Totally stumped..hit a plateau..HELP!!

spaghetti86 · 11-01-2007, 07:14 AM

Hi all, Well I am totally stuck as to what is happening with my body at the minute.
For the past well, most of this year have been up and down with my weight, but the last 6 months have been loosing slowly but surely. I have now been the same weight for the past 3-4 weeks and dont understand why.
At first I thought I might not be eating enough so I upped my calories a bit this last week, but still i weigh in at 160.6lbs
My goal for christmas is to get to 154lbs (which is 11 stone) then to see how I feel and look once I have lost that nearly half a stone, then decide what to do after that.
But well its 8-9weeks til christmas and my weight hasnt changed for the past nearly month.
I realise that most people hit a plateau after a while, and i want to know how to break through that?
I have changed my cardio and weights and upper my food, and I drink a tonne of water a day (i occasionally drink diet coke, but its mainly water 24/7)
Any help or suggestions would be greatly appreciated.

btw Im a girl 5ft 11inches and weigh 160.6lbs

Thanks

andrewholler · 11-01-2007, 08:29 AM

From what I see you've tried most of the things that would help you surpass that plateau.

They key to breaking through plateaus is throwing your body off, making sure it doesn't get used to anything otherwise it will adapt and stop changing. What time do you do cardio? I would reccomend changing that and ideally try doing 30-45 minutes in the morning before you have anything to eat.

Another suggestion would be to change the kind of cardio you are doing. If you've been doing a treadmill, try an eliptical or a bike. You just have to keep mixing it up and eventually your body will respond.

spaghetti86 · 11-01-2007, 09:05 AM

Hey, thanks for your reply. I have been doing a mixture of cardio as I get bored easily, but I will try and mix it up even more.
As for when I do my cardio, at the minute as I am not working it is whenever I feel like it. But I will try and start the day off by doing some on an empty stomach and see what happens.

Thanks again

Anyone else?

spag.

TheDeepBlue · 11-01-2007, 09:42 AM

wait? so you're trying to lose weight?...but you upped your calories?

While a good basis is too have a diet which with a cal deficit of around -500/day to keep weight loss slow and steady, a larger deficit will still cause you to lose weight but will not be as muscle sparring and will not produce liner results.

What your problem is though IMO is that as you've lost weight your BMR/Metabolic weight has decreased. With a lower bodyweight your maintenance calories will not be as high, so you will need to eat less in order to keep losing weight.

Im not going to do the maths so take this purely as an example but...
If you weight 70kg, your maintenance calories might be 2200
if you then lose 10kg, your maintenance calories will drop to 2100.

So now that youve lost weight the amount of food your eating is no longer a cal deficit, and effectively your body is in homeostasis.

Another thing which may be hindering your progress is again adaptation. With your cardio have you been increasing intensity?
If you start off doing 10km/h for 20mins and your still doing 10km/h for 20mins.....
Well, thats why. Your body has adapted and has become efficient at it. Your HR will not have to increase to the same extent so as to perform the exercise so you will not be burning as many calories.
Forget how many cals/km/hours the treadmill/bike says, what really determines how many cals you burn during aerobic activity is aerobic output and the easiest way to measure that is your heart rate.
So when your exercising make sure you are hitting your target HR for what ever desired period of time.

anonymous123 · 11-01-2007, 09:46 AM

I STRONGLY recommend carb cycling. It's ****ing awesome and something about it is so satisfying.

xxraffyxx · 11-01-2007, 09:52 AM

well you have 8 weeks to drop down to your goal so we are in no hurry. If your doing cardio make try and up your intensity, faster longer or harder. maybe even HIIT training. and once a week up your calories up a bit for a day.

spaghetti86 · 11-01-2007, 10:27 AM

Hey guys, thanks for the replies.

TheDeepBlue: yes i upped them a little, because I know that if you don't eat enough your body will go into starvation mode and you wont lose anything, which I have read a lot about on here from different types of people so I thought thats maybe what had happened to me, as I wasnt eating all that much.

I will try and up the intensity of the cardio workouts then as thats what people are recommending. I guess you kind of fall into a rut and even though your doing the cardio still, your not putting in all the effort.

So I will make a conscious effort to put more into my cardio.

I will keep carb cycling in mind, thanks.

spag - aka sam :-)

TheDeepBlue · 11-01-2007, 10:37 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by spaghetti86

Hey guys, thanks for the replies.

TheDeepBlue: yes i upped them a little, because I know that if you don't eat enough your body will go into starvation mode and you wont lose anything, which I have read a lot about on here from different types of people so I thought thats maybe what had happened to me, as I wasnt eating all that much.

I will try and up the intensity of the cardio workouts then as thats what people are recommending. I guess you kind of fall into a rut and even though your doing the cardio still, your not putting in all the effort.

So I will make a conscious effort to put more into my cardio.

I will keep carb cycling in mind, thanks.

spag - aka sam :-)

Starvation mode will NOT stop you from losing weight!
It will slow down your metabolism but it will not stop it! you will continue to lose weight but not as efficiently. It will also not be as muscle sparring so you will also see an increase in muscle atrophy.
How do you think anorexics/bulemics get so skinny? sensible diet and exercise...HAHAHA...NO!
This is especially so if your an active person, if your activity levels remain constant you will keep losing weight.

The main problem with "starvation mode" is hunger cravings, you will get larger fluctuations of insulin/glucagon so your more likely to snack(eat junk food) or completely break your diet and undo fat loss

spaghetti86 · 11-02-2007, 07:05 AM

Ok thanks for that.
I meant to say you still loose weight but it tends to be more muscle or water than fat, if your not eating enough. But sometimes when you dont eat enough it stalls your weight loss for a while cos your body has got used to the low calories.
But the fact that I upped mine and still no change in my weight was interesting.

I also think the fact that I am not working at the moment I am not as active as I would be if I was. So although I am doing cardio and weights, and walking my dogs, I am not doing a whole lot else, so this also might be why my weight loss has stalled at the moment.

I will switch things up and keep chugging on through!

spag.

struck · 11-02-2007, 09:30 AM

What's your diet like? and do you lift weights?

spaghetti86 · 11-02-2007, 02:00 PM

Yes i lift weights 3-5 times a week, cardio 4-6 times a week.
diet is pretty clean most of the time, but find it hard to stick to sometimes.

Guess I will have to keep my body guessing and hope it jump starts it into fat loss mode again!

spag.

-Aaron- · 11-02-2007, 02:01 PM

You plateaued from not eating enough calories... Or the same calories for an extensive period of time.

spaghetti86 · 11-03-2007, 07:12 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by -Aaron-

You plateaued from not eating enough calories... Or the same calories for an extensive period of time.

Thanks for your comment Aaron. It seems a lot of you agree it could be the calories so I will try and sort that out asap.

thanks again :-)

spag.