Stalled Weight Loss

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joelgriffiths
joelgriffiths Posts: 16 Member
in Health and Weight Loss
For the past 3-4 weeks, my weight loss has completely stalled. I lost nearly 40 lbs and hit a wall with 30 lbs left before I reach my goal (I'm at 25% Body Fat right now, started at 35%). I've tried to get past it by increasing my workout time, adding a secondary workout, and increasing my cardio (I'm up to 5 miles jogging on a treadmill and 2 miles running outside without stopping). None of that seems to have made a difference. I thought I might be exaggerating my strength training calories so I reduced my food intake and reduced the calories my monitors reported during strength exercises by 120Cal/Hour. There was still no change.

Anyway, I was at work yesterday, wearing my leather jacket and complaining how cold it's been in the building recently, and somebody pointed out that it wasn't cold at all. Two thermometers confirmed that it was 75-77 degrees. My immediate thought was that I must be in starvation mode. I've heard about this, but have never believed it. Despite eating small meals almost constantly, I was still hungry almost all the time, so I decided I needed to switch to a maintenance diet for a week (actually, I'm moving to a 1lbs/week diet and I'm underlogging my strength training by 50%).

Yesterday and this morning I caught up on many of the foods I've been avoiding (that won't last long) - fried chicken, muffins, and chocolate. I know, bad bad bad, but I felt like I was so far behind that it took all those calories to not be hungry. Today, I'm no longer cold at work; in fact, I'm hot.

My question is this: Has anybody else heard and had experience with switching to a maintenance diet to break out of stalled weight loss and do you think that's what happened to me?

Replies

  • joelgriffiths
    joelgriffiths Posts: 16 Member
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    Now that I've done some research, I'm beginning to believe Starvation Mode is a pure myth. That said, I definitely needed to reset my diet so it was nice to have a cheat 1.5 day before going back to my rather strict 2lbs/week reduction. Here are my problems:

    * I think being on a restrictive diet caused me to slip on my portion sizes.
    * I don't think my Strength exercises are as effective at burning calories as they used to be. I'm going to adjust the entries to compensate for this.
    * I was exercising too much in a single session, sometimes as long as two hours. I don't think the second hour accurately measured the number of calories I burned and that exaggerated the number of calories I would eat. I'm going to split up anything lasting longer than 80 minutes from now on.

    There is always a potential of Thyroid disease especially since I was feeling cold, but I've been losing weight pretty well until recently, so I doubt it. Anyways, I took a test at about.com http://thyroid.about.com/library/quiz2/blthyroidquiz.htm and scored pretty low. There are ALOT of additional symptoms for Thyroid problems.

    In any case, I wanted to post this in case anybody else ever faces a similar problem.

    In truth, I would rather just delete my post, but I can't see how to do it. :)

    -- Joel
  • purpleipod
    purpleipod Posts: 1,147 Member
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    Do you eat a high calorie meal once or twice a week or do you stick to a constant, low calorie number?
  • joelgriffiths
    joelgriffiths Posts: 16 Member
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    It was mostly low calorie. Very rarely would I eat anything with a ton of calories. That said, I took a week off (no working out and increased my consumption to maintenance - although I wasn't that hungry). I lost 9 lbs! Plus I feel better. I had been working out 6-9 times per week while eating a 1k deficit since August. Over the President's day weekend, I didn't even want to get off the couch so I figured I had over-trained. I didn't want to take a break, but I hurt everywhere and I was hungry all the time. The break worked. I went from 248 to 239 in one week even though that wasn't the goal. The goal was to regain some energy, stop being hungry for a little while, and stop hurting (my muscles were sore all the time). It was effective for that as well.

    I really have no idea why I lost weight during that week. Incidentally, I gained 2 lbs back after I got back to working out.

    I hate to toss around the overly used "over-training" word, but I had been working out hard. I was lifting weights in the morning (6x week) and running a 5K (3x week) after I got off work. Except for working out over the long weekend, I literally had no inclination to move off the couch. I was exhausted.

    Now I'm very close to my goal. I only have about 20 lbs to go. that should put me at about 12-13% body fat. The thing is: I'm not willing to go to a 1k deficit again, so I am shooting for one lb a week now. Plus, I'm reducing my weights to 5xWeek, but keeping my running at 3xWeek. I would reduce that as well, but I'm not willing to give them up. :)

    Anyway, if anybody else is having this problem, and they really are eating too little and working out too much for too long, a break might do them well.

    Finally, I am curious if anybody has any idea why I would have suddenly dropped so much weight. I still ate a deficit, but not a 7 lbs deficit. That would require a 3500C/day deficit (which is obviously impossible). Does anybody have any thoughts about that?
  • Phrak
    Phrak Posts: 353 Member
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    I am a firm advocate for taking diet breaks every few months, after reading a lot from Lyle Mcdonalds site. Metabolism will always start to slow as you diet, The longer you diet the slower it will get. Taking a two week break (yes you will gain some weight back during this time) helps with hormonal issues associated with the down regulation.

    You can also read a bit on having two large of a defict and working out 6-9 times a week can screw you up here:

    http://www.bodyrecomposition.com/fat-loss/why-big-caloric-deficits-and-lots-of-activity-can-hurt-fat-loss.html

    Your sudden loss could be the body releasing water from the fat and muscles cells as it is no longer protecting itself from the stesses of weight lifting and chronic cardio.
  • psuLemon
    psuLemon Posts: 38,401 MFP Moderator
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    With only 20 lbs to go, you need to be aiming for .5 lbs per week. The closer to your goal, the more you need to feed yourself. Plus if you drop a lot of weight all of a sudden, a lot of it's water weight. When you train a lot, your body stores water to repair muscles. If you want to see weight loss, eat at maintenance for a week or two and take off of training. Let your body repair itself.
  • FittingIn
    FittingIn Posts: 162 Member
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    I've been struggling with a similar issue with a weight plateau. Now, I've just started doing something called Zigzag dieting. I am on 1,900 calories/day for 3 days followed by 2,400 calories/day for 2 days. The idea is to mix up the metabolism so the weight loss rate will increase.

    You can read more about it here http://teamripped.com/zig-zag-dieting

    PM if you need to as I might not see replies on this thread.
  • skywa
    skywa Posts: 901 Member
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    eat more. lift weights. try an 30-60 mins of HIIT instead of the long cardio routine. as you get close to your goal your going to need to eat close to your TDEE if you want to keep losing.
  • nmcneill16
    nmcneill16 Posts: 12
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    try interval training to boost your metabolism, and get a heart rate monitor to accurately track the calories you burn. i would also focus on the quality of the food vs. the calories in the food.
  • psuLemon
    psuLemon Posts: 38,401 MFP Moderator
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    try interval training to boost your metabolism, and get a heart rate monitor to accurately track the calories you burn. i would also focus on the quality of the food vs. the calories in the food.

    HIIT/interval training won't boost your metabolism unless you are adding muscle mass. Which means you have to pretty much eat at maintenance or a surplus.
  • Lionlily
    Lionlily Posts: 10
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    You might want to think about giving up the cardio for a bit and start lifting heavy weights if you are not already doing it. That is what I am going to be doing to get the last 15 lbs off me. Also how is your protein intake? i am actually going to be weight lifting from now on and seriously thinking of getting the P90X. Good luck with your weight loss. Feel free to add me as a friend...Lionlily!
  • psuLemon
    psuLemon Posts: 38,401 MFP Moderator
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    You might want to think about giving up the cardio for a bit and start lifting heavy weights if you are not already doing it. That is what I am going to be doing to get the last 15 lbs off me. Also how is your protein intake? i am actually going to be weight lifting from now on and seriously thinking of getting the P90X. Good luck with your weight loss. Feel free to add me as a friend...Lionlily!

    Look at P90X2, it's a better program I think.

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