Scared to eat more

Is that 1350 cals/day on a sedentary lifestyle? If so, log your exercises and eat most/all of those calories back. Also, you should be aiming for a 0.5 pound/week loss -- 1 pound a week is too fast when you're so very close to a BMI of 20. I'm 5' 4" too, and also aiming for 8.5 stone.

Try adding some strength training into your routine. I'm 5'4" and started at 145. I was never able to get below 130 until I started lifting. No matter how I ate, I always stayed between 130 and 140. I even took a break from lifting for a month and my weight went down, but measurements stayed the same for that month. I've found it really makes a difference.

My calorie intake is 1250--it was 1200 but i moved it up by 50...i find it somewhat easy to eat these calories and be good but at times i would have an unhealthy snack that would take me over the amount but with getting my exercise in and sticking to the 1250 which was approved by my doctor..i've lose 28lbs since Jan. 2012 9 of those being on here since i started 2 or 3 weeks ago. I just have to find better food options like 2% milk which im going lower to fat free next week and fiber one cereal and just not eating out but making things at home...you can do it!!

1500 in total should be fine, after 4 weeks you can nudge it up or down accordingly.

Lightly active - I'm a secondary school teacher so on my feet all day! Will aim to eat exercise calories so total I consume a day will be around 1500 - does that sound about right? My goal for a pound a week says 1282. For half a pound its 1580 - both without exercise calories. Just confused with all this talk of eating more to lose more!!

If you can, try for 1500 net (total will be more). If you lose too much weight, too quickly, you run the risk of loose or saggy skin, and/or of losing muscle mass and not just fat... plus it's easier to limit to 1500 net than, say, 1200 total, which is a mistake I once made. If you're worried about eating too much, go to http://www.myfitnesspal.com/tools/bmr-calculator and see what your BMR is -- you shouldn't consume below that figure a day, as that's what you'd need to survive in a coma.

Some of it is a bit trial and error, as most things are estimates -- for comparison I'm sedentary, the same height as you, 130 pounds, and my net calorie target for a 0.5 pound loss a week is 1330 cals/day. I eat back my exercise calories so usually eat a total of 1440 a day (I don't do much exercise, but when I do do more, I'll eat those extra calories back too). As you're more active the 1500 net sounds about right.

Plateau. Your body is sending a message is time to mix things up.
Definitively include some strength/weights in your workout routine and slowly try changing the protein/fat/carbs ratios in your diet (little more protein and fat than what you're doing now).

At equal weight, the body with the higher body fat burns less calories than the counterpart with lower body fat. Usually first stages of weight loss lowers both fat and muscle (cardio is a beauty for this purpose).
In average, the ratio of fat loss is higher than that of muscle loss for most people. Once near or at their target weight the cardio intensive workout programs do not work as they did in the first stages. Need to do strength/weights so the muscle mass increases and changes the body composition (at same weight you have more muscle and less fat).

With more muscle you'll need to eat more because your body will burn more calories.

Good luck

One week of no-loss is NOT a plateau

She's having results at a rate that the FIRST week of no loss prompted her to post here. In light of her progress of some weight loss every week, the first week of no loss IS a plateau.

It all depends on perspective but it is hard for people that stop at the first line of a several sentence post and have the urge of replying back with nothing to add to the OP.
Care to entertain us with the definition of a plateau? How about something to help the OP?

Care to entertain us with the definition of a plateau?

one such definition is the absence of a reduction in weight or measurements for one month.

Thanks.

Source?? Any statistics or medical articles to shed light as to how did they come up with the "one month" number? Why not 2 weeks? or 6 weeks for that matter?

I was just about to develop a medical condition that led me into research about nutrition and experimenting how my own body reacts to certain types of food. It's no a lab level research, very home made but diligently documented. In my research, plateaus, referring to weight loss, are just a generic way to refer to stages in which the body gets too efficient given a certain level of activity with a given level of calorie intake. Basically it learns to perform the same routine burning less and less calories every time. That's why, once on this stage, there are minimal or no results in either weight or measurement reduction.

However, regarding timing of the plateaus, how long, how often, how soon they show up is one of the biggest grey areas in the weight loss topic. Varies a lot from person to person. One common pattern though, is what usually works for most people to break away from the plateau and it is change. Change mixes and shifts the metabolism as the body has to "learn" to be efficient with the new set of activities. Changing can be introduced in a myriad ways: Length and/or intensity of workout session. A different activity (running, biking, swimming, etc). Strength (weight lifting).

Change also involves nutrition: all calories are not created equal (another topic of discussion) and fine tuning the protein/fat/carbs ratios in your calorie intake works wonders towards weight loss and overall health in general.

In my opinion, plateaus need a context in order to exist. It's all perspective based on the context of the individual. For someone in a multi year journey from 400-500 pounds perhaps a month is insignificant and not consider as a plateau whereas someone going for a 10# target losing a pound a week having to wait for a month with no changes before declaring themselves in a plateau would look like a waste of time.