Weight Loss Plateau?

[AndyDandyPandy]

Ok, So I've been exercising 7 to 6 days a week for about 2 months now. Lost 47lb so far.

Was 292lb now 245lb. Age: 26 Height: 5'8

I've hit the plateau. But I don't get it. I weigh in every Monday. I lost 5 lb the week before. Then the following week I lost 0 lb

My routine is 3miles of walking/running intervals on the treadmil with inclines. Plus P90X.

Yes I do it 7 days a week, 6 if I'm busy on sat or sun.

My calorie intake per day is around 1200-1500. If I had to explain what I eat, I would just say HEALTHY!

I am aware that every 3500 calorie is a lb lost. So how is it possible that I lost 0lb after 1 week of hard training and a low fat/calorie healthy diet? I'm sure my calorieIN/CalorieOut should result to more than 3500 calorie burned weekly. Not even half a lb that I lost. 

I've already read many articles about weight loss plateau. All I see people talk about to get pass it is change your work out routine, work harder, cut more calories. But I think I am already doing enough. P90X has a different workout everyday. If I consume less than 1000 calorie that would be insane. Plus I can't do 5miles and 2 P90X videos per day because I have a life.

Even though I've hit the plateau, I am nowhere near quitting, just frustrated. Just wandering how is this possible? How did you get pass this? Any tips/advice/story is appreciated. 

Hoping for some replies. Thanks for reading.

[Dominique]

It’s probably a case of metabolic adaptation, expected after a large weight loss that occured in a short period of time. I suggest you watch Dr. Kevin Hall’s lecture The Calculus of Calories: Quantitative Obesity Research. I mentioned it in this post a few months back.

[A_Lurker]

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@AndyDandyPandy wrote:

My calorie intake per day is around 1200-1500. If I had to explain what I eat, I would just say HEALTHY!

I am aware that every 3500 calorie is a lb lost. So how is it possible that I lost 0lb after 1 week of hard training and a low fat/calorie healthy diet? I'm sure my calorieIN/CalorieOut should result to more than 3500 calorie burned weekly. Not even half a lb that I lost. 

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You're not losing weight because you are starving your body and it's fighting back.  Trust me, I understand the desire to lose all the weight as quickly as possible.  Athough not my top weight, I started Feb 2nd at 360 pounds.  Today I am 291.8 (it will change tomorrow, but I needed a number to put in).  I have averaged just over 2 pounds a week, and you're probably going to freak out, but:

I eat 2500 calories a day

I do no formal exercise

(I do move around a fair bit at work, I swim most nights, I lift weights less often than I'd like, I garden.)

Yep, that's it.  In the past when I've tried to do what you are doing I could drop weight quickly, then it would stop.  I'd get discouraged, fall off the wagon, and gain it back... and then some.  A little tough love here - you're doing too much on too few calories.  The problem is that you have likely supressed your metabolism at the moment and if you decide to eat more calories you'll likely start to gain.  I'm not sure how slowly you should raise your calories, but you need to start doing that now.  Maybe only a couple of hundred calories a day for a week, then the same... slowly.  If you can manage to change both at once I would suggest that you take a couple of days of rest at the same time.  Sore muscles will retain water as well.  I often find on the days I consider myself a slug (just medium paced walking, no lifting, reading a book) I will drop a couple of pounds, which I assume is water.

For others who start at higher weights (not just you)... you need to eat more!  Weight loss plateaus are probably unavoidable.  If you start too low, what the heck are you going to go down to.  This applies to pretty much anyone.  You need to feed your body, not just healthy foods, but enough food.  If you start where you should (food-wise) it gives you something to change when you hit those plateaus.  If you are eating almost nothing and working out like a fiend, what are you going to change...

Over the past 10 years I have done the seriously undereating, seriously too much working out stuff.  I landed myself in the hospital the first time for almost 3 weeks.  Canadians here will understand what that means.  The guy across the hall with the heart attack went home and came back while I was there.  Gained a little back, but coasted for years around 100 pounds down from my top weight.  Life changes and such and I started to gain it back.  This time I thought I knew better, but seriously did pretty much the same thing again.  I could not bring myself to eat more but boy did I ramp up the activity level.  It was not unusual for me to do 5-10km a day... mostly walking, but intervals as I got lighter.  Did heavy lifting 3 days a week, and had a job where I was on my feet most of the day.  This time I did not end up in the hospital but had dangerously low iron (never did find the reason) and while doing this investigation they found another issue I had probably had more than a decade that required surgery.  I very much do have an all or nothing attitude about a lot of things.

This time, with my learned experiences, the tools - scale, trendweight.com, food scale, and my Charge HR that tells me how many calories I burn a day I realized at this stage of my weight loss I do need to move around some, but not as much as I have in the past.  I also need to eat plenty.  As I lose the weight (and burn less) I can ramp up the activity then... and maybe even keep the food where it is.

[JohnRi · Accepted solution]

Hi Andy, you didn't say if you were male or female.  If you are male, then you are eating too little.  If you are female, you can drop it a litte more.  Women should eat at least 1200-1300 calories a day, and men 1800 calories.  Eating too little will stall weight loss.

A one week no drop is nothing to be concerned with.  Number one you weigh can fluctuate 5 lbs a day.  So a weekly weigh in is useless.  Taking your weight daily, and using a weekly average give you a better idea of weight loss.

4 Days ago I 203, 2 days ago 199, and today 203.  Catch the right low day, and you think wow I lost 4 lbs! 

Keep at it, and it takes time to lose weight!

[A_Lurker]

@JohnRi - respectfully I disagree.  Male or female, this person lost 47 pounds in 2 months.  They are working out 6 or 7 days a week*, running 3 miles a day, weighing 245 pounds, and only eating 1200-1500.  Even if the poster is a woman, dropping calories is not a good idea.

*I know I've seen the P90X stuff around.  It's a combination of high heart rate cardio and resistance training (may have some core work as well)

[JSp78]

Hi Andy, I agree with the other lady that said you're eating too little. You are! You're starving yourself and your body is in survival mode holding on to whatever it has. 
I admire your heart and hard work and your desire to stay healthy but if you indeed want to be healthy, your eating is going to have to increase. My husband who weighs 204 is doing a program and eating 2100-2400 daily to keep up. It's also one of Tony Horton's programs and yes, he has us running like crazy (fun though!). If you don't mind me asking, how did you come accross P90X? Tony's programs come with the complete package meaning, it should include a meal plan that has the caloric intake needed to reach your goal.
If you're missing something, please contact me and we can see what all you need.
Don't starve yourself. It might work for a while but you'll end up with no energy, you could hurt yourself, I'm going to guess you might be eating good food but not enough which leads to being malnurished...
Up your calories, you need it and you'll be stronger to continue this journey you're on. 

Good luck and stay strong and committed! 🙂

[Dominique]

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@A_Lurker wrote:

Male or female, this person lost 47 pounds in 2 months.

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Yes, 6 lbs per week cannot be sustainable. It’s a case of wanting to achieve too much too fast. @JohnRi: why don’t you show the timeline of your own weight loss so far, since you started at roughly the same weight as the OP?

[AndyDandyPandy]

Thanks for the kind reviews. I will take them into consideration. I love my FitBit and so far liking this community.

Yes, it's true I am eating less than my intended calories. 

Yes, it's true that I want quick results. 

I could eat more. But the thing is I feel full, happy, and energized at 1200-1500 calories/day.

If I eat anymore I feel bloated, heavy, uncomfortable, and guilty. I really don't feel like I'm starving myself because I am satisfied when I eat. My ego is also happy to the point where it doesn't beg me to eat more. I have enough energy to do my workouts. I drink average 6 bottles of 24oz water. Pretty much what I'm saying is I never let myself starve and make myself suffer because I want to lose weight. I am pretty much happy where I am. Just not happy that i didn't lose nothing in a week when I trained so hard and expected some results. To me, weigh in day and seeing results is a much better feeling than receiving a paycheck.

So this is my progress, I only did P90X at first. Wanting more results I decided to add 1.5miles of walking to my routine. Then I decided to push harder and add another 1.5miles. So it's 1.5mile/P90X/1.5miles.

Now I'm doing intervals walking/running to crank it up since I feel stronger.

I lost about 1lb everyday or every other day. I weigh myself everyday then. After losing about 40lb, my weight loss started declining. So I switched to only weighing in on Mondays. So then I hit the plateau.

So the science behind weight loss is 3500 calories. I burn more than that in a week probably 3x or more according to my calculations. Why is the science not showing? Am I burning fewer calories now? Am I burning none? I am breathing hard, heart pumping, drowning in sweat 7 days a week. 4 Hours of my day I dedicate it to working out and being active.

Just frustrated guys. But I am still going strong, still have a lot of energy, motivation, and will power. I won't give in because I didn't lose the pounds I was anticipating. I will update you guys on Monday to see if anything change.

Thank you for taking your time to read.

[AndyDandyPandy]

@JSp78 My brother introduced me to P90X. I don't really go to the gym so P90X is the perfect all around workout program for me at home. I love the different categories of workout that P90X provides. It's probably the hardest workout that I've ever done and I like it. Tony Horton is a cool dude. I like how the way he motivates people to do their best and forget the rest and adjusting the exercise to your level. 

It does come with a nutrition plan but I am on a tight budget and can't be spending money on additional foods/supplements for myself. 

[Dominique]

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@AndyDandyPandy wrote:

So the science behind weight loss is 3500 calories. I burn more than that in a week probably 3x or more according to my calculations. Why is the science not showing? 

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At 26 / 5’8" / 245, your calculated BMR is 2066 (assuming you’re a male). You are eating 500-700 calories below your BMR. Now, science says this is not good. Especially since you’re having an incredibly high activity level at the same time. The plateau is your body’s response to what you’re submitting it to.

[A_Lurker]

Sigh... what's happening is that when you are not exercising your body is now burning less to make up for the fact that you aren't feeding it enough.  You may talk yourself into it, but you stall in weight loss is telling you that it doesn't believe you.  You didn't gain the weight at 6 lbs/week so it's not realistic to lose it at that rate.  Note that most of the Biggest Loser contestants eventually gained their weight back.  Maybe @JohnRi will give you the benefit of his experience.  I think you want someone here to say 'do this' and you'll go back to losing 6 lbs/week.  I'm not sure we can help with that, well, I know I can't.  Best of luck.

I don't think you've been at it long enough to need a metabolism reset, but if you take the time to read this you might understand the concept a little more:  http://eatmore2weighless.com/the-metabolism-reset-guide/

[AndyDandyPandy]

Trust me, I can gain 6lb in a week if I want to. Too bad I ain't going there anymore.

Besides, when you're eating healthy, it's hard to hit 2000 calories unless I throw in 2 burgers into my diet. Everything healthy is low calorie besides your carbs and protein. And you know carbs and protein makes you full quick so that's probably 5-600calories per meal to satisfy your hunger. I try my best to eat a lot and now that I have my fitbit I'm able to log my calories per day and it only reaches 1300-1500. I feel full and energized, trust me. I was 50lb heavier than I am today. I used to eat even when I'm full, I eat when I feel like it, it was a hobby. I would just go try out new things at fast foods because I can. My ego tells me to eat. As of now eating 1500 calories feels like when I was eating 3-4000 calories a day. The difference is that I'm full and energetic instead of feeling bloated, tired, and lazy. I truly think I can't hit 2000 calories unless I throw in some fatty food or the food they call cheat meals and it's not because I'm restricting myself or starving myself to lose weight.

Trust me, I was a heavy weight eater, but when all you eat is complex carbs, lean protein, vegetables and fruits, it is not easy to hit 2000 calories w/o feeling full unless you force yourself or you just love to eat more than I do. 

[Dominique]

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@AndyDandyPandy wrote:

when all you eat is complex carbs, lean protein, vegetables and fruits, it is not easy to hit 2000 calories w/o feeling full

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Yes, eating nutrient-dense food is the right thing to do when you want to control your intake. The problem is you drastically reduced your intake by doing this, while at the same time increasing your activity to an extremely high level, thus creating a deficit much larger than needed. You’re now stuck with a very low metabolism. You can’t further decrease your intake (since it’s already very low), and you can’t further increase your activity (since it’s already very high). You will need to restore your metabolism before you can resume your weight loss.  

[JohnRi · Accepted solution]

I find it funny.  Every time I tell someone they are eating too little, they immediately respond, I don't feel hungry.  I feel fine.  I'm buring 5000 calories, and eating 1200, why am I not losing weight?

Because you are eating too little is the answer.  And every time, no one, and I mean no one, ever wants to believe that. 

This is how your body works. 

You body burns on glucose.  Doesn't matter what you eat, it gets converted to glucose.  Extra glucose is converted to glycogen.  Glycogen is stored in your muscles and liver.  Extra Glycogen is stored as fat.

Carbs are the easist thing for your body to convert to glucose.  Protein is used to repair you muscles, any extra is converted to glucose next.  Fat in your diet is the hardest for you body to convert to glucose, and is done last.  If you exercise a lot your body gets better at converting fat.

When you don't eat enough, you body has to either convert your muscle or your fat to glucose.  So once your body runs out of carbs and protein to convert, it looks at how much you are eating.  Doesn't matter if you FEEL full or not.  If you are not eating enough fat, you body won't convert any fat you are eating into glucose.  Instead it burns your unused muscles, and then stores the fat you are eating.

Yeah you lose weight, you lose muscle weight, and add fat to your body.

The only way to lose fat off your body is if you eat enough calories you body burns the fat you eat, and then you have to eat enough so that what when your body has burned all that you have eaten, you body again decides to burn muscle or fat stores based on your calories eaten.  So this is a second check to see if you eat enough, and again if you don't eat enough,your body burns muscle.

You lose muscles you don't use.  Like muscle on your toes, fingers, back of the neck, shoulders, triceps....

So you think you are eating enought, in reality you lose muscle, and you get fatter.  And you wonder why am I not losing weight.

If you have a Aria or other scale you can see for yourself as your fat % goes up and up, while your weight goes down. 

Severals of us have said you are not eating enough, and you don't want to hear that.  Like so many people trying to lose weight,you have in your head that I need to eat less to lose weight.

What you need to do is enough to not starve your body, but not over eat and gain weight. 

I have lost about 10 lbs of lean mass.  I have lost around 70 lbs of fat.  I did it by carefully monitoring my fat %, and increasing my diet when I saw my fat % going up.  

I'm about 17 lbs from being in the normal weight range.  My current estimate fat % should be 28%.  However it's 23.8.  19% is normal. 

I eat about 2500 calories a day, and lose 1/2 to 1 lbs a week now.  Which is exactly what I'm expecting. 

So you may feel fine, but I'm almost 100% certain you lose muscle every day, and are gaining fat.  They only way you can avoid this, is if you exercise every muscle in your body.  You body won't burn muscle you use every day.  You'd have to spend abour 3 - 4 hours a day lifting weights, and working the machines.

Good luck. 

[AndyDandyPandy]

Thanks for the information, It was very informative.

I am still losing weight. I just weigh in today and I lost 5lb after 2 weeks.

I'm slowly adding more carbs to my diet (I was on a low carb diet) and adding more calories to my diet.

Instead of weighing myself weekly, I'm choosing to weigh myself daily in the morning now so I can keep track of my progress more accurately and taking the average at the end of the week. Some people hate themselves when they gain or lose nothing the next day but I am over that. I've accepted that this will be a long journey. Weighing myself weekly will hurt me more than daily because of weight fluctuatation, which caused this thread that we are discussing.

I may or may not be losing more muscle than fat but I do a lot of resistance training and I feel I am getting stronger and fitter weekly so I'm not gonna complain there.

But what you guys said is true, I do need to eat more and it is something that I didn't know before because what most trainer or just any individual always say is eat less so I think I took that too far though it has helped me lost 50lb. I'll do my best to add in a few more hundred calories slowly.

Losing weight the right way or not, I'm not going to complain since I am no fitness expert, but I'm learning as I come here to FitBit Community and through reasearching. What I do know is that what I'm doing is working and I'm happy, feeling great, sleeping well, looking better, more confidence, and still motivated with undying will power. 

Thanks for the reply and Thanks for reading. 

Be healthy and stay healthy my friends.

[Dominique]

Regarding weighing yourself daily and taking averages: the Fitbit app calculates the weekly average for you, so you don’t have to do it yourself. Especially convenient if you have a Fibit Aria scale (or another similar scale that syncs with Fitbit, like the Withings), since you don’t have to manually log anything either.

I also highly recommend using Trendweight, which is free and can be linked to your Fitbit account and pull weight and body fat data from there. Again, it’s especially convenient if you have a smart scale that can sync with your Fitbit account.

Increasing carbs will cause your weight to go up, but this is primarily water, as your glycogen stores get replenished (with 1 gram of carb comes 3 grams of water). So nothing to worry here. On the contrary, the increased carbs will make you feel more energetic.

[TexasTommy]

Losing 50 pounds in two months and eating too little calories is not good for long term success and your health. Virtaully all health professioanls reccomend 2 lbs of weight loss per week for long term success. At the 25 lbs per month rate you are three times that. You are on a crash diet and long term  it will be detrimental to your health. I would highly advise you see a doctor/nutrtionist to formulate a long term sustainable weightloss program.

[extra_medium]

People who are starving do not maintain their weight, nor do they gain weight.  It is physically impossible to not lose weight if you are consuming fewer calories than you burn.  Your metabolism may slow slightly in very extreme cases, but you will still lose weight if you're in a caloric deficit.

What's infinitely more probable is that the OP is either under-estimating how many calories he's eating (likely), or over-estimating how many he's burning (more likely), or both (most likely). 

Whatever level he was at was working for a while, until he lost enough weight to be at equilibrium for his current intake/burn.  Now he's at maintenance, so weightloss has stalled.  If the plateau lasts for a couple weeks, you have to get back into a caloric deficit which will mean consuming less, or burning more, or a little of both.  It doesn't sell books, but it's really that simple.

[AndyDandyPandy]

It's not exactly 50lb in 2 month. 

I've started since January this year(292lb). Though not so serious about it I did what I could, I just did my workout regardless of how intense it was and my diet was not bad but not great either. Been going at it until late April when Exams, Research Paper, and Finals were coming up (I was a college student, last semester, DONE!). Stressing out, I stopped working out and didn't watch my diet anymore. I lost about 20lb during that period and gained some back.

I started again late June, possibly 6/20 until now. This time I'm more efficient on my workouts and more considerable of the calories I'm eating because I count them this time(no more college stress). When I weighed myself during that time I was 275-280 so i gained like a good 8lb. Today I am 237. So looking at 6/20 until now I lost 3.3lb per week(11wks) which is 1lb more than the average 2lb/week but not totally overboard because I am a heavy guy for my height.

Also I don't buy those rumors that say if you lose weight fast you will fail long term because you can only fail if you go back to your old habits. If you are fully committed, strong willed, dedicated, and learned from your past mistake, nothing can stop you from succeeding and living a healthier lifestyle. Losing weight and maintaining it to me is just a discipline to become a better human being in making decisions that will impact his/her health.

Update on my progress: I've recently added 150-200 calories more protein and 300 calories of carb to my diet per day and also I'm eating more vegetables too and I'm seeing great results. Weighing in each day now I am losing weight. I know weight fluctuates but who cares, going down is always a better sight.

Thanks guys for telling me I need to eat more. I think it's the carbs that is helping me. 100% whole oats! Yum!

[A_Lurker]

Okay, so it is slower and that's not how you originally presented your loss.  It's not that losing fast automatically means you'll gain it back.  Often people change their diets radically and can't maintain that way of eating.  When the deficit is too large something has to give.

I'll use myself as an example, and although I've lost more weight, I need to start with when I started tracking my food in mid-March.  I could break it out a number of ways, but I did roughly 1 month periods.

Mar 15 - Apr 14    In:  2194    Out:  3566      Loss:  15.9 lbs      <-- intial counting, big loss

Apr 15 - May 14   In:  2060    Out:  3660      Loss:  5.7 lbs        <-- by straight numbers, should be higher

May 15 - Jun 14   In:  2240    Out:  3624      Loss:  12.3 lbs      <-- ate more, started to lose more

Jun 15 - Jul 14     In:  2471    Out:  3395      Loss:   5.7 lbs       <-- ate at maintenance for 10 days

Jul 15 - Aug 14    In:  2563    Out:  3730      Loss:   9.6 lbs       <-- eating more, burning more, losing well

So, with the numbers at the start I was hitting big losses.  My solution was to eat less (this is a failing I have) and the weight loss slowed down.  I ate a little more and I started to lose faster.  The June - July is an odd one as I took a maintenance week in the middle there (actually 10 days) and ate exactly what it said I burned.  I also rested more, so I wasn't moving around as much.  After that I made a point to keep my calories higher (although I do now cap my intake at 2500 calories, even on higher burn days).

Here's the thing - this is an almost 50 pound drop, I'm eating 300 calories a day more (although I have increased my calories burned a bit).  As I continue to lose weight I may not be able to keep up the calories burned.  I might though as I'm now usually able to make up any missed steps and/or calories burned at the end of the day where before I didn't have the energy to.  I know I almost certainly will have to cut calories at some point.  However, cutting calories from 2500 a day will be a lot easier than cutting them from say 2000 calories a day (which is where I was headed in the Apr-May time frame above).

Also, since I started tracking body fat just over three months ago I've lost 27.8 lbs of body fat, and gained 6 lbs of lean mass.  These are likely not accurate, and they are from trendweight.com - however, it makes me feel that both are moving in the right direction.  I've spent way too much of my life dropping weight using unsustainable methods, then gaining it back (with a few friends) that I'm very wary of quick losses.  I'm not saying it won't work for you, but your initial post was about how quickly you had lost weight and suddenly stopped.  You didn't have many options to drop calories or increase workouts.  Keeping your calories higher as you lose gives you more options if your weight loss stalls.

** I also feel that I need to add that calories in / calories out / deficit / weight loss numbers - over a 5 month period I've discovered that a 4100 calorie deficit translates to a single pound loss.  I assume this is a combination of the tracker being slighly inaccurate and my food tracking being the same.  I do weigh most items, however, not everything.  This means I would expect with a 1000 calorie deficit that I'll see a loss of ~ 7 pounds a month.  I've decided that I'm okay with that.  If I can eventually ramp my activity levels up a bit I can maybe bring it up a bit.  However, even if I don't that means in another year I'll have lost another 84 pounds.  I will still have weight to lose, but I'll be 84 pounds lighter.