2 week stall...upped calories and exercie...Need Advice

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MKloste
MKloste Posts: 56 Member
in Health and Weight Loss
Okay so I weigh myself every Sunday (sometimes I will weigh myself on Wednesday too if I feel like I need an extra push)...but for the past 2 weeks I have been at the same weight. When I first started I was losing rather steadily averaging about 2-4lbs a week. Now all of a sudden it seems as though I have stalled and the needle is just not moving and no my scale is not broken :-)

I thought maybe I needed to up my calories since I have started exercising more, so I upped my calorie intake from 1200 to 1400 just to test out the water first, I didn't want to increase it too much as first until I saw whether or not it was working. I have even mixed up my workout doing cardio and strength training and on the days I don't feel like doing a hardcore cardio or strength training exercise I will go for a mile long walk with the dog, so each day I am getting some type of exercise.

I try to eat all of my exercise calories back as well, sometime I might not eat all of them back, if I burn more then 350 calories I usually will have about 100 calories that did not eat consumed back.

I have also started taking measurements of my waist, arms, hips, etc so I can track that as well as sometimes those are the best indicates for whether or not you are still being successful...I have only started doing this for the past 2 weeks though and have been tracking my calories and weight for the past 8 weeks so there was a big gap in between tracking the different methods of weight loss.

I know that sometimes it takes your body awhile to adjust, I am just wondering if anybody else might have any helpful advise or just plain motivation just so I don't get discouraged.

Thanks!

Replies

  • jenniejengin
    jenniejengin Posts: 785 Member
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    I wish I had advise for you. I am having simular problems. Good luck
  • pinkita
    pinkita Posts: 779 Member
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    Click "Tools" and calculate your BMR. Make sure to not eat less than that # in daily calories because it will slow down your metabolism.

    What also worked for me was focusing more on weights and a lot less cardio.

    Good luck!
  • pinkita
    pinkita Posts: 779 Member
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    I wish I had advise for you. I am having simular problems. Good luck

    What is your weight loss goal set to on MFP? If it's not already set to lose 0.5lbs per week, try that. I've seen that advice given to many people like you (who are close to goal) and it seems to always work for them.
  • lauest
    lauest Posts: 11
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    Sympathies to you!
    I'm in the same boat, although I have been trying to net at least my BMR of 1440 - are you making sure you are eating net calories when you say you are eating 1400? With all the exercise you are doing, your body certainly needs fuel. I'm trying to not get hung up on that number on the scales - the way the clothes fit, how you look, cm/inches lost etc, are better indicators of changes sometimes I think (or at least thats what I'm telling myself at the moment because I haven't seen a shift in the scales either over the last week and a half. I'm blaming it on PMS though! Hello fluid retention!)
    Give it another few weeks - and try to ignore those scales! Look for other signs of weight/fat loss. Stay motivated, as I read recently, weight loss is not a linear journey...
    Good luck!
  • hottiebikerchick
    hottiebikerchick Posts: 187 Member
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    I've been there for a month and I upped cals about 300 and am walking more and finally broke the stall last weekend- that stall sucked!
  • Crazy4Healthy
    Crazy4Healthy Posts: 626 Member
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    Make sure you are eating enough and give it a just a bit of time. I increased my calories the same way a few weeks back and it did take a couple of weeks for my body to adjust, I am now losing again. Just make sure you really are eating enough and don't be afraid to adjust a bit more if you are working out hard. Also consider that if you are doing lots of lifting, you could be losing inches even if you aren't losing pounds. I found my pants were getting looser even when the pounds weren't moving.
  • juliekaiser1988
    juliekaiser1988 Posts: 604 Member
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    Okay so I weigh myself every Sunday (sometimes I will weigh myself on Wednesday too if I feel like I need an extra push)...but for the past 2 weeks I have been at the same weight. When I first started I was losing rather steadily averaging about 2-4lbs a week. Now all of a sudden it seems as though I have stalled and the needle is just not moving and no my scale is not broken :-)

    I thought maybe I needed to up my calories since I have started exercising more, so I upped my calorie intake from 1200 to 1400 just to test out the water first, I didn't want to increase it too much as first until I saw whether or not it was working. I have even mixed up my workout doing cardio and strength training and on the days I don't feel like doing a hardcore cardio or strength training exercise I will go for a mile long walk with the dog, so each day I am getting some type of exercise.

    I know that sometimes it takes your body awhile to adjust, I am just wondering if anybody else might have any helpful advise or just plain motivation just so I don't get discouraged.

    Thanks!

    Is the 12-1400 calories NET?????
  • MKloste
    MKloste Posts: 56 Member
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    Click "Tools" and calculate your BMR. Make sure to not eat less than that # in daily calories because it will slow down your metabolism.

    What also worked for me was focusing more on weights and a lot less cardio.

    Good luck!

    I have set everything to MFP for BMR and also went to this website that a lot of people on here refer to http://www.fat2fitradio.com/tools/bmr/
    and have calculated my numbers based on that, and I set MFP calorie intake to what their recommendations were. I also started taking my measurements of my waist, arms, hips, etc and have noticed that they went down 1/2 an inch even though the scale said I still weighed the same so as long as some numbers are going down whether that be measurements or weight I am fine. I am just not wanting to plateau all the way around. And I try to eat all of my exercise calories back, so I am usually netting about 1400 calories. My body fat percentage is in the middle range of where I should be for my height and age so since I am so close to my goal weight and where I should be body fat I know that the last 10 lbs are always the hardest to lose and those 10 lbs are exactly where I am at now it seems like.
  • LindaLouLu
    LindaLouLu Posts: 271 Member
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    I stalled for 3 weeks. Turned out it was a problem in my food diary. Too much Sodium and I wasn't tracking it. So I changed that.
    I also adjusted my fitness level and the loss per week goals. It's set at -2 now and I'm averaging about 1lb per week, which is fine, cause slow and steady wins the race, right? I've also started allowing "Cheat or Spike" days where I go OVER my daily calories by 100-200 and keep the rest of the week within limits. I changed from just cardio, to weights & then Cardio or alternating days depending on the exertion level of the prior day. Once I changed everything up it took about a week for my body to get the message (hence being stalled for 3 weeks)

    Hopefully someone has something that can help you. All I can tell you is what I did and tell you to stick with it. You've got this!! It just takes some tweaks and peaks to get it started up again.

    Also, if you don't already, you might want to try eating a portion of your exercise calories back. That was also helpful to get it moving again.
    And, the scale isn't the only thing to show if you "lose" try measurements too ;) I've only lost 1lb/per week for a month, but I lost up to 3.5 inches in places!

    Good Luck to you!! :flowerforyou:
  • mimieob
    mimieob Posts: 54
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    Okay so I weigh myself every Sunday (sometimes I will weigh myself on Wednesday too if I feel like I need an extra push)...but for the past 2 weeks I have been at the same weight. When I first started I was losing rather steadily averaging about 2-4lbs a week. Now all of a sudden it seems as though I have stalled and the needle is just not moving and no my scale is not broken :-)

    I thought maybe I needed to up my calories since I have started exercising more, so I upped my calorie intake from 1200 to 1400 just to test out the water first, I didn't want to increase it too much as first until I saw whether or not it was working. I have even mixed up my workout doing cardio and strength training and on the days I don't feel like doing a hardcore cardio or strength training exercise I will go for a mile long walk with the dog, so each day I am getting some type of exercise.

    I know that sometimes it takes your body awhile to adjust, I am just wondering if anybody else might have any helpful advise or just plain motivation just so I don't get discouraged.

    Thanks!

    I did the same thing, 2 weeks nothing lost...went over cals for a couple days the 3rd week and lost 3 lbs, soooo, I have upped my cals intake, so I'm hoping it works for me, good luck...you just kinda got to see what works for you....
  • bjohs
    bjohs Posts: 1,225 Member
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    We should be giving our bodies constant change as it becomes more efficient at burning calories. If you have done a certain routine for a number of weeks or months, it may be time to change. Change your workouts and change the types of food you are eating. Keep that body guessing! Good luck!

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