Help!! I stopped losing weight and I don't know why!

Hello everyone!

I'll try to keep it brief.  I'm female, 27, 5' 5".  I weighed 126lbs and my goal was 116lbs.  For the first two weeks I was doing great and lost 4.5 lbs, taking me down to 121.5.  I have been stuck there for the past 3 weeks!

I'm still trying to reach my goal of 116, but I can't seem to lose the next 5.5lbs.

I eat exceptionally well.  I never eat any junk food, only lean protein (turkey and fish), whole grains, lots of fresh veggies, fruit, drink 8 - 10 cups of water per day, etc. I'm consuming between 1200 and 1300 calories per day.  My base calories burned in a day is 1550.  

I'm very active.  Currently renovating a house (laying hardwood, installing a kitchen, painting, etc.) which I estimate burns an extra 500 - 1000 calories per day, depending on what I've done that day.  On days where I'm not renovating, I run and lift weights which is burning roughly 300 calories.  Technically, all of this combined with what I'm eating should be giving me a calorie deficit of 500 - 1200 calories per day! I would expect to see a 1 - 2lb weight loss per week, but for the ast 3 weeks I have plateaued.  I know I'm probably putting on some muscle, but come on... no change for 3 weeks!?!

Should I eat more? Am I not eating enough calories? Is my body eating its own lean protein and storing fat?

Also, I know I don't NEED to lose these 5.5lbs, but I want to.  I usually weight 113 - 116 so this is not an unreasonable weight goal for me.  I should also mention, the main reason I want to drop the last 5lbs is cause my pants are all a little snug right now and I'd rather lose a few lbs than buy a whole new wardrobe :)

Any advice any of you have would be so appreciated! Thanks, and have a great day.

your doing everything fine in my opinion...make sure your are not retaining water or waste.

Add to your diet the high fibre foods so you can do natural cleansing to keep you regular, twice a day is good.  These are low in calories and high nutrients too.

No pills, kits, shakes or powders..do a balanced diet & wholesome natural foods.

FYI: The colon will and can hold up to 40 pounds of waste in chronic cases.

As you stated you know you don't need to lose 5.5 pounds and your body knows that also so it will fight it. Also what is your body fat % ? given your activity level your robably adding muscle so the scale does not move. My guess is that your at a good weight for your height so it will be hard. You want to avoid losing on the scale by losing muscle. You may want to up the calories and do something to change it up a bit and shock your system. That get's you over a plateau. Once your system adapts it needs to be shocked into change.

Thanks for the reply.  I'm curious, how do you recommend that I "shock it into change"?

I'm not sure what my body fat percentage is. How do you measure it without calipers?  

I am usually 113 - 116 lbs though, so 121 is high for me.  

I think you need to up your calories. You're only five pounds from your goal, so it's unrealistic to think that you will lose 1-2 pounds a week. Try eating your 1550 BMR.

I'm in the exact same boat as you. 

I tried to change up my workout by adding Bikram yoga to my usual cycling and running routines. I started a few days ago, but today was impossible to focus and balance. 

I know one of my problems is that I sit at a desk all day.. i never really more. I work in an area where there is nothing around. 

Well I hope people comment to give help!

Thanks for the reply. I definitely anticipated that the last 5lb would be the hardest, but no loss in three weeks? It just seems like something must be off... I figured maybe not enough calories. Or do I need less, like 1100?

I'm eating 50% carbs, 30% protein, and 20% fat.

i think your weight is perfect.  Maybe your body has gotten to a point where it thinks the weight is OK for you and it has stopped.  Maybe taking in less calories, more veggies with no starch, no potatoes, beats, corn......  Taking your body out of the routine also helps.  Try different workouts every other days, this shocks your body.  Your body adapts easily to a routine, you need to shock it with different things

Thanks for the advice - I like your idea about switching up my workout routine. Maybe biking one day, running the next, golfing the day after that... Definitely worth trying.  

As for starch, I have next to none in my diet.  The carbs I get are mostly from veggies, whole grains (a little bread), organic oatmeal and granola.  I might eat whole grain rice or pasta  one a week, but never potatoes or corn or anything with white flour.  

A typical dinner for me would be 100g of lean protein like fish or turkey, lots of veggies (steamed or raw in salad), and some berries for dessert.  

I'm concerned about the idea of taking in less calories, because they advise that you should never eat below 1200 per day, otherwise your body will go into starvation mode.  

Would it not be better to eat more calories, as long as I burn more as well?

The exact same thing happened to me.  I was 4 pounds away from my goal and not budging.  I decided to just stay at that weight and maintain.  I ate maintenance calories for a couple of weeks and then lowered my calories again to 1200 and lost 3 pounds in 7 days.  Maybe you should just take a break for a while?

Hey :)

I have your same problem. I joined the gym two weeks ago and for about 10 days i was having a deficit of about 1 100. I lost barely anything.

So now i am upping my calories so i only have a 700cal deficit per day. They say that you shouldn't have a deficit over 1 000.

Here is what some people said on my post:

Definitely eat more.  Getting tired is basically your body trying to conserve energy because it doesn't think it has enough for your level of activity.   But also realize that if you just recently started a new workout routine, the muscles you're using are going to tend to hold on to a lot more water, both because they need to repair themselves (this is a good thing) and because they're going to tend to store more glycogen in them, which holds water (also a good thing).

So maybe you should try to have a smaller deficit and it may help :)

Meg~, I just looked at your profile pic and you look fantastic!  I can't imagine where you think you need to lose more weight.  Judging from your activity level, I'm betting you're pretty darn fit too!

I say, be happy with your body where it's at now!  And kudos on the the great healthy eating routine.   It sounds like if anything, you aren't getting in enough calories to compensate for your activity level.

Thanks for the kind words, that's definitely a nice thing to hear, especially when you're trying to lose weight!

I have to admit though, in that pic I was about 113lbs, although I have quite a bit more muscle now.  

The main reason I want to lose that extra 5lbs is cause all of my pants are just a little snug right now, which makes them less comfortable than they could be.  I'd rather lose the 5lbs than buy a whole new wardrobe, ya know what I mean?

shocking your system is just changing your routine in a way. if you do treadmill the same way switch to interval training, do more weight reps etc.. make your body work diffrently

So, over the past two days I have eaten 1250, and 1200 calories.  I have gained 1lb. Anyone have any ideas? How can I be gaining weight when I have a daily calorie deficit?

Two possibilities:

• Are you counting accurately?  Weighing your food?  Counting *everything* - even drinks, milk/cream/sugar in coffee/tea, condiments, etc.?  If not, you may be eating much more than you think.
• If you're counting accurately, it's not 'real' weight gain; just fluctuation due to water retention.

Yup, I have a kitchen scale and literally weigh everything.  I only drink water and a little bit of 1% milk in coffee (which I tag).  No alcohol.  I tag all condiments, only use splenda.  I'm completely stumped.  

I know you do have water weight gain which causes fluctuation, but what I'm concerned about is that not only have I not lost any weight for three weeks now, I'm actually starting to gain some back.  

With what I eat and how active I am, I think I should be losing weight regularly.  

I think trying_ had good advice.  Try eating your maintenance calories for a week or so. (I know.  Scary, right?)  And you may gain a pound or so short term, but it should send a message to your body that it can stop trying to conserve energy, and then after the week is up, go back down to 1400-1700 calories (1200 is way too low for someone as active as you).

We evolved to be able to conserve energy through periods of famine, and our bodies have a number of mechanisms to do that.  Having such a large calorie deficit consistently, and continually using up your fat stores sends a message to your body that there isn't enough food available, so it should try to conserve energy until there is.  So it's surviving on 1200-1300 calories until it receives a signal that there's plenty of food available, so there's no need to conserve energy anymore.

I have only lost 17lbs so far with almost 50 more that I want to lose.  But I seem to be on track losing about 2 or 3 lbs per week.  I do not consider myself an "expert."

1.  FACT.  Muscle weighs more than fat.  (You could be losing fat and replacing it with muscle and never know if stepping on the scale is the only way you are measuring progress...  If you google around a bit you can find ways of getting a pretty good estimate of body fat percentage without doing a water displacement test.  (the best way)

2. FAT.  One of the things I have done is replace the oils / fat in my diet (for foods I prepare myself - which is the majority these days) with coconut oil.  The medium chain fatty acids in coconut oil do not break down under the heat of cooking into unhealthy toxins as easily as other oils and it CAN BE EASILY BROKEN DOWN AND USED AS FUEL by your body's digestive system.  (Normally your body immediately recognizes fat and sends it "straight to storage" for later use.)  Farmers / ranchers tried to feed coconut oil to cattle in the 1940s and found that instead of getting fat and ready for market they were getting lean and active instead...  I use it instead of cooking oil / butter / margarine / crisco - etc...  (I have since read on the page of a multiple triathlon competitor that they added coconut oil to their diet for a month - ignoring the scale and staying with their normal routine in other ways - and weighed 10lbs less at the end of the month than the beginning while feeling they had more energy / vitality...)

Wonderbird

muscle does not weigh more than fat a pound is a pound. muscle takes up less space that is why when you put on muscle and loose fat cloths fit better but the scale does not indicate what you expect

wholleyworld, I think when people say that muscle weighs more than fat, it's generally understood that they mean that muscle is denser than fat, so that given equal volumes of fat and muscle, the muscle will weigh more.