Help! I'm not losing!
Cath2016
Posts: 19
I am aiming for 1240 calories a day to lose 1.5 pounds a week. I usually reach about 1350, but i try to exercise at least 600 calories off a day, but sometimes I only burn 250-400. I am always about 20g under my fat allowance, but my sugar intake always runs a little over. I try to drink about 32oz of water a day and I've been trying to limit soft drinks. My exercise varies from strength training, running, walking, or dancing.
I am not losing any weight. For about two months I have remained 146! What should I do?
I am not losing any weight. For about two months I have remained 146! What should I do?
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Replies
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You've been so dedicated too!
I'm not sure why you arent losing... I know it is harder to lose when you have less to lose. Even though it seems wrong to me... I'm going to try upping my calories a little to see if that helps, because my progress has slowed too! Changed my goal from losing 2 pounds a week to 1/2 pound. Slow and steady may work better for me... everyone's body is different but it seems quite a few people have had success with a slight increase in calories, especially if they are exercising regularly.
Are you eating back all or part of your burned calories?0 -
You will probably get a lot of suggestions to eat more..................try it!
Your body might be in a rut, and you have to give it a "kick start" to motivate your system again. It seems to work........worked for me when I hit a plateau a few months ago.0 -
Every body loses differently. You may want to try switching up your ratios... I just switched from 55/15/15 to 40/30/30 with success so far... Keep playing with it until you find something that works for you.0
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Are you eating 1350 net? if you aren't you should at least start with that.0
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since you're so close to goal, you don't really need to have it set at 1.5 pounds per week - I would suggest 1 pound at MOST, but half a pound is probably a better idea.0
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Are you taking any medication that could prevent you from losing? Always read the list of side effects on any medication.0
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First off cut out any sodas at all even diet sodas because they will hurt your cardio exercises. Second what is your goal weight? The closer you are to your goal the harder it is to loose. Your calories are fine but you need to try out the eliptical machine. I reccomend 110 strides per min for 15 mins for 2 weeks. Then 120 strides per min for 30 min for 3 weeks. Then 120 strides per min for 45 min for 4 weeks. You want to stay near your maximum heart rate but never cross it or youll stop burning fat. Also working out on an empty stomach guarentees fat loss so workout first thing in the morning if you can. I reccomend the eliptical every other day. Typically i loose a pound per workout so good luck to ya!0
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Shock your body! Over eat one day or skip dinner then breakfast the next day. But start drinking more water.Also if your sugar is from alot of fruit really cut your fruit back I had to. I was doing the same thing and finally just shocked my body and lost. Good luck and don't give up!!0
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You will probably get a lot of suggestions to eat more..................try it!
Your body might be in a rut, and you have to give it a "kick start" to motivate your system again. It seems to work........worked for me when I hit a plateau a few months ago.
Sounds like you probably need to eat more. You should be netting 1200 min. Example:
Eat 1500 calories. Exercise and burn 300. 1500-300=1200. I aim to net 1700. 1200 calories is not a whole lot and is the min.
Here is a BMR calculator. It will tell you how many calories your body need to function. It suggests subtracting 20% to lose weight.
3500 calories is 1lb. So if you are 500 calories under you will lose 1lb a week. 1000 calories under is 2lb a week.
However, if you are eating under what your body NEEDS for calories, it might send your body into starvation mode, and you will not lose.
Hope that helps some.0 -
With only 16lbs to go a goal of 1.5lbs/week may be too aggressive for you. here is a guide for setting weekly goals, and on top of the initial intake you should be eating at least most of your exercise calories back as well:
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.
The less you have to lose the less fat stores you have to pull from. The less fat you have to pull from the less your body wants to take any. So if your deficit is too large given your stats you will burn a large % of lean muscle. Doing the above also helps set you up for maintenance without a large increase in caloric intake all at once.0 -
I am aiming for 1240 calories a day to lose 1.5 pounds a week. I usually reach about 1350, but i try to exercise at least 600 calories off a day, but sometimes I only burn 250-400. I am always about 20g under my fat allowance, but my sugar intake always runs a little over. I try to drink about 32oz of water a day and I've been trying to limit soft drinks. My exercise varies from strength training, running, walking, or dancing.
I am not losing any weight. For about two months I have remained 146! What should I do?
I was in the same rut, so here is what I did and it's working great. up your calories, eat LESS Sugar, have little to no Lactose, dairy, yogurt, etc. only about 1 oz. a day.. Drink coconut milk if you like milk, the Vanilla is wonderful. I'm a huge cheese fan, but I cut it out for the most part, and lowered my carbs.. If you drink soda, you should stop, that sugar isn't good for you, the diet sodas are worse for you than the regular. With your combonation of sugar, dairy, and carbs those things are holding you back.. Once you hit your goal, you can up your dairy, but watch your wiehgt, if you start to gain then bring it back down.. I talked to a profesional about all of this last week because I work out 7 days a week, burning 4,000-5,000 caloried a week and was not losing an oz, until I started watching those three things and now it's flying off.0 -
I saw on Dr. Oz the other day that taking a cold shower when you get up in the morning jump starts your metabolism. I haven't tried it out, but it seems an easy change to make.0
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I saw on Dr. Oz the other day that taking a cold shower when you get up in the morning jump starts your metabolism. I haven't tried it out, but it seems an easy change to make.
Please ignore 99% of the stuff on Dr. OZ, he is full of S%^t and gets paid to push this crap.0 -
I read an excellent report about reaching a plateau just this week. It was long but good. The summary of it was that we have three factors we can control to lose weight - calories we eat, burning calories during exercise, and weight training (because more muscle burns more calories).
When we reach a plateau AND still need to lose more weight the suggestion is to pinpoint which of those three factors is the most "out of whack" and change it.
In other words, if you are eating very little but exercising and weight training at nice levels you might want to eat more for a while. Cool, eh?
If you're working like crazy in the gym every day and not losing weight - try cutting back on those intense workouts.
And if you're pumping iron like Arnold used to, ease off on the muscle building.
I've really oversimplified things, but hopefully you get the gist of what I'm saying. I'm sure you can do a little search and find the whole article. It really seems well thought out. Good luck to you. Plateaus are normal but it's nice to know that there's a bit of strategy to get past it rather than just continuing to do what we always have done.0 -
32oz of water - not enough.
cut carbs a bit and up protein. and maybe um, eat more.
sw 303.4 (1/1/11)
cw 196.4 (down 107lbs)
gw 1600 -
I am aiming for 1240 calories a day to lose 1.5 pounds a week. I usually reach about 1350, but i try to exercise at least 600 calories off a day, but sometimes I only burn 250-400. I am always about 20g under my fat allowance, but my sugar intake always runs a little over. I try to drink about 32oz of water a day and I've been trying to limit soft drinks. My exercise varies from strength training, running, walking, or dancing.
I am not losing any weight. For about two months I have remained 146! What should I do?
I hit this this as well. I exercise quite a bit so I just upped my daily cals to 1460 before exercise so lets see how that goes. I think that's the problem with 1200cals per day and the of exercise we are doing. I'm doing crossfit almost every day and running as well.0 -
I saw on Dr. Oz the other day that taking a cold shower when you get up in the morning jump starts your metabolism. I haven't tried it out, but it seems an easy change to make.
Please ignore 99% of the stuff on Dr. OZ, he is full of S%^t and gets paid to push this crap.
haha^^ well said sir0 -
I am aiming for 1240 calories a day to lose 1.5 pounds a week. I usually reach about 1350, but i try to exercise at least 600 calories off a day, but sometimes I only burn 250-400. I am always about 20g under my fat allowance, but my sugar intake always runs a little over. I try to drink about 32oz of water a day and I've been trying to limit soft drinks. My exercise varies from strength training, running, walking, or dancing.
I am not losing any weight. For about two months I have remained 146! What should I do?
If you're following MFP's guidelines, and have your setting set to not include your workouts (ie - you're set to something like sedentary and then logging your workouts), you'll find that it keeps track of your "NET" calorie intake. That is calories in, minus calories burned doing things like working out. If you're burning an average of, say 500 calories a day, and you eat 1240 calories, then your NET calories is 1240 - 500, or 700 calories.
MFP is based on the "fuel your workouts" mantra, so if you workout over and above your usual activity, then you need to eat more to compensate. Now, this works for some people and doesn't work for others, so if one way doesn't work, the other way might.
That said, according to your profile, you only have 16lbs to lose. That's not much, assuming you're close to the "normal" or "ideal" weight for your body type. Chances are, setting to lose 1.5lbs per week is too much of a deficit, so try reducing it to half a pound per week and see if that makes a difference.
Alternatively, you could throw the scale out entirely at this point and focus on body composition (ie - lower your body fat percentage). Stop eating at a deficit and eat at or above maintenance, adjusting your diet to be more protein based. Focus more on strength training than cardio. If you lift weights, start a heavy lifting program. If you do bodyweight stuff, start a program built on building muscle and burning fat. And no, you won't get bulky (women don't have the testosterone required to build large muscles), so don't even think about arguing that.0 -
drink more water
eat more0 -
make sure you are honestly logging.
This stuff goes in cycles, I was stuck at 235 for THREE MONTHS! Changed it up, ate less, exercised more, it is moving slowly, but moving!0 -
Unless you are really short or young, at your weight aiming to lose 1.5 pounds a week just won't happen. You should change it to .5-1 pound a week. Do you eat back most or all of your exercise calories? If not, you have a net way under 1200 and you won't lose weight , as you are finding out. The other thing, double your water. It is best to aim for half your weight in ounces of water every day.0
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I am aiming for 1240 calories a day to lose 1.5 pounds a week. I usually reach about 1350, but i try to exercise at least 600 calories off a day, but sometimes I only burn 250-400. I am always about 20g under my fat allowance, but my sugar intake always runs a little over. I try to drink about 32oz of water a day and I've been trying to limit soft drinks. My exercise varies from strength training, running, walking, or dancing.
I am not losing any weight. For about two months I have remained 146! What should I do?
1.5lbs a week is pretty aggressive at the size you are now. it sounds like you need to eat more, have you calculated your TDEE- total daily energy expenditure? then you cut your calories (500 per day) from that # my guess without knowing all your stats is that you should be around 1500 calories a day- not 1200 with your exercise you need to fuel your body due to the work you are putting it through- otherwise it will hold everything to keep your muscles and organs from shutting down.0 -
The eating more is so true. But dont just add to your regular meals a day. add an extra snack or post workout protien shake. You need to eat about every 3 hours to keep your metabolism up. Also every couple weeks you need to change up your exercise routine. Interval training is great and the internet has a lot of free training programs to get you started that tell you exactly what level to set the treadmil at for what length of time. hope this helps 0
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I was plateauing for about a month and a half. I thought I was doing great. 900-1100 calories (I am short, btw). The problem in my case was that I was allowing myself to not log calories and "eyeball it" on weekends. I would ESTIMATE 1200 cals.
The thing is, I'm a bad estimator. Most people are. I sat down and did the math one day and revealed to my SURPRISE that I was actually eating back nearly every single calorie I'd burned during the week of logging.
If you're not logging everything everyday, that's probably the problem.
You can try eating more to lose weight, but the fact is, your metabolism isn't going to get so stunted that netting 1200 calories is going to plateau you, unless you are like 4'9" or something. The body isn't exactly a simple machine, but if you're burning more than you are eating, your body has to shed fat or die. Starvation mode doesn't make you stop losing weight. If that were true, people who come out of labor camps or starve themselves on purpose wouldn't be traditionally dangerously thin. You are not dying, so my guess is there's some missing logs, calorie underestimation, or burn overestimation happening somewhere.
Eating more can still work, though. Getting more energy (but still little enough to have a deficit) can make you feel better and be less likely to eat something you shouldn't on a day where you might be trying to "eyeball it"
Log everyday, log everything, if you drink sodas or other drinks that aren't water, log those too.0 -
I am aiming for 1240 calories a day to lose 1.5 pounds a week. I usually reach about 1350, but i try to exercise at least 600 calories off a day, but sometimes I only burn 250-400. I am always about 20g under my fat allowance, but my sugar intake always runs a little over. I try to drink about 32oz of water a day and I've been trying to limit soft drinks. My exercise varies from strength training, running, walking, or dancing.
I am not losing any weight. For about two months I have remained 146! What should I do?
I'm a little confused. Are you saying that you eat 1350 calories, and then burn off 250-400 of that with exercise? If so, then you are ending up with a net of 950-1100 calories? That would be waaaay too low, and that could be your problem right there. If that's what you are doing, you need to eat a lot more. Try eating like 1550, then burn off about 250 so you end up with a net of 1300.
I also agree with the comment of not necessarily eating more per meal, but eating more often instead. Eat a little bit every time you feel hungry, then drink a bunch of water.0 -
Listen to Eric, your goal is way too aggressive. You need to set your goal to 1/2 lb per week and you should be aiming to eat back 50-75% of your exercise calories. Another approach is to include exercise in your TDEE calculation which would put you around 1800 calories a day. Below is a good article on why you aren't losing.
http://www.bodyrecomposition.com/fat-loss/why-big-caloric-deficits-and-lots-of-activity-can-hurt-fat-loss.html0 -
Just wondering....what kinds of foods should one eat when needing to increase calories but not carbs, sugars, or fats? Any recipes or suggestions?0
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Just wondering....what kinds of foods should one eat when needing to increase calories but not carbs, sugars, or fats? Any recipes or suggestions?
Why would you not want to increase fats? They are very healthy for you. The improve skin, nails, hair, and improve organ function. And dietary fat doesn't' make you fat. Sugar is a carb and as long as you fall into your macro's or more importantly, your calories, then you will be fine. But if you want lean choices, peanuts, nuts, avocado, eggs, chicken, or really any meat.0 -
Thanks for all the help. Because I am not eating back any of those calories worked off, I guess I'm not eating enough to keep my body fueled. I had no idea that 1.5 pounds a week was too aggressive. I thought like 5 pounds away from the goal weight was really close. I am going to up my calorie intake and aim to lose about a pound a week and see how that goes. Thanks again and good luck to everyone else!0
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