SOS! Weight loss plateau!

angiebabi669 wrote: »

I started my weight loss journey in May. I started at 170 and I’m down to 156. I have my calorie intake set to 1500/day but the scale hasn’t moved since August and I’m feeling defeated. I’m only consuming around 70-100g protein a day, I’m also 33 for reference. Not sure what to do to break through. I’ve only lost around 3lbs since August. I changed my calories from 1200 to 1500 at that time. I’m wondering if I should up them more? My ultimate goal would be 140lbs.

Hi,

The closer you get to your goal, the harder it can be sometimes.
First, check through the food log. Make sure everything is tracked correctly. Some foods are easy to miscalculate. Are you heavy on sugar or carbs? Some bodies hang onto carbs/sugar harder than others. Sometimes just reducing the sugar or carbs can push you into that next level.

Second, can you up your activity or exercise?

Third, play with the calories. You may have to go up or down depending on your body needs. For a week, try 1,400 or 1,600 calories.

Fourth--you can try a varied calorie week. Eat your regular 1500 calories on 6 days, on the 7th try eating 1,700 on just that one day. For some people, that will push the body forward.

I know people will disagree or have other strategies. That's okay. You have to find what works for you--so sometimes you have to try a lot of different things. Everyone is different.

L

I would eat more vegetables without butter or sauces on them. How is your water? If you've been weight lifting, that will mean you gain weight. However, you can still shrink clothing sizes, about 3 just from weight lifting. Change your exercise routine every 6 weeks. Your body gets adjusted to your routine rather quickly. Do HITT cardio. (Google it)

"HIIT stands for High-Intensity Interval Training. It is a type of cardiovascular exercise that involves short bursts of high-intensity exercise followed by periods of rest or low-intensity exercise. HIIT workouts are designed to increase your heart rate and burn calories in a shorter amount of time than traditional cardio workouts. They can be done with or without equipment and can be customized to fit your fitness level and goals."

This should help you get off your plateau. Good luck.

kiteflyer105 wrote: »

I would eat more vegetables without butter or sauces on them. How is your water? If you've been weight lifting, that will mean you gain weight. However, you can still shrink clothing sizes, about 3 just from weight lifting. Change your exercise routine every 6 weeks. Your body gets adjusted to your routine rather quickly. Do HITT cardio. (Google it)

"HIIT stands for High-Intensity Interval Training. It is a type of cardiovascular exercise that involves short bursts of high-intensity exercise followed by periods of rest or low-intensity exercise. HIIT workouts are designed to increase your heart rate and burn calories in a shorter amount of time than traditional cardio workouts. They can be done with or without equipment and can be customized to fit your fitness level and goals."

This should help you get off your plateau. Good luck.

Color me skeptical.

I've been doing pretty much the same exercise for 20+ years, obese and thin. Other than the slight calorie reduction from doing it at a much lighter body weight, it still burns the number of calories it always did. (It's not HIIT cardio. At least not usually.)

Exercise calorie burn is primarily from the work done, in the physics sense of "work". It feels easier as we get fitter, but the same duration and objective intensity exercise at the same body weight burns about the same number of calories. Efficiency differences (from increased skill) for most activities are a minor factor.

Also, I've definitely lost weight while weight lifting, as have many others.

Weight lifting can trigger a bit of water retention and increase weight that way, but beyond that it only increases total body weight if a person eats in a surplus. Weight training in a calorie deficit will result in little (and slow) muscle mass gain, if any; and if mass gain occurs it can be partly fueled from stored body fat. Strength increases, especially the early stages, don't require adding new muscle mass - neuromuscular adaptation increase strength at first, and usually faster. Someone eating around maintenance calories and strength training in the right ways would be expected to be relatively weight stable, but get smaller because muscle is more compact than fat, pound for pound.

Yeah, people who say they're doing HIIT? I would definitely not call (most of) it HIIT. Intervals, maybe.

And yeah, what Ann and Rodney said, too.

yirara wrote: »

Cats_fitness_journey wrote: »

Increase protein, I eat about 140-160 g a day (I also weight train, which is something I highly recommend if you don’t already do) your body burns 30% of calories from protein just to digest it!

No! The body doesn't need more energy digesting protein than with other food. It also makes no sense from an evolutionary standpoint. Also, just throwing an arbitrary protein number in here is not helpful. That you eat so much doesn't mean TO needs to eat so much. Heck, she started out with 1500 calories/day. 140g of protein would be 1/3 of her calorie intake. Sure, some people like this, some people who do professional strength training probably need it. But not a normal person who possibly moves around a bit. Totally unnecessary. I agree though that weight training is good. Not for weightloss, but for general health.

Actually, it does, whether it makes evolutionary sense or not.

Some of the calories in the food you eat are used to digest, absorb, metabolize, and store the remaining food, and some are burned off as heat. This process is known under various names, notably diet-induced thermogenesis (DIT), specific dynamic action (SDA), and the thermic effect of food (TEF).[1][2]

The TEF represents about 10% of the caloric intake of healthy adults who eat a standard mixed-macronutrient diet,[3] but your actual number will depend on several factors, including your age and the meal timing, and macronutrient composition — carbs, fat, and protein — of your meal. The energy required to digest each macronutrient (its TEF) can be expressed as a percentage of the energy provided by the macronutrient:[4][5]

Fat provides 9 calories per gram, and its TEF is 0–3%.
Carbohydrate provides 4 calories per gram, and its TEF is 5–10%.
Protein provides 4 calories per gram, and its TEF is 20–30%.

That's from https://examine.com/outcomes/thermic-effect-of-food/ , but it's kind of motherhood and apple pie standard information, cited in many places.

It's true, but the effect isn't typically a caloric world-beater in practical numeric terms. There's only so much protein a person is going to eat if they want to be healthy, because nutritional balance matters. (Most of us will want to eat a mixed diet.)

For example, I eat about 120g of protein most days (5'5" woman), so 480 calories of protein, a fairly high protein intake for my demographic. The TEF might be as much as 96-144 calories, compared with 24-48 calories of TEF for 480 calories of carbs, or 0-14 for 480 calories of fats. That's an actual difference, but not really life-changing when it comes to weight management.

Now this is all personal example and will not work for everyone but it can't hurt to try if you're stuck. I have found that when my weight loss stalls out or slows way down. I can typically take a weekend off and by off, I mean eat 250-500 more calories than I normally would. And its typically not "healthy food" I'm taking like go to the bar and get a greasy burger and a mountain of French fries" or something like that. Now initially the next week i will up up in weight 1-4 pounds for a week or so due to water weight, but that starts to fall off pretty quickly and typically it continues to snowball down right on past where i was stuck.

This discussion is so interesting to me. I’m 73, have lost 40 pounds since April, but have stage 3a chronic kidney disease. I’m on a plateau as well but have to limit protein to 60g per day. How do I keep muscle mass as I try to lose 20 more pounds?

KerryBSoCal wrote: »

This discussion is so interesting to me. I’m 73, have lost 40 pounds since April, but have stage 3a chronic kidney disease. I’m on a plateau as well but have to limit protein to 60g per day. How do I keep muscle mass as I try to lose 20 more pounds?

60 grams should be fine, especially if doctor recommended. I would suggest adding in some strength training.

KerryBSoCal wrote: »

Thanks, I will follow up with your suggestions. 😎

There was an international study group recommendation about protein for aging (65+) adults.

That recommendation includes a section for people with pre-existing kidney disease. There is limited info there, but it is some. I can't link directly to the section, but it's in this part of the document . . .

https://www.jamda.com/article/S1525-8610(13)00326-5/fulltext#secsectitle0055

. . . under the heading "Kidney Function and Kidney Disease".

The general recommendation for 65+ is that spreading protein through the day is a good idea (vs. all/mostly in one meal), and for those exercising, they suggest eating some of the protein right after exercise. That's in this section of the same document.

https://www.jamda.com/article/S1525-8610(13)00326-5/fulltext#secsectitle0130

I don't know that the suggested amount of post-exercise protein there would be right for you - that would be a good thing to discuss with a specialist registered dietitian.

For other readers, I'll mention that from what I've read, spreading protein through the day, and perhaps even consuming protein soon after exercise, are not as important in young people as for people in our demographic (I'm 67).

Respectfully, when I was losing weight, by lifting weights, following the Body for Life plan, and HITT frequently, I was able to produce results. Everyone's body is different. Thank you for the imput everyone.

kiteflyer105 wrote: »

file:///C:/Users/susan/Downloads/Body-For-Life-Cardio.pdf

Check this out. Google this. It explains how to do it.

Eating protein and vegetables is the best way to lose weight, decrease carbs to 50g or less. Listen to a nutritionist, or their guidelines. If you are super serious, 20 g of carbs works even better. I am not a medical professional . See a nutritionist. Then they can give you all the answers.

This is confusing to me. I know there are lower-carb vegetables, but one reason I can't visualize myself adopting a low-carb diet is that I couldn't possibly eat the volume and variety of vegetables I prefer if I tried to limit carbs to 50g or less, let along 20g or less.

I'm not saying that low-carb eating doesn't allow enough veggies for good health, nor am I arguing with what you've found is best for you personally. Sincerely, I'm happy you've found your right personal tactics: That's powerful!

What I am saying is that I'm quite confident that it isn't universally necessary to severely limit carbs in order to lose weight. I ate moderate carb (around 150g or so daily) while losing around 50 pounds in just under a year, and have eaten 225g+ of carbs most days in maintenance. Most of those carbs come from nutrient-dense foods like veggies, fruits, dairy, and other basic unrefined foods. (I'm not saying everyone needs to eat like I do, either. That would be silly. Successful tactics are personalized, IMO.)

OP can certainly try reducing carbs, because doing so unquestionably does help some people. But it's neither necessary nor sufficient for everyone, if their goal is weight loss.

As an aside, I know that "nutritionist" is a credentialed profession in some countries. Here in the US, in many states, literally anyone can advertise themselves as a "nutritionist", and a fair fraction who do are selling multi-level marketing supplements and that sort of skeezy thing. In the US, a person should be looking for a "registered dietitian" (RD) if they want advice from a professional who meets strong educational and practice standards.

Truth in advertising: I'm not a nutritionist, registered dietitian, or medical professrional . . . just an interested amateur.

Hi :-)
Perhaps, you could try and change the order/combination of foods you eat.
I'm no nutritionist or else, so I can only report my very personal experience, but if it could help...

For me, the main game changer has been moving from a sort of dissociated diet to the "plate diet".

That resulted in:
1) eating more veggies (I ate a lot also before, but now I eat a looot of them);
2) using more "polenta" (at first only plain, now I'm trying wholemeal once a week) and rice (basmati) ---> so less bread (but, notice, I still have it every day, only not a ton as before 'cause if there's polenta, for instance, bread would be redundant);
3) being more sated, so no craves and no more continuous snacking ---> so less sweets (again, I still have them, but not a ton as before).

I'm at this from March, and despite eating the same calories I ate before (1700 calories 4-5 days/week, even 2200 the other 2-3) and eating all my favourite foods as before (croissants, cakes, pizza, pasta, potatoes, hamburger, dark chocolate etc, I have no prohibited items), the different way of assuming them made me lose about 8 kilos (about 1kg/month).
(Oh, and my only "exercise" is walking, exactly as I used to do before.)

PS: I know people who made the opposite change, that is went from the plate diet to a sort of dissociated diet, and they lost. So, I think perhaps the key is in the changing itself: your body is used to a certain way, you change it and you burn more (maybe only for some time? I don't know...)?

HTH