Exercise and Calorie Intake

I am 5'8" 143 pounds, lost 75 pounds over the last 1 year on CC! YAY! I am happy, but trying to loose the last 3 pounds seems impossible. My goal is 140.

 I eat 1600 calories a day and walk on an incline 10,000 steps/5 miles per day which burns 1000 calories according to my treadmill. I was loosing about 1/2-1 pound a week doing this, but now for the last 2-3 months have not lost anything and I have not changed my calorie intake or my level of exercise.  This routine is just making me maintain everything, a complete standstill for 2 months now.

  My question is, if I eat 1600 calories a day (very healthy calories) and burn 1000 calories a day according to my treadmill, am I making my body function on 600 calories a day? I need to be set straight, I am confused and want to do the right thing for my health. I am approaching 50 years old.

Can someone help me?

Unless you're really running those 5 miles, I don't think you're burning 1000 calories.

Since you're so close to your goal, maybe you could try gradually increasing your intake to your maintenance level for a period before going back to weight loss to get rid of the last 3.

Edit: I forgot to say, WOW, major congrats on the weight loss so far!

I am walking at an 10% incline at 2.5 - 3.0 miles per hour - could my treadmill be wrong?

 It comes to about 20 minutes a mile/100 minutes total time per day. I usually do it all at once and vary the speed, but it still averages 100 minutes and tells me 1000 burned

 - I also found this: http://www.sparkpeople.com/resource/calories_ burned.asp and it says I am burning 900 for my workout. I just want to be sure I am not doing anything wrong for my health.

I also do strength training on my bowflex 20 minutes 3x per week

 I am afraid if I increase calories I will gain since what I am doing now is just leaving me no change.

Thanks for the help, I feel I really need it.

your body will become more efficient at an exercise over time, which means you burn less calories doing the same thing. i would advise switching it up! it sounds like you have a pretty set routine. take a kickboxing class (my favorite!) or go on a hike. try yoga or pilates once a week. get a workout dvd you like a incorporate it into your routine. you need to keep your body guessing to get results.

also, if i were you, i wouldn't worry so much about those last three pounds. you've done a great job losing a lot of weight. good luck, and congrats on all the good work so far!

Walking 5 miles for a person of your size is only going to burn a maximum of 500 cals (about 90-100 per mile) not 1000. So that may be a big part of the issue. Also, if you have been doing the same form of exercise for a long time your body has most likely gotten used to it. I would definately look into a little bit of muscle confusion to help jumpstart the metabolism again. Try doing some interval training and/or add some weights to the mix.

Your calorie intake may need to be lowered just a little since as you now weigh alot less, your body needs less calories to maintain that weight. But, I would try challenging your body more with exercise first and go from there. Bleieve me, the last 5 pounds are the hardest to lose by far.

Just thought of something else... Are you holding on while walking on the treadmill at a 10% incline? Because i often see women at my gym who walk at a steep incline but they are holding on to the bar in front of them and leaning their weight back somewhat which is of course using alot less energy. If you are then try letting go and pump your arms at your side. If this seems to hard then lower the incline.  You might not even be doing this..Just a thought.

No - not holding on, thanks for helping. My treadmill display ay the end of 5 miles says I burned 1000 calories. If I do NOT go on the incline, then it is 500.

 The treadmill registers that I burn double the calories on an incline.

I did not know if I would be safe exercising like this daily and lowering my calories to below 1600 a day. I hear scary stories about people  jepordizing their health going to low on calories.

the human body is very adaptable if u haven't changed anything for so long ur body is probably used to it. try changing up ur routine!

Assuming you are actually burning that much on the treadmill (but remember that treadmills notoriously overestimate burn, esp. if they don't ask for at least your weight, if not age and gender), yes, you need to eat more. Figure out how much you burn total for the day, not just exercise. Don't eat less than 1000 calories less than that.

So, if you are burning 2600 calories total, you could in theory eat 1600, and have a deficit of 1000 cal/day = 2lb lost/week. But don't eat less than that.

But you probably don't want to keep such a high deficit - for many people, a 500 deficit is a better place to start, and see how that treats you (you should get about a pound lost per week).

Well, I am going to have to try something different. I have stopped loosing so I am obviously doing something wrong, or as everyone is saying I need to do something different. Darn, I was really liking my routine too!! It seems as if when you get comfortable, so does your body? Maybe I will cut back a few hundred calories a day and see what happens. I Appreciate the input, thanks.

Or you could be keeping to high a deficit (eating to little) which can also result in a stall in weight loss.

Yea, I'm not so sure it's the routine either. I am your height and was about 143 for a long while. It seemed that every time I dropped the weight, if I even had one binge day (like 4 extra cookies or something) I would skyrocket back up. My deficit was around 1000 cals at that time (about what you have) if not more per day.  I changed my diet and made sure to have only a 500 calories deficit per day. The weight FLEW off. It was like my body thought it was starving so it slowed my metabolism. When i started feeding it, it realized there was enough food around, so my metbolism went highhighhigh and I had so much more energy and felt so much better, AND could exercise way longer/better.

Just a suggestion..but it worked for me. I also burn about 600 cals/day in exercise. PS. Im now 133. And just finished a 2000 cal day (i'm maintaining).

That sounds like me. That is what I want to weigh too!!  Hmmmm.... back in the summer I did eat about 300 more calories per day than I eat now and exercised less. I was loosing about 1/2 pound per week. When winter got here, I decided to decrease the calories and increase the exercise to try to get the last few pounds off faster, but it did not work. Now instead of decreasing calories, maybe I should increase calories and go back to doing the same thing I was doing in the summer...

OK - I accidently found the problem...... This is good!!

   I went to change my program on the treadmill to do something different to try to fool my body after reading everyone's post again..

 When I first got my treadmill I had programed in what I weighed to start the program.

Well................. it does not self adjust as you loose, duh!! I feel dumb.

It stayed right where I first set it and as my level of exercise increased, the treadmill was thinking I weighed the same so it was telling me I was burning a huge amount of calories.

I re-adjusted and put my cuurent weight in and with the same amount of exercise I am not burning 1000 calories, only 600

So, thanks to everyone who helped me which made me go to doing something different and finding what was wrong

Great that you figured it out - and even though you know the reason it was coming out so high, keep changing it up - have fun!