Advice... anyone?!?

Hi there! Lots of people will probably tell you that you aren't eating enough calories. However, I feel that if you are eating enough to where you don't feel hungry then you shouldn't push yourself to gobble up a ton of food. I've been going at this consistently for 6 months without eating or eating very little of my work out calories and have lost over 30lbs. I would just say maybe have a snack that is higher in calories. I try to eat close to 1200 calories without eating my calories back. 600 does seem a bit low, just try to add in a high calorie snack. I hope this helps!

Add me if you'd like :flowerforyou:

I have been stuck at twice during my weight loss and I have found that increasing my calories by 100 or 200 if I am going to work out that day and then changing up my workout....if I have been doing a certain maching for awhile then I switch to another. Also I have found that crossfit exercise are really helpful to jump start your body into more weightloss! Hang in there!!

Stress plateaus are very difficult to overcome. I just experienced one myself and did not regain momentum with my weight loss until the stress had resolved itself. I suggest finding some relaxing ways to take your mind off the issue. I didn't try it while on my plateua, but daily meditation might help.

What is your BMR? You shouldn't eat below the calories it takes for your body to function. I would use this equation to figure out your BMR: 655 +(4.35 x weight)+(4.7 x height)-(4.7 x age) .

Then take that number, and multiply it by your lifestyle:
1.2 Sedentary Little to no exercise
1.375 Lightly Active Light exercise (1 to 3 days/week)
1.55 Moderately Active Moderate exercise (3 to 5 days/week)
1.7 Very Active Hard Exercise (6 to 7 days/week)
1.9 Extremely Active Hard daily exercise and/or physical job

Once you get that number, you can then minus 500 from it and that's the calorie level you should look at eating around

What really sticks out to me is that you mentioned stress and lack of sleep. Work on those and you may just break through your plateau.

I agree that you probably aren't eating enough food a day. I do eat back a lot of my calories. I do change up my exercises everyday. I have consistently lost weight every week since beginning of January. And only 2 of those weeks were 1 pound weight losses. One week I even lost almost 5 pounds.
I don't eat the healthiest of diets. But, it is a work in progress.
The stress probably doesn't help either.

First, you are within 20 lbs of your goal, so you should aim to lose .5 lbs per week and you should set your goal. Over extending your goal will stop weight loss as your body fights harder to maintain fat. Below are guidelines on what you can lose per week based on your goal. Next, when you are stressed or your body is stressed (as demonstrated by a caloric deficit), it can release cortisol which can lead to conservation of calories. It's a mechanism (IIRC) that will maintain your body fat. Additionally, hunger signals can be suppressed so it's not a good indicator of your diet. So you need to eat more. I have gotten out of three pleateaus and each time it was because I increased my calories. I have also used this method with 100+ people on this board with a 97% success rate. Another way to beat the plateau is set your calories at maintenance for a week and don't exercise. It will let your body recover.


If you have 75+ lbs to lose 2 lbs/week is ideal,
If you have 40-75 lbs to lose 1.5 lbs/week is ideal,
If you have 25-40 lbs to lose 1 lbs/week is ideal,
If you have 15 -25 lbs to lose 0.5 to 1.0 lbs/week is ideal, and
If you have less than 15 lbs to lose 0.5 lbs/week is ideal.