Help! Hitting a weight loss plateau, what am I doing wrong?

sviestine · January 2022

Hello everyone! I have been registering my food/macros for about a month now and I have hit a weight loss plateau. This is how it usually goes for me, what am I doing wrong? I did go back and rechecked my macros for every week and I am eating more or less the same (on average).

I tried different macros calculators online and the majority suggest I should actually be eating more calories / more protein but I am scared that it would lead to weight gain? Besides, I am actually not that hungry, as in, I would have to almost force myself to eat the extra?

I also have smart scales at home and according to them my basal metabolism is actually lower than what any online calculator would suggest for a woman of my age, height and weight.

At the moment I am on 1500 kcal per day, I exercise around 3-4 times a week and I add my exercise to the calorie totals (maybe I should't?).

Mfp community, I need your wisdom! :-)

yirara · January 2022

What you need to do is stick with it! Relax. Trust the process. And weigh your calorie intake properly on a scale instead of using cups and spoons. Also, ditch the scale, or ignore it. No scale can tell you how much energy your body needs at rest. You need a lab test for that. Don't fall for the woo.

How much do you have to lose, and what deficit did you chose here? Could it be that you're just a bit too impatient, and confused by fluctuations?

Lietchi · January 2022

You've only been at it for a month, so unless you haven't lost any weight since the very start, it's not even a real plateau (which is 4 weeks or more of no weight loss while consistently following your plan).
So what you're doing wrong is probably not being patient enough?

cwolfman13 · January 2022

A plateau is 4-6 weeks without any movement...you've only been at it for a total of a month. So likely you are past the linear stage of losing weight which only lasts 3-4 weeks or so depending on how much one has to lose. After that, it's up and down and all around which just requires patience and sticking with the process.

Also, your scale has no clue what your basal metabolic rate is...they don't know your body composition either. None of that is accurate and purely a gimmick. Consumer Reports won't even report on these scales anymore because they just aren't accurate. Scales are accurate for measuring the gravitational pull on your body...and that's it.

Xellercin · January 2022

This is a normal part of weight loss. When I was losing from obese to very lean, I often had 4-8 weeks where the scale didn't budge. However, my weight loss rate when seen over a longer scale was actually predictably steady.

For me, my body seems to retain water while I'm losing. So it will seem like nothing is happening for a looking time, and then I'll start losing steadily for several weeks, and then nothing for several more weeks, and so on and so forth.

For me, it all evened out to a very predictable rate of loss as long as my eating was consistent. It just seemed chaotic and unpredictable when I looked at the short term results.

For me, I never ever actually plateau'd unless I ate more for a period of time.

sviestine · January 2022

Thank you for your comments! That's reassuring. Water retention is definitely true for me... And yes, perhaps I need to be more patient :-)

sijomial · January 2022

You aren't in a plateau after losing 7lbs in a month and your "smart" scales can't measure your BMR, they are just doing a calculation based on your stats. You can find many different calculations and they will all give slightly different numbers. It's also a particularly useless number by itself so don't let it sow a seed in your mind of "it's harder for me". You can get RMR tests done by breath analysis but really not a lot of point.

If you are confident you are in a sensible calorie deficit then you don't have to change anything.
You haven't actually given any real data for people to work with so it really is on you to make that judgement.
Your food and exercise diaries are also private. You haven't given any clues about your exercise or how you are estimating. It's totally mainstream and normal to take exercise expenditure into account in different ways, MFP just does it a bit like people using fitness trackers with a variable daily exercise estimate rather than averaging it out like TDEE calcs.

Ticker shows a 7lb loss so you can do some maths with that to see how long a modest calorie increase would take to regain that weight if you took that option.

Try to stretch your timescales and perspective, losing 7lbs in a month is a great start, just don't expect every week to be uniform.

Onamissionforfit · January 2022

sviestine wrote: »

Hello everyone! I have been registering my food/macros for about a month now and I have hit a weight loss plateau. This is how it usually goes for me, what am I doing wrong? I did go back and rechecked my macros for every week and I am eating more or less the same (on average).

I tried different macros calculators online and the majority suggest I should actually be eating more calories / more protein but I am scared that it would lead to weight gain? Besides, I am actually not that hungry, as in, I would have to almost force myself to eat the extra?

I also have smart scales at home and according to them my basal metabolism is actually lower than what any online calculator would suggest for a woman of my age, height and weight.

At the moment I am on 1500 kcal per day, I exercise around 3-4 times a week and I add my exercise to the calorie totals (maybe I should't?).

lillyy23 · February 2022

yeah i wouldnt be eating your exercise calories cause then your gonna eat too much.
but yeah just be really patient, liek everyone else said, just wait a little longer, stay consistent.

Redordeadhead · February 2022

lillyy23 wrote: »

yeah i wouldnt be eating your exercise calories cause then your gonna eat too much.
but yeah just be really patient, liek everyone else said, just wait a little longer, stay consistent.

If you're using MFP the way it's designed, the calculations are based on eating your exercise calories.

AnnPT77 · February 2022

lillyy23 wrote: »

yeah i wouldnt be eating your exercise calories cause then your gonna eat too much.
but yeah just be really patient, liek everyone else said, just wait a little longer, stay consistent.

I ate every exercise calorie I earned, lost 50+ pounds in less than a year (obese to healthy weight), have been at a healthy weight for 6+ years since, still eating those exercise calories (several hundred of them most days).

Sure, you don't want to overestimate your exercise calories, or overestimate your activity level, or treat a fitness tracker as if it were a magical source of absolute truth, or (if calorie counting) treat food logging as a casual, sloppy, occasional thing (doesn't have to be obsessive, either - just careful, consistent).

So, no, it's not universally true that "you're gonna eat too much" if you eat exercise calories.

natasor1 · February 2022

I would not eat over my appetite. This is not healthy. never force yourself to overeat

Help! Hitting a weight loss plateau, what am I doing wrong?

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