alligatorob
Respected Member
Hey Tom, you have lost a good bit of weight and not regained, that is an accomplishment you should feel good about, more important than a temporary plateau!
I can think of two possible reasons for your plateau. The one I still think most likely is that you are losing fat, but retaining some water so not seeing it on the scale. I think I have told you that I can have weight swings up to 20+ pounds not fat related, maybe the same is true for you. Assuming this is the case you will get off that plateau by just keeping at what you are doing.
The other reason is you may not be in the calorie deficit you think you are. Calorie intake and burn estimates are never 100% accurate and it does not take much systematic underestimating food calories, and over estimating burned calories to make a difference. I think most people, myself included tend to underestimate calories, see Calorie counting: Americans tend to underestimate the number in food . The way I try to control this is by careful weighing and measuring, and when in doubt on a prepared dish try to count the ingredients individually. You will still need to do some guessing, but trying to be as honest as possible usually helps. I don't do this all the time, but at least part of the time for calibration. As to burned calories I think these are even harder to determine, they can vary so much person to person. My solution to this is just not to subtract them from my daily calories, I just see the exercise burn as a kind of bonus. You might try some of the precision counting for a while just to better understand how good your estimates are.
Either way you have nothing to be too worried about, you are getting there!
Nothing new on my weight here today, which is ok with me.
I can think of two possible reasons for your plateau. The one I still think most likely is that you are losing fat, but retaining some water so not seeing it on the scale. I think I have told you that I can have weight swings up to 20+ pounds not fat related, maybe the same is true for you. Assuming this is the case you will get off that plateau by just keeping at what you are doing.
The other reason is you may not be in the calorie deficit you think you are. Calorie intake and burn estimates are never 100% accurate and it does not take much systematic underestimating food calories, and over estimating burned calories to make a difference. I think most people, myself included tend to underestimate calories, see Calorie counting: Americans tend to underestimate the number in food . The way I try to control this is by careful weighing and measuring, and when in doubt on a prepared dish try to count the ingredients individually. You will still need to do some guessing, but trying to be as honest as possible usually helps. I don't do this all the time, but at least part of the time for calibration. As to burned calories I think these are even harder to determine, they can vary so much person to person. My solution to this is just not to subtract them from my daily calories, I just see the exercise burn as a kind of bonus. You might try some of the precision counting for a while just to better understand how good your estimates are.
Either way you have nothing to be too worried about, you are getting there!
Nothing new on my weight here today, which is ok with me.
- July 2020, entered maintenance at 167 lbs, after both my doctor and trainer said I needed to lose no more.
- August began daily weighing, ranged 163 to 159.
- September began 160, ended 158, ranged 160 to 154.
- October began 159, ended 158, ranged from 155 to 162.
- November began 160, ended 153, ranged from 153 to 164.
- December averaged 156 and ranged from 151 to 159.
- January 2021 averaged 155 and ranged from 149 to 160.
- February averaged 156 but ranged wildly 145 to 166.
- March averaged 147, ranged from 143 to 153, the high just the one day after surgery.
- April was not a great month, averaged 157 but ended at 164..., ranged from 147 to 166.
- May was not-so-great , I averaged 156 and ranged from 149 to 165, unfortunately I ended the month with a binge and up into the 160s
- June was not too great either, averaged 160 and ranged 155 to a one day peak of 172.
- 1 - 162 lbs
- 2 - 162 lbs