My weight loss is as inconsistent as my posting these days.
August 19 weight: 233.2
August 12 weight: 233.6
August 05 weight: 234.4
July 29 weight: 239.2
July 22 weight: 238.8
I’ve lost 0.4 pounds in the last 7 days and 111 pounds in 30 weeks. Want stats from past weeks? Check out my entire 30 week weight loss progress.
I’ve lost less than 6 pounds in the past month.
Not even last Wednesday’s impromptu workout pledge could save me from this slump. At this pace, it’ll take me another 7 months to reach my goal of 194.
What am I doing wrong? Anybody have any snake oil to sell me?
{ 54 comments… read them below or add one }
Just keep it up. You’re in a plateau right now and you will need to keep going to break thru it. DON’T GIVE UP!
The dreaded Plateau. I went through a few myself and it can get unnerving to not “see” progress with the scale but just persevere and your body will break through it.
You need to research refeeds and how they affect leptin.
What are refeeds, exactly?
I think you’ve just hit a plateau. The only think I can suggest is shaking it up and sticking it out. Meaning, don’t do anything drastic but maybe do some sort of different workout routine or try different kinds of foods…just for a little kick start.
You are doing such an amazing job, by the way.
Slow and steady. If it takes 7 months, it takes 7 months. You’ll get there. Persistence is the key. You can do it!
You may be at the point where it’s healthier to lose only a pound or 2 a week. It’s only when you’re grossly overweight that it’s easy (and healthy) to lose several pounds per week, while most people who aren’t horribly overweight will only be able to lose 1-2 pounds per week while keeping a healthy lifestyle.
It’s also very possible that you put on some extra muscle mass that’s counter-balancing the weight loss. After all, you don’t want to be skin and bones, do you?
I definitely don’t want to be skin and bones. I want to GET PUMPED UP. :)
Honestly, I think you are expecting too much, too fast. You can’t tell your body much weight to lose in any given time period. You can only do what’s right in terms of eating and exercise, and know that it will respond at its own pace.
The goal should not be (IMO) X number of pounds in X number of days, but HEALTH. Health would be defined by an appropriate body weight, but not within a certain timeframe.
Please don’t be so discouraged. When you do reach your goal, you will soon discover that you just have to keep on doing the same things anyway, so what’s the rush?
Definitely a plateau, try not to fret too much. You’ve been working hard and making good choices, keep it up! Right now it’s stressful because finding a new place to live with your family is a major life change, so more than a few things have upset the balance and consistency of the lifestyle you’ve had for the last 8 months.
Question, have you had a physical since you’ve been dropping all this weight? Your doctor may have some helpful advice and he can take a look at what’s going on with your body chemically, too.
I’d say your easiest mental days are behind you, so you have to keep that laser focus you’ve developed over the last year. Keep doing your best every day. If it takes longer than you anticipated, no big deal. You’re still losing and enjoying life! You can’t ask for much more!
I haven’t had a physical. It’s been on my list to go to a doctor for the last several months, but I simply haven’t had the time. Life is too busy.
I think it might be extremely beneficial for you to start incorporating basic strength exercises into your workout. Cardio has gotten you this far but the next 39 or so pounds is going to be much more difficult to be rid of. Best of luck.
Change something in a big way. Your body adapts to food and exercise, change one or both of those in a big way for a short time just to snap it out of it, sometimes that can help. If you normally do treadmill or elliptical, do biking or aerobics or swimming as your cardio. Be a vegetarian/vegan or try high protein for a couple weeks. Add yoga or pilates or kickboxing. Do only weights for a week, no cardio. Try a variety of healthy soups as a diet for a week. Do lots of body weight exercises instead of machines or freeweights.
Just do something (healthy) you wouldn’t normally do for a week or two and ease back into your normal plan. If your gym offers classes those would be a great way to go as they’ll work muscle groups you’re not used to. I realize that classes are taken mostly by women, but it’s good to work out muscle groups in a way you never have before.
Personal fave – try Ashtanga yoga, it’s harder than it looks. :)
I’m definitely trying new things lately. I am doing a lot of short, intense bursts on the treadmill/elliptical and alternating machines every 5-10 minutes. It really builds up a sweat and keeps my body from getting comfortable.
Hmmm, I just read someone else’s comment about strength exercises. If you are not already doing so, you should add them to your routine. Start with pushups, presses, curls and sit ups, mostly upper body stuff. And then, instead of just weight yourself take some measurements: waist, chest, thighs, upper arms, neck.
And Jim’s right about the weight loss slow down. The more you weigh the easier it is in the beginning.
Good luck as always.
For what it’s worth, I still think you’re a rock star!
Also note, from what you’ve posted elsewhere… it’s a bit stressful in your life right now.
Keep in mind, your body probably is doing the instinctual storing of fat for when your “flight” kicks in. After the stress comes back down, it’ll come back off. (And in the meantime, you’ve passed the plateau.)
I really miss your calorie intake breakdowns.
Do you, really? They were so boring.
I miss them too!
I’ve always heard that calorie cycling can make a big difference in plateaus. Maybe 1400 cals for a couple days, then 2300 for a couple, and then back down? Something along those lines?
Just a thought! Hang in there buddy – you’ve been a huge inspiration to follow!
That’s pretty much what I do anyway. I don’t really stick to 1,500 calories every day — I vary.
Several people mentioned weight training – keep in mind that with the calorie deficiet you have, it will be physically impossible to gain muscle mass. I’m just throwing that out there so you don’t get the idea that you can start to build muscle at this point. What you would be doing is maintaining the muscle mass you have.
You haven’t been logging your food/calories here – have you kept that up offline? As stress and change creep in, it can be very easy to slip up. While keeping your calories at least at 1500, try replacing fat with fiber.
You are an inspiration – I’m on day 36 of following your example and have already started pulling out smaller sizes I had “outgrown”.
I haven’t really “counted” calories — more like guesstimated — over the past few weeks. You’re not the only one who has noticed I stopped counting calories.
Keep up the good work – I have been doing cardio for the last month and managed to lose about 25 pounds – treadmill 6 days a week. I have wanted to step it up a little bit – so tonight I begin my training with a personal trainer that I hired. He preaches in Cricuit Training with only a couple of days of cardio per week. Here is some info: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Circuit_training
Best of Luck and keep up the good work – your an inspiration to me on what you have accomplished to this point!
JL
Are you still counting calories?
I slipped up this summer and gained a bunch of weight back. I’m about to deliver kids to the airport and have a quiet house again for a while, so I’ll be hitting the tiny plates hard again starting tomorrow.
6 pounds in a month is GREAT.
the less you need to loose the slower is goes off
I lost a pound a week for 4 months – - thats ALL !!
Yo u are still doing GREAT . 6 pounds is incredible !!!!!!
T – shake it up a lttle. Take little from everyone on this comment page. Calorie cycling, reduce fat intake, increase protein, weights, different cardio, basic strength exercises, take measurements and start comparing those, it is all good. Your body is getting used to the workouts, needs something new. Get off the eliptical, and do something different. Period.
Good luck man.
Well, at least you are losing a little weight. I started trying to lose weight one week ago and my first weigh in resulted in a big ole goose egg for number of pounds lost. I might have even gained a pound, but it’s hard to tell on my analog scale. For now I’m chalking it up to a beer binge last Friday and possible muscle weight gained due to exercising.
It seems like I stay the same weight for a month and then 10lbs drop off all of a sudden. Here are some of the things I have noticed. Caffeine will make it look like I lost weight and leads to ‘big’ weeks. My water intake can vary up to 7 or 8 lbs. Maybe try a healthier diet for a week. I know you were trying to eat whatever moderately and lose through exercise. example: 5 guys. Maybe eating clean for a week could give you a jump start?
But 5 guys is so good.
Time to build some hottie muscles! More muscle = more weight loss
Stumbled upon your blog. Congrats on your loss. Your an inspiration to many.
Hi,
I’ve been following you on twitter and on this blog for a few months now. One of the things that you haven’t mentioned very much is weight training. Until this point, your body has clearly had a great need to lose weight – regardless of composition (though ideally you’d want to lose *fat* and not muscle). It’s probably time to start incorporating a challenging weight-training program 3-4 times a week. Adding muscle mass might not make the number on the scale go down as rapidly (and if you’re in a plateau, then that number won’t drop too much anyway), but it will ramp up your metabolism.
If you want any help or recommendations on setting up a good plan (compound lifts, rep/set schemes, etc), please let me know. I put my email there so you can contact me if you’d like assistance or guidance.
It’s time to make substantive changes to your diet beyond portion control. Try, for one week, completely eliminating bread, rice, pasta, crackers, tortillas, chips, and any other kind of refined carbohydrates you might be eating. Instead, get your carbs from fruit (in moderate amounts) and veggies (especially the green leafy ones… limit your intake of things like corn, potatoes, and other starches). Also, avoid sugar in anything. Otherwise, make no changes to your routine, and see what happens.
I agree. Try to reduce your carb intake and beef up on the protein. I hit a very similar plateau and I decided to switch up my diet to be 30% Fat, 20% carb and 50% protein. The weight started to fall off again. but remember to keep drinking a lot of water because a high protein diet tends to also deplete you of water faster than a carb diet. GL
I agree with the other posters about incorporating some strength training into your work out. Lifting weights burns fat faster than cardio.
Also, have you considered working with a personal trainer for a bit? If you’re joining a new gym, they may offer you some free sessions. If the cost is too high for you right now, sit down with the head of the personal training dept, and explain your goals. Perhaps you’d be able to strike a deal where you plug them online and they offer free sessions or at least a discount.
I finally broke down and got a trainer because I needed help. If you’re stuck with a problem at work, you don’t ignore it, right? You go to someone with more experience and ask for guidance. It’s the same thing with a trainer. Mine’s great–I go once a week, and I use that session as a “to do list” for the rest of the week.
Thanks for blogging your battle. I started my own blog about my quest to lose 100lbs, and it really helps!
Play with your carbohydrate intake…. That will allow you to move forward and leave your Plateau behind. Begin by eating around 150 grams of carbs on the first day. Drop to 100 on the second day and to 50 on the third. On the fourth day go back to 150 grams of carbs, then 100 then 50… Keep your body guessing, it worked for me… You are an inspiration to many, keep going!!! You are doing amazingly well!!!!
You’re not doing anything wrong. As Jim said upthread, losing 1-2 pounds a week is a healthy and sustainable average weight loss! It’s the 5 pounds a week that you were losing earlier that was boggling.
I’ve read that, without medical supervision, you can’t really lose more than about 1% of your body weight a week and remain healthy. This may be your body’s reaction to what it perceives as dangerous change.
You aren’t doing anything ‘wrong,’ but you’re probably going to have to adjust your expectations for what your body will and won’t do – and 1 to 2 pounds a week is likely to be the realistic result you’ll see from this point forward.
Not to take anything away from all you’ve accomplished (because you really are an incredible inspiration) but I think this is where it actually gets hard. You have to maintain your commitment when the result aren’t staggering anymore.
You’re right — this is the hard part. It’s easy to keep going when you lose 20 pounds a month, but when you are only losing 5-6 — it looks a lot less attractive.
I’ll stick with it, though. No stopping now.
Oh hun.. you have just hit the dreaded plateau! I am surprised you have not hit it before now actually. I recently did and went almost a month without losing hardly anything and then it started picking back up again. I am also trying to lose alot.. 168 lbs.. and have lost 45 pounds to date. drop by my blog sometime and say hi.. http://www.attitudeoverpounds.blogspot.com
Your website is an inspiration. I had plateaued myself and then saw your website, and decided to add some mad-long cardio sessions and instantly began to see more results. Also added strength/weight training. Now the scale has stagnated a little bit, but I really don’t care- what’s more important is the mirror. I’ve found that strength/weight training has kept my weight rather constant, but I’m beginning to see lines in my body as the fat burns off and the muscle underneath can be seen. Maybe you can consider that. You can also try doing interval training just to mix things up in your cardio regiment, since going longer is probably not an option for you given the pounding your joints are getting with those daily sessions.
T–I can only echo what most have already said. And you ARE still going the right direction, at least. Just a little more slowly. I think a week of clean eating could benefit you immensely in this effort. Stay off the fats and sugars—or at least severely limit them–for a week and see what happens. Just a thought.
i agree woth the weight training folks, but none of thme have mentioned that there are at least 2 ways to weight train.
1) lots of reps – low weight – this will likely give you definition.
2) low reps – high weight – this will likely bulk you up.
Like someone else mentioned, its not weight alone. You could try borrowing or buying some calipers off of Amazon, use the guides at [url=http://www.exrx.net/Testing/SkinfoldProcedures.html] ExRx.net [/url] and see the changes in that facet.
ExRX.net has a ton of great info, calculators, guides, etc.
In regards to “2) low reps – high weight – this will likely bulk you up.” This will be the case only if you are not at a calorie deficeit. In order for your muscles to get bigger, you will need to eat more. For someone who has been running at an 18000 calorie deficeit (to lose 5lbs a week), this would be a major change.
Food food food! I think you are definitely at the point now where you have to start replacing processed, fatty foods with fiber and protein and complex carbs. You can just count (or guess) calories, you have to pay attention to what KINDS of calories you are ingesting. Your muscles need to rebuild and work hard and they cant do it without the right kinds of nutrients. Keep it up! Give yourself the next challenge, you can do it!!!!!!
Shoot, I meant “cant just count calories”.
Just to add on on the nutrition bit. Have you considered protein supplements? I started on them as some meal replacements, and now I find myself eating a lot healthier because my tolerance for oily foods have gone down tremendously. So not only do they give me my necessary nutrition without the carb/fat that is so detrimental to weight loss, they actually keep my eating habits in check!
YMMV, obviously..
Wow! You’ve got a ton of advice to sift through here, but I’ll throw in my two cents:
Oh, yea, so you stopped tracking your food, lol. I think that’s part of it. Coupled with the stress of moving. I warned you, didn’t I, how stress can shut it down? I’ll bet you stabilize once you get past the move. So my advice? Get back on the food log and behave, and don’t expect much til you’re settled in the new place. It’s a fact that resistance training will burn more fat that cardio, so bring some more into your routine. Once you pick a new a gym, get a trainer to put together a basic routine for you; Some leg press, bench, chest, dumbbells. Combined WITH your cardio, you’ll maximize your results.
Want to feel a little better? After hitting 216 last week, I gained EIGHT POUNDS on the Disney cruise. I’m pretty sure most of that came from the sugar, alcohol, and sugar with alcohol that I’ve denied myself for months, but it was worth every pound, lol. I’ll be back on my 2000 a day Sunday.
Get thee to the doctor, Tyler! Seriously, with the changes you’ve put your body through, it’s way past time for a checkup. And the Dr. might have some advice for getting through the plateau. But adding fruits and veggies and cutting the crap should help.
A doctor and maybe a nutritionist. It looks like you’ve changed how much you eat, but not what you eat. I think that with the extreme weight loss you’ve done, fairly intense exercise, and the lack of fruits and vegetables in your diet, you are putting a great deal of stress on your body. I strongly suggest that you focus on improving the nutritional quality of what you eat rather than rapid weight loss.
How much water are you consuming each day? You shouldn’t be drinking anything other than water, possibly a few purely fruit juices (like pomegranite, as it is healthy and pretty much unavailable in fruit form, but not apple as it isn’t)
How many different living foods are you eating each week? You should eat at least 30, trying for 40. Pasta, bread, eggs, dairy do not count, but fruits,veggies, nuts, legumes, some spices do (such as garlic, cinnamon, herbs in quantity) This is the best diet, by far. Much easier than calorie counting, just make a list on the fridge.
One more thing, finding exercise. Using the stairs instead of an elevator, walking to the store, instead of driving. No tv, take a walk instead. Such things really add up and help you to have a great nights rest which is also very important.
Up the protein. Try this:
1 scoop of whey (130 cal)
1 glass of ice
1 glass of fat free vanilla soy
some fruit of your choice (peaches, strawberries, blueberries, mango, cherries, blackberries, etc)
Blend into a smoothie – keeps hunger at bay and very nutritious. I usually do one every morning for breakfast.