At a weight loss plateau. Looking for some advice pls <3

[crk3999]

Sorry in advance for an faux pas. This is my first ever post here or on any other forum for that matter. I started dieting via calorie counting last December and it worked wonders. Starting weight was 310.8 and as of last week I was 251 and change. I go to the gym and lift weights 3 times a week. I'm 23 and 6' 3".

Now my issue is, For the past 2 weeks or so I have been at a near dead stand still with my weight despite eating ~2300 calories per day. I searched around the internet some and saw people warning not to eat at too low of a calorie deficit. Due to this and the fact that when I punch my numbers and level of exercise into tdeecalculator.net, It tells me I'm good to eat ~2750 calories per day.

So, I went up to 2750 calories per day and over the course of a week the scale has consistently crept up to where it is today which is 257 even. About 6lb gain in a week. I'm irritated. I'm confused, and the next thing I'm going to try unless someone has better advice, is to cut my calories to lower than my previous total and go down to 22 or 2100 calories a day and see if that makes the scale go down.

So TL;DR: Lost a good bit of weight. Now I'm stalling. Already eating way under what TDEE calculator suggests and when I try TDEE's suggestion, I gain weight. Do I stick with the calculator or keep cutting further?

Thank you guys in advance for any advice and your patience dealing with a forum new guy <3

[Tucane]

Ignore the 6lbs gain for now, +450 calories daily over a week doesn't amount to that much fat, so what you gained was mostly glycogen/waterweight etc. I used to have swings of 6-8lbs on a daily basis on constant calories.

Calculators are just a ballpark estimate...

Real world data seemingly has you stalling at ~2300kcal. Now I don't think it's realistic considering your weight, but it's where you're at right now in terms of IRL data, so that's what we have to go by.

I'd suggest that you go back to eating 2300 kcal and add more activity (lifting/swimming/walking) instead. Granted that you are weighing and tracking your food accurately, you will start losing weight. Eating even less is an option too, but the benefits of moving more are greater.

[Jinvicious]

Hey bud,

First of all, congratulations on your weight loss so far. I started mine at a similar size and am currently down to a similar size aswell.

In my personal opinion, the best way to get yourself out of a plateou is to straight up shock your body and try something new.

My favourite way of dragging myself out of it is to intermittent fast.

There are several ways to do intermittent fasting, most common being the 16/8 fast. My personal preference is the Warrior Fast (20/4) and the OMAD fast (one meal a day)

Fasting isn't for everybody, but if you find yourself is such a place where you need to seek guidance, I say why not give it a go?

Good luck my man, please keep us updated if you have a win with it.

[crk3999]

Incorporating the advice I got from both replies so far, I'm leaning towards staying at the 2700kcal mark for longer than 1 week and see if the weight gain is consistent or just glycogen/water weight as Tucane suggested.

I also feel as though I've gotten my body into a rut with consistently eating at ~2300kcal and it may need some kind of shock, perhaps fasting, to break out of habit.

I'll give 1 more week to the tdee calculations and see if there's any improvement after that. I'll also try to increase volume/intensity when I go to the gym.

Thank you guys for the input. I'll be updating if anything changes.

[jlosito]

When is the last time that you changed you physical activity up? If your physical activity has become "easy" or less challenging try changing it up and seeing if that helps kickstart your fat burn as it seems you have a strong grasp on the caloric intake numbers.

[Garage Rat]

First thing is don't panic.
This happens.
I helped my wife loose over 100 pounds and we had a couple time weight loss stopped for about a month.
You can slowly increase your activity,manipulate calories,or do both.
I would not go drastic on any of these things.
The body eventually adapts to given stress and intake of nutrients.
You can "trick"it by alternating calories on a three day cycle or so.
So if 2300 calories is base try something like this day 1,2000cal.,day 2 2300cal.,day three 2600cal. and rotate back to day one.
Also changing marcos could help more protein and less other macros usually will kick start fat loss.
More fiberous food like veges or even taking phsylium husk fiber can move things along.
You need to keep a diet and training journal to be accurate on daily intake and be weighing foods if your not already.
Also use a tape measure and take waist measurements as well as month to month pics for other types of fat loss progress.
Sometimes we won't lose weight but the body is changing anyway with possibly a muscle gain and fat loss which negate loss on the scale.
Good luck.

[xsquid99]

Weight loss is the indicator of a calorie deficit, so if you're not losing weight you are not in a calorie deficit. Nobody who hits a plateau breaks through it by eating more calories.

Either increase physical activity (output) and/or reduce your caloric intake further.

[leroyS]

Somebody needs to invent a pill that magically STOPS your body from storing excess sugar as fat. Invent some magical formula that converts energy into piss and **** without having to store fat and eventually oxidise it creating water and C02. Eat it, drink it, use what we need and then piss the rest out.

(If only)

[crk3999]

Awesome advice, guys. Glad I came. Lots of different advice from different directions, but I'll be experimenting more and see what works.

Edit: I decided that perhaps my low calorie dieting for so long has gotten my body into the habit of subsisting off of lower calories, and increasing my calories over the last week has done nothing but made my weight go back up.

As of right now, I punched in my numbers on tdeecalculator with a sedentary activity level set and got ~2150kcal, so I put that into my nutrition logging app and I'll update in a few days if/when I see any change.

[Tommy W.]

Stalling for 2-3 weeks is an indication of no calorie deficit. You can do whatever you want as far as trying to figure things out on calculators or do IF or whatever however there is no way around that you need to lower calories on a weekly basis. All other recommendations are just noise.

[ncsuLuke]

Could be fluctuations in water weight, see the article below. Either way I would stick at the 2300 and keep at it.

https://bodyrecomposition.com/fat-lo...ishy-fat.html/

[ncsuLuke]

Stalling for 2-3 weeks is an indication of no calorie deficit. You can do whatever you want as far as trying to figure things out on calculators or do IF or whatever however there is no way around that you need to lower calories on a weekly basis. All other recommendations are just noise.

I recently had a stall for around 3 weeks or so and just kept after it and it was like one day someone flipped a switch and I dropped a few lbs and progress picked back up. I am hardly new to the counting calories thing and eat an extremely consistent diet so I knew I was doing everything right, my body was just retaining excess water weight for some reason.

[Tommy W.]

I recently had a stall for around 3 weeks or so and just kept after it and it was like one day someone flipped a switch and I dropped a few lbs and progress picked back up. I am hardly new to the counting calories thing and eat an extremely consistent diet so I knew I was doing everything right, my body was just retaining excess water weight for some reason.

That's great that happened however 9 times out of 10 it's a calorie issue with a 3 week stall.

[ncsuLuke]

That's great that happened however 9 times out of 10 it's a calorie issue with a 3 week stall.

Agreed, I knew I had to be in a deficit though (been tracking strictly for long enough) so I just kept chugging along. If it's someone who is newer to this sort of thing I'd say it's a calorie issue/not tracking properly because occam's razor and all that.

[crk3999]

Update: Been a while, but I've been working diligently. As several of the users here have said, it was indeed most likely a calorie issue. My best guess is that due to a combination of:

1) not working out at all
2) losing 60 lbs of body weight rather quickly
3) having no protein goals or paying any attention to the macros I was eating to lose weight on

I can only assume that my muscle mass and overall metabolism were down to a level far below what a TDEE calculator would have guessed and to lose weight, I would have had to eat next to nothing.


So what I did to combat this is increased my calorie limit to 2700 for a period of several weeks. During this time, I instituted a 225 grams/protein per day goal and I continued strength training in the gym 3 days a week.

During this time, I saw real visible muscle growth and a very positive change in my physique without gaining any weight to speak of. I was hovering in the 251-254 range consistently.

Just recently, I've met my muscles in the middle and bumped my calories back down to 2500 a day and kept the workout schedule and protein goal. I was 253lbs ish at this point. I am now losing weight steadily again and as of this morning, I weighed in at 249lbs even.

Seems to me that I've gained back enough muscle on a maintenance ish period that I can now cut at a mentally bearable calorie amount and hope to maintain my muscle mass via my new protein goal so that I don't run into this metabolic stall again anytime soon.



Thank you to everyone who replied and helped me get over this very confusing point in my weight loss journey. I feel like a much stronger and better person for it and I've learned a ton along the way. ESPECIALLY about the importance of tracking your macros as the natural advancement to counting calories. <3