Stuck :(

S

shayne

New member
Ok, so I've started working out and restricting my calorie intake to 1,200-1,500 calories/day last January and have consistently lost 2lbs a week (25lbs in total) up until 3 weeks ago. Is this a plateau? I really don't understand why I'm not losing weight considering I have upped the intensity of my work-outs since last January.

Here are the work-outs I've done:

January: I started with light cardio (I had a dvd of Hip Hop abs from years ago and a Tae Boxing dvd) which I did for 4x a week for 2 weeks. Then I joined a gym and worked out with a trainer 2x a week doing 15mins cardio and then weight training. On days I don't meet up with my trainer, I run in the treadmill until I burn up 250cals or do my dvds at home

February: I worked out 5-6x a week. I did Jillian Michaels 30 day Shred level one 4-5x a week and still met up with my trainer.

By the end of February I have lost 17lbs from 195 to 178

March: I was still working with my trainer doing 15mins cardio and weights. I also switched from Jillian Michaels to Barry's Bootcamp (Briefly explaining Barry's Bootcamp for those who are not familiar, he utilizes Focused Interval Training where he makes you work on different exercises 1 minute at a time with 30second breaks in between each exercise. It's a 21min workout and each week, you add 1 specialist workout which is another 12minutes. There are 3 of those ABS, UPPER BODY and LOWER BODY) By now I am doing the main 21min workout and then 2 of the specialist which is, from how I feel, more difficult than Jillian Michaels level one.

April: still working on Barry but I've been stuck at 170lbs for too long now and It's frustrating!

Any ideas on what I could have done wrong? Btw, my calorie intake is still at 1,200-1,500cals and I'm about to have my period by next week if that matters coz I've read that women tend to retain more water just before their period? I dunno.

Please? I need all the help I can get :bigear:
 
You can definitely retain water hormonally. Here are some other reasons...

When you exercise, your muscles grab some extra water to help with the recovery process - so you don't lose as much weight.

If you eat more carbs, you retain more water - more water weight.

Plateaus are very strange to me. I broke one of mine by having pizza and birthday cake :p I don't know if it was coincidence or not, since there was no alternate me who didn't have the cake and pizza to compare against ;)

You might consider having a higher calorie day or taking a brief break from your workouts to see if that makes a difference!
 
I tried increasing my calorie intake for a couple of days and decreased my workout intensity and viola! I weighed today and lost two pounds! I dunno if it's just because I was really really starving when I weighed and that I have an empty stomach. I'll weigh again tomorrow when I wake up which is the usual time for my weigh in.
 
Don't always rely on the scale. the scale can be decieving. Alwasy judge your progress by how you look in the mirror.

You can be building muscle and loseing fat, and stay at the same weight. Muscle weighs more than fat, so if you replace fat with muscle, then you won't go down in weight, but you will notice a big difference in how you look.

I was at a plateau for a while, so I stopped weighing myself. Maybe wait three days without weighing yourself. You will notice a difference in the way you look even though it might not reflect in on the scale. hope this helped
 
I try and weigh my self once a week. But you may be right. I've done a lot of lifting over the past few weeks and I've had a couple of bad food days which may also count. I weighed myself today and lost a pound! Plus, I've worn a pair of jeans I haven't worn in a week or so and they do fit better which made my day. :D :D
 
Thats great!! Sounds like you're on the right track. Don't get discouraged, it takes time to reach your goals of weight loss. Just keep on doing what you're doing!!

Bad food days are the worst. lol They get me everytime. LOL.
 
The best thing to do after messing with your diet for the day is to forgive yourself and move on :)
 
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