 lbs this month.
•Chamomile tea—same thing, but in the evenings.
•Lifting weights—people often see change when they add in strength training if they aren’t doing it already.
•Change up your cardio—if you usually walk try biking. Or add in more time or a second workout each day.
•Try calorie cycling—what sometimes helps me is going to maintenance for 1 week then go back to my calorie goal for weight loss. Sometimes this helps kick start your metabolism again.

Hope you find what works for you!

I am not a precise logger; I'm not weighing food. Meaning when trying to use a small deficit my simple errors in measurement could erase the whole thing.

My last 10 pounds (from 140-130) involved eating maintenance for my NORMAL activity level (lightly active) and letting my increased (due to summer, not crazy work outs) create my deficit.

If that had failed my plan was that come fall I would alternate a week with a pretty sharp (for me) deficit and a week of eating at maintenance.

How accurate is your logging? That is the key in the end because the smaller body (closer to goal/ideal weight) burns less energy overall than when it was heavier. So estimating in the beginning is less impactful than when it comes down to the last few pounds.

If you've stayed the same for months: where you are eating NOW is maintenance. Even if you thought it should be a deficit. Reduce by 300 calories a day, track for 4-8 weeks. If you've gained a few pounds over months, you're eating OVER maintenance. Try reducing by about 500. You should see a gradual downward trajectory.

It would be helpful to make your diary public for people to get an idea of your logging and give suggestions. There's a lot of common mistakes people make when logging and another pair of eyes helps to see it

https://www.myfitnesspal.com/account/diary_settings

Looking at your diary: You have frequent 'homemade' and 'generic' entries. Are you looking for entries that sound like the food you're eating, and using them? If so that could be the reason for your stall. You'd have no way to know if the nutritional value of YOUR food matches a random generic or homemade entry from someone else. You can use the recipe builder, enter your own ingredients, and then log your actual food. Personally I weigh the final cooked product and use the # of grams as my # of servings. Such as if I make a pot of chili it may be 3500g. Recipe = 3500 servings, and then its easy to log when I weigh my meal out.

I'm also not sure if you're using a food scale? Things are measured frequently in cups. Unfortunately using cups for solid food is not accurate because cups are meant to measure liquids. Even though a nutrition label may mention 'cups' as well as 'grams' you can't assume the label notation of 'cup' matches a liquid measure cup. Like 28g shredded cheese is considered 1/4 cup, and that is 1 ounce weight. But that does not mean that 28g shredded cheese fills a measuring cup to the 1/4 cup measure: because that mark is meant for liquids.

revburns wrote: »

I have been very accurate. According to the app my maintenance calorie count is 2600. I do 1800 or less.

The number the app gives you is just the statistical average of demographically similar people, pretty much.

Are you average? Most people are, or close - by definition. A few people are further away, high or low. A rare few are very far off average, not always for obvious reasons. (MFP's maintenance estimate for me is 500 or so calories *low*, like 25-30% low, compared with 6+ years of personal data from fairly careful logging. Rare, but can happen.)

How to know if you're average? Get the logging as accurate as you can, as a practical matter, then see if your results adhere to that estimate. If not, adjust. But that's really simplistic.

For example, if you only have 10 pounds to lose, and are still at an 800 calorie deficit plus aren't eating back exercise calories, so an even bigger deficit . . . that can cause more adaptive thermogenesis (subtle fatigue, slow hair growth, lower body temp, etc.) after a long stretch of dieting and reduce calorie expenditure below expected, plus there's potential for stress-related creeping water retention that distorts scale results. (Bodies are dynamic systems, i.e., calorie intake affects calorie output, and more than just fat affects body weight.)

That's assuming quite accurate logging, of course. Sometimes, the logging that worked great when there was more wiggle room (more body weight left to lose), isn't precise enough to use a fully data-analysis-managed approach when only a few pounds left. More precision can be analytically helpful, because of the smaller tolerances.

If you're willing, more precision in logging could be a good diagnostic approach.

Best wishes!