Maintenance calories too low, have not lost weight for a long time,.. Reverse Dieting!
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SiiaMarl
Posts: 19 Member
I think I'm stuck at a hard situation right now:
I started ( 90.7 kg in January 2020 which is equivalent to 200lb), I was counting calories.
In 2021 February I reached 69.7 kg which is 154lb, In April I reached 67.2 kg = 148lb. and workout 3-4 times a week and then increased it to 5-6 a week.
Half of April something happened and I stopped working out but I was still counting calories and measuring everything with a scale.
whole month of April and half May my weight was fluctuating from 66.8 kg to 66.2 kg. I was still eating around 1560-1600 calories ,, June and July it fluctuating between 67.9 , 67.4 and 66.5 kg [ I was not sure did I really lost weight in April and May or not?]
My Maintenance calories was around 1637 or 1645 calories and I was eating around 1467 -1550 calories. Since I did not see any result I tried to cut my calories even more to 1411 calories. So on the 18th of August I reached 65.6 kg. Currently on October my weight fluctuate between 64.7 to 65 kg.
I count calories and measure everything with a scale, I drink 3L of water a day, I bought a watch that calculate my steps and on average I walk between 7000 -8900 steps and someday I reached 10,000 steps. Also I dance. A day a week I have a cheat meal but I don't give myself a free pass I might reach 2200 calories. I'm [ female, 28 years old, height= 164cm, weight= 64.7 -65 kg]
NOW! Im actually a little disappointed that during these 7 months I barely lost any weight, I know I did not workout but I tried to compensate with me walking around, dance and try not sit for a long time in addition to counting calories. Some suggested that my metabolism was damaged since I have been counting calories for a long time now (even though I have a cheat meal every week). the reason I started to believe this is because my maintenance calories are too low and since I still wanna lose weight im afraid that I will reach a point where I will only consume 1000 calories a day. then I saw reverse dieting but I still has not reached my goal yet + people who reverse diet gain weight and I still wanna lose so im kinda confused of what I should do and currently I feel a little bit restricted since I try to consume less than 1400 calorie a day.
I started ( 90.7 kg in January 2020 which is equivalent to 200lb), I was counting calories.
In 2021 February I reached 69.7 kg which is 154lb, In April I reached 67.2 kg = 148lb. and workout 3-4 times a week and then increased it to 5-6 a week.
Half of April something happened and I stopped working out but I was still counting calories and measuring everything with a scale.
whole month of April and half May my weight was fluctuating from 66.8 kg to 66.2 kg. I was still eating around 1560-1600 calories ,, June and July it fluctuating between 67.9 , 67.4 and 66.5 kg [ I was not sure did I really lost weight in April and May or not?]
My Maintenance calories was around 1637 or 1645 calories and I was eating around 1467 -1550 calories. Since I did not see any result I tried to cut my calories even more to 1411 calories. So on the 18th of August I reached 65.6 kg. Currently on October my weight fluctuate between 64.7 to 65 kg.
I count calories and measure everything with a scale, I drink 3L of water a day, I bought a watch that calculate my steps and on average I walk between 7000 -8900 steps and someday I reached 10,000 steps. Also I dance. A day a week I have a cheat meal but I don't give myself a free pass I might reach 2200 calories. I'm [ female, 28 years old, height= 164cm, weight= 64.7 -65 kg]
NOW! Im actually a little disappointed that during these 7 months I barely lost any weight, I know I did not workout but I tried to compensate with me walking around, dance and try not sit for a long time in addition to counting calories. Some suggested that my metabolism was damaged since I have been counting calories for a long time now (even though I have a cheat meal every week). the reason I started to believe this is because my maintenance calories are too low and since I still wanna lose weight im afraid that I will reach a point where I will only consume 1000 calories a day. then I saw reverse dieting but I still has not reached my goal yet + people who reverse diet gain weight and I still wanna lose so im kinda confused of what I should do and currently I feel a little bit restricted since I try to consume less than 1400 calorie a day.
1
Replies
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I personally would start with your primary care physician to have some blood tests ran to see if any labs are off that could explain why you’re not losing weight.1
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If you're only eating ~100-200 calories below your maintenance level, and still having a cheat meal (is that weighed and measured as well?), you are almost completely eliminating your weekly deficit with that one day that is around 800 calories over your listed maintenance - so, let's just say, 6 days a week you eat 150 calories below your maintenance, that's a total of 900 calories in deficit. Your cheat day adds back in 800 calories. Now you have a weekly deficit of 100 calories, which would be hardly noticeable and easily masked with tiny inconsistencies throughout a week....
That said, a diet break may be a good thing for 2 weeks where you eat at maintenance to give your brain and hormones time to reset and then go back to the diet, but the cheat meal may need to be trimmed back a bit with where you are at.13 -
It's probably your cheat meal.
That said, there are mistakes that people commonly make that cause them to not lose weight that we might be able to spot if you change your Diary Sharing settings to Public: http://www.myfitnesspal.com/account/diary_settings7 -
and at 164 cm tall and weight around 65 kg you are within the healthy weight range anyway (BMI = 24) - so any progress will be slow from here, if you want to lose any more - and you will need to log accurately to make sure you are staying at your recomended calorie level
Sounds to me like you are not losing any weight because you are eating at maitenance calories - when one looks at the weekly amount.
Which you might decide is ok at the BMI you are - but if you want to lose a bit more you will need to cut your weekly calories a bit and probably log more accurately to make sure you are doing so.
3 -
Moving within a healthy BMI you have about four options:
1-) Get really precise with weighing, tracking, and making sure that your 'cheat meal' doesn't take out your deficit.
2-) Do a more aggressive deficit for a week followed by a week of eating your maintenance calories.
Either of these can be combined with increased activity to increase how much you can eat while preserving the deficit.
3-) Eat maintenance and increase activity allowing your activity to create your deficit.
All of these are SLOW. I've lost 65 lbs total, in a little over a year. SIX MONTHS of that time was involved in me losing the last 20 pounds of it. (I went from barely into class I obese into a BMI of about 21).
And option 4:
Recognize that there will be a point where your activity and eating habits and weight align and you are unwilling or unable to commit to further reduction in your weight. Ie: What you're doing now is maintaining your weight and the idea of fewer calories or more activity for the sake of further loss just does not feel worth it. In which case, cool. You're in maintenance now and that's just fine.4 -
HoneyBadger302 wrote: »If you're only eating ~100-200 calories below your maintenance level, and still having a cheat meal (is that weighed and measured as well?), you are almost completely eliminating your weekly deficit with that one day that is around 800 calories over your listed maintenance - so, let's just say, 6 days a week you eat 150 calories below your maintenance, that's a total of 900 calories in deficit. Your cheat day adds back in 800 calories. Now you have a weekly deficit of 100 calories, which would be hardly noticeable and easily masked with tiny inconsistencies throughout a week....
That said, a diet break may be a good thing for 2 weeks where you eat at maintenance to give your brain and hormones time to reset and then go back to the diet, but the cheat meal may need to be trimmed back a bit with where you are at.
last year I lost 10kg within 6 months my weight loss is soo slow and my maintenance was more than that plus I was working out but the result between now and then is the same.
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paperpudding wrote: »and at 164 cm tall and weight around 65 kg you are within the healthy weight range anyway (BMI = 24) - so any progress will be slow from here, if you want to lose any more - and you will need to log accurately to make sure you are staying at your recomended calorie level
Sounds to me like you are not losing any weight because you are eating at maitenance calories - when one looks at the weekly amount.
Which you might decide is ok at the BMI you are - but if you want to lose a bit more you will need to cut your weekly calories a bit and probably log more accurately to make sure you are doing so.
the problem is my process was so slow even when I was heavier so im not sure is it because of dieting for too long? is my metabolism damaged?
I do log everything and calculate everything goes into my mouth, the calculator is in my hand whenever I attempted to eat something. plus now I don't even have the desire to eat and rarely I crave something. I eat earlier of the day so I avoid eating at night and stop at 6 pm.
how can I cut my calories more with ought reaching low calories like 1200 or 1300 calories0 -
wunderkindking wrote: »Moving within a healthy BMI you have about four options:
1-) Get really precise with weighing, tracking, and making sure that your 'cheat meal' doesn't take out your deficit.
2-) Do a more aggressive deficit for a week followed by a week of eating your maintenance calories.
Either of these can be combined with increased activity to increase how much you can eat while preserving the deficit.
3-) Eat maintenance and increase activity allowing your activity to create your deficit.
All of these are SLOW. I've lost 65 lbs total, in a little over a year. SIX MONTHS of that time was involved in me losing the last 20 pounds of it. (I went from barely into class I obese into a BMI of about 21).
And option 4:
Recognize that there will be a point where your activity and eating habits and weight align and you are unwilling or unable to commit to further reduction in your weight. Ie: What you're doing now is maintaining your weight and the idea of fewer calories or more activity for the sake of further loss just does not feel worth it. In which case, cool. You're in maintenance now and that's just fine.
the problem with is that I was trying to lose weight by cutting calories more and more I never reached my maintenance at 1600 calories. BTW: the 1654 calories that my maintenance without working out!!
so you are suggesting that one week I eat at maintenance calories and the next week I eat at calorie deficit won't I gain weight doing that?
0 -
wunderkindking wrote: »Moving within a healthy BMI you have about four options:
1-) Get really precise with weighing, tracking, and making sure that your 'cheat meal' doesn't take out your deficit.
2-) Do a more aggressive deficit for a week followed by a week of eating your maintenance calories.
Either of these can be combined with increased activity to increase how much you can eat while preserving the deficit.
3-) Eat maintenance and increase activity allowing your activity to create your deficit.
All of these are SLOW. I've lost 65 lbs total, in a little over a year. SIX MONTHS of that time was involved in me losing the last 20 pounds of it. (I went from barely into class I obese into a BMI of about 21).
And option 4:
Recognize that there will be a point where your activity and eating habits and weight align and you are unwilling or unable to commit to further reduction in your weight. Ie: What you're doing now is maintaining your weight and the idea of fewer calories or more activity for the sake of further loss just does not feel worth it. In which case, cool. You're in maintenance now and that's just fine.
the problem with is that I was trying to lose weight by cutting calories more and more I never reached my maintenance at 1600 calories. BTW: the 1654 calories that my maintenance without working out!!
so you are suggesting that one week I eat at maintenance calories and the next week I eat at calorie deficit won't I gain weight doing that?
No, one week you will be at maintenance so maintain weight, one you will be at a deficit so losing weight.1 -
paperpudding wrote: »and at 164 cm tall and weight around 65 kg you are within the healthy weight range anyway (BMI = 24) - so any progress will be slow from here, if you want to lose any more - and you will need to log accurately to make sure you are staying at your recomended calorie level
Sounds to me like you are not losing any weight because you are eating at maitenance calories - when one looks at the weekly amount.
Which you might decide is ok at the BMI you are - but if you want to lose a bit more you will need to cut your weekly calories a bit and probably log more accurately to make sure you are doing so.
the problem is my process was so slow even when I was heavier so im not sure is it because of dieting for too long? is my metabolism damaged?
I do log everything and calculate everything goes into my mouth, the calculator is in my hand whenever I attempted to eat something. plus now I don't even have the desire to eat and rarely I crave something. I eat earlier of the day so I avoid eating at night and stop at 6 pm.
how can I cut my calories more with ought reaching low calories like 1200 or 1300 calories
I highly doubt your metabolism is damaged at all
when you stop eating is irelevant - only the total number of calories is.
as people pointed out already, your weekly calories are very close to maitenance - therefore, not surprisingly, you are maintaining same weight.
If your maitainance calories are 1650, (which sounds about right, mine are 1710 and I am about same size as you) - then yes, you will need to cut to about 1400 to lose any more weight
1400 net - so more if you excercise more.
6 -
You have to remember, that when you eat more food you have physical weight of the food and your increased glycogen stores in your body. You might gain a pound or so of weight on the scale but you won't gain FAT. And if you alternate maintaining and defict you'll maintain one week and lose the next. It's what I did to lose the last couple of pounds because due to my psychology trying to be super precise with weighing/measuring does bad things to my head. And also because I can't live with 1300-1400 calories for an extended period of time, I will gnaw my arm off.3
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Metabolism will go back to "normal" when you take diet breaks like everyone is suggesting. There's not really a thing, "broken metabolism," but it does down-regulate to compensate when you're under-eating.
Your problem is likely that your one day of "cheat" has erased a small deficit. Those last pounds are more difficult and it's important to be as accurate as possible if you're stalled. Even on a cheat day/meal. Are you still logging it? You are using a lot of vague numbers. Dial that in. Log everything, use a food scale. Try to eat most of your meals prepared by yourself.
Here, read the first couple pages in this thread about refeeds and diet breaks:
https://community.myfitnesspal.com/en/discussion/10604863/of-refeeds-and-diet-breaks/p10 -
paperpudding wrote: »and at 164 cm tall and weight around 65 kg you are within the healthy weight range anyway (BMI = 24) - so any progress will be slow from here, if you want to lose any more - and you will need to log accurately to make sure you are staying at your recomended calorie level
Sounds to me like you are not losing any weight because you are eating at maitenance calories - when one looks at the weekly amount.
Which you might decide is ok at the BMI you are - but if you want to lose a bit more you will need to cut your weekly calories a bit and probably log more accurately to make sure you are doing so.
the problem is my process was so slow even when I was heavier so im not sure is it because of dieting for too long? is my metabolism damaged?
I do log everything and calculate everything goes into my mouth, the calculator is in my hand whenever I attempted to eat something. plus now I don't even have the desire to eat and rarely I crave something. I eat earlier of the day so I avoid eating at night and stop at 6 pm.
how can I cut my calories more with ought reaching low calories like 1200 or 1300 calories
If you are logging everything including your cheat meal, then how big is your weekly deficit usually (looking across the whole week, do you end with a calorie deficit?)0 -
paperpudding wrote: »and at 164 cm tall and weight around 65 kg you are within the healthy weight range anyway (BMI = 24) - so any progress will be slow from here, if you want to lose any more - and you will need to log accurately to make sure you are staying at your recommended calorie level
Sounds to me like you are not losing any weight because you are eating at maintenance calories - when one looks at the weekly amount.
Which you might decide is ok at the BMI you are - but if you want to lose a bit more you will need to cut your weekly calories a bit and probably log more accurately to make sure you are doing so.
For those of us who use imperial measurements, that's around 143 pounds and 5'4.5".
And yes, at BMI = 24, progress will be extremely slow. Logging errors and the cheat meal can easily wipe out that deficit.
There are mistakes that people commonly make that cause them to not lose weight that we might be able to spot if you change your Diary Sharing settings to Public:http://www.myfitnesspal.com/account/diary_settings0 -
cmriverside wrote: »Metabolism will go back to "normal" when you take diet breaks like everyone is suggesting. There's not really a thing, "broken metabolism," but it does down-regulate to compensate when you're under-eating.
Your problem is likely that your one day of "cheat" has erased a small deficit. Those last pounds are more difficult and it's important to be as accurate as possible if you're stalled. Even on a cheat day/meal. Are you still logging it? You are using a lot of vague numbers. Dial that in. Log everything, use a food scale. Try to eat most of your meals prepared by yourself.
Here, read the first couple pages in this thread about refeeds and diet breaks:
https://community.myfitnesspal.com/en/discussion/10604863/of-refeeds-and-diet-breaks/p1
As she's essentially just eating a few calories under maintenance, I don't see the point in her taking a diet break.1
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