WinterBreeze
New member
A bit of back story. I’ve been losing weight for 24 months. Technically I only count eighteen of those months, since I had two four-month breaks where I just maintained my weight. These were during periods of illness where I could not sustain exercise. But even if I count it as only eighteen months, I still have only had an overall loss of about 1 lb per week. I know that this is probably quite a sensible rate of loss and I wouldn’t complain, but my deficit has been MUCH higher than 500 calories a day. At one point it was probably too high - I was exercising for well over an hour a day and eating 1600. My weight loss slowed. Eventually, after receiving advice and hearing how such high deficits can actually slow weight loss, I cut my exercise down to one hour and increased my calories to 2000. I lost 5 lb in a week! It was a one-off, but my weight loss did continue on a regular basis for a month or two afterwards. Then it slowed somewhat again. I’d lose 2lb one week, then 0.5 lb, then nothing, then 0.5 lb and so on. I was still on a fairly high deficit, mind you. Probably between 800-1000 a day. It was mostly through exercise. I SHOULD have been losing 6-8lb per month (I don’t take weekly weigh ins into account since they can be so variable, but the amount one loses in a month seems as though it would be more accurate.) In reality it was more like 4, occasionally 5.
I was counting every calorie, measuring everything and using a polar heart monitor to calculate my exercise (I made sure I avoided the double-dip when calculating.) It was like I was in a constant state of semi-plateau. I understand how my body loses weight. It always does it in chunks. For example, at the moment, I’m at a 600 deficit and thus should be losing 1.3 per week (approximately.) First week of the month I lose 1.8 lb, then 1 lb, then nothing, then another 1 lb. So that brings us to 3.8 lb in a month - not bad, but I SHOULD be losing 5.2. So it’s a substantial difference.
I use a child/teen calculator to work out my maintenance etc. because I’m under 21. That puts me at about 2000 with no exercise/sedentary. I think this is probably accurate, because for the months where I was not exercising/doing very little exercise, I ate around this and maintained.
The whole constant-semi-plateau has me tearing my hair out, because I’m always wondering whether there is anything I could do differently to stop it happening. I’m constantly trying to work out the mechanics of it. I’ve been losing weight for such a long time and STILL can’t get my head around the fact that I’ll lose 5 lb one month and 2 lb another (despite very little difference in what I do.)
The only conclusions I’ve reached are:
- I’m overestimating my exercise. This seems unlikely as I don’t count the double-dip and tend to underestimate it by a little, rather than overestimate.
- I burn fewer than 2000 calories a day (sedentary.) This seems possible, due to the fact that, aside from my exercise, I have a VERY sedentary lifestyle. I’m mostly in the house and 80% of the time I’m sitting or in bed. I do stand up to go get things and probably go up and down the stairs several times a day. But other than that, I’m not moving much. The days I go out, I’m probably lightly active, rather than sedentary. But that is rare.
- I need MORE calories/less of a deficit. Again, I think this is quite unlikely. Obviously when I was on 1600 with 90 minutes of intense exercise a day, I was doing myself a TOTAL disservice and needed more to lose weight. But having maintained my weight for a while on 2000 (without exercise,) I feel confident that it’s my maintenance. And my deficit (600) doesn’t seem too bad for someone who still has 35 lb to lose.
- The last, and most unfortunate, reason could be that my body simply doesn’t like to drop weight any faster than 4 lb a month. It doesn’t mathematically make sense at all, but not all of weight loss is linear.
And my current stats are: F, almost 19, 175 lb. Goal weight is 140. 5 ft 8 inches tall. Small frame. Currently on 1900 calories a day and burning 500 through exercise every day. I also just started weight training (literally, yesterday.)
If anyone else has any suggestions or thoughts on this I’d be most grateful.
I was counting every calorie, measuring everything and using a polar heart monitor to calculate my exercise (I made sure I avoided the double-dip when calculating.) It was like I was in a constant state of semi-plateau. I understand how my body loses weight. It always does it in chunks. For example, at the moment, I’m at a 600 deficit and thus should be losing 1.3 per week (approximately.) First week of the month I lose 1.8 lb, then 1 lb, then nothing, then another 1 lb. So that brings us to 3.8 lb in a month - not bad, but I SHOULD be losing 5.2. So it’s a substantial difference.
I use a child/teen calculator to work out my maintenance etc. because I’m under 21. That puts me at about 2000 with no exercise/sedentary. I think this is probably accurate, because for the months where I was not exercising/doing very little exercise, I ate around this and maintained.
The whole constant-semi-plateau has me tearing my hair out, because I’m always wondering whether there is anything I could do differently to stop it happening. I’m constantly trying to work out the mechanics of it. I’ve been losing weight for such a long time and STILL can’t get my head around the fact that I’ll lose 5 lb one month and 2 lb another (despite very little difference in what I do.)
The only conclusions I’ve reached are:
- I’m overestimating my exercise. This seems unlikely as I don’t count the double-dip and tend to underestimate it by a little, rather than overestimate.
- I burn fewer than 2000 calories a day (sedentary.) This seems possible, due to the fact that, aside from my exercise, I have a VERY sedentary lifestyle. I’m mostly in the house and 80% of the time I’m sitting or in bed. I do stand up to go get things and probably go up and down the stairs several times a day. But other than that, I’m not moving much. The days I go out, I’m probably lightly active, rather than sedentary. But that is rare.
- I need MORE calories/less of a deficit. Again, I think this is quite unlikely. Obviously when I was on 1600 with 90 minutes of intense exercise a day, I was doing myself a TOTAL disservice and needed more to lose weight. But having maintained my weight for a while on 2000 (without exercise,) I feel confident that it’s my maintenance. And my deficit (600) doesn’t seem too bad for someone who still has 35 lb to lose.
- The last, and most unfortunate, reason could be that my body simply doesn’t like to drop weight any faster than 4 lb a month. It doesn’t mathematically make sense at all, but not all of weight loss is linear.
And my current stats are: F, almost 19, 175 lb. Goal weight is 140. 5 ft 8 inches tall. Small frame. Currently on 1900 calories a day and burning 500 through exercise every day. I also just started weight training (literally, yesterday.)
If anyone else has any suggestions or thoughts on this I’d be most grateful.
Apparently there are health risks for sitting too much - especially for women! And for me, I burn around 100 calories extra for each hour that I'm standing instead of sitting. Burning an extra 300 calories because I'm standing while watching TV or doing chores or reading (reading while standing is a pain though) is pretty cool though, in addition to reducing risk of long term health issues.