I was getting annoyed: three weeks had passed and I hadn't dropped an ounce. I had no idea what I was doing wrong; I wasn't eating that much (1,200 calories-ish) and exercising like a fiend! What the , right?
For the last week and a half, I upped my calories from 1,200 to 1,600 and suddenly I've lost two pounds? This is awesome!
Has this ever happened to anyone else? Does anyone know why it happens?
Last edited by NightengaleShane; 10-05-2007 at 08:41 AM.
Ah ha! Well, I made it in photoshop (not the bodies, those I got from a site called My Virtual Model http://www.mvm.com/en/index.htm ). I always like your avatars...cool photos.
Shane, it could just be a coincidence and upping your calories had nothing to do with it. Like it was just "time" for you to lose some weight again. Perhaps those few "good" weeks were just taking their own sweet time to show up on the scale. Who knows? The body is a funny, sometimes frustrating and confusing thing.
By the way - CONGRATULATIONS!!!!! You must be feeling marvelous.
I've seen that happen too, Shane. And I agree with rockinrobin, there's just no knowing for sure why. Sometimes it does seem to help to increase calories, especially if protein increases--but we can't "prove" that. Like Robin said, it could just be that it was time to drop.
But, you can experiment with it and see what happens. Some people lose more consistently if they eat a little more; others have to keep the calories pretty strictly lower. If you're active and exercising, it could be that 1200 cals is not enough for you, even for weight loss--and strangely, that can lead to stalling.
Keep going! Good for you in getting to your current weight!
Hahaha. Perhaps that's it. Just "time" Maybe in that case, I should go back down to 1,200-1,400 until I'm done with weight loss.
And thank you, darlin'... I DO feel pretty great Just like you say "I still can't believe it myself sometimes" in your sig, neither can I for myself. I just can't believe I'm no longer fat by any normal person's standards, that I no longer see jelly rolls, that my thighs no longer touch, that I can kind of see my abs... sometimes I just want to cry.
1200's pretty low, your body might have it a point of stall because it thought it was starving. For a girl your height, who's pretty active (you exercise), 1200 probably wasn't enough after doing it for a long time. Your body can put the breaks on your metabolism if it thinks it's starving. I like to base my calories-per-day on my BMR/RMR and set that as a minimum.
Regardless, you've lost 33 pounds so far and you're doing something right! So you should do what you think is best
I can't explain it either, but I can tell you that if I eat 1200, I can go for ten days or so without a loss. Up that to 1400-1500 and the scale will drop again. I have no reliance on it - the scale is a fickle fiend!
I tell myself it is just going to eventually move again if I just keep doing everything right... and it does Eventually (nb: I weight a LOT more than you, and days I eat around 1200-1300 calories, I KNOW I'm not really eating enough )
Good luck though, and congrats on that 2 pounds - isn't it nice when they leave and take a friend with them?
Hehehe leave and take a friend with them! I like the way you put that! Pretty soon you're going to say bye bye to the 200's, HeatherAngel... congratulations for that!
You know, I actually never ate 1,200 calories at my HW. I started out around 1,700-1,800, then went down to 1,600, 1,500, 1,400, then 1,200-1,300 with the more weight that I lost so that I would continue losing. Maybe you should do the same... if you don't already.
Shane, congrats! I know you've been working hard. I just wanted to chime in my agreement with what others have said. It's possible that given the low calorie diet you were eating and your high activity level, your body went into starvation mode. When you ate a bit more, it kicked you out of that mode and let you lose a bit. Then again, weight loss usually slows a lot especially as an individual gets towards a healthy rate, so maybe it was just time for your body to shed a few lbs after several weeks of not losing anything. You'll just have to experiment and see what works for your body.
I just broke my 6 month (SIX MONTH) plateau this week...3 weeks post knee surgery, with my workouts limited to 30 min on an exercise bike and some LB physical therapy exercises (having gone from LB lifting 2x per week and an hour a day at high resistance on the elliptical). Kept calories the same. Bam - lost 2 lbs. Don't know how, don't know why...the body is a strange thing.
Thats why this is all so much trial and error, and even when you find something that works, it might not work for long.
I have seen this happen over and over again with our friends here on 3FC. Maybe your body gets complacent at the lower calories and the extra calories "shake" it up a bit?
It definitely happened to me. I lost about 55+ lbs eating 1400-1600 calories from July 2004 - Feb 2005. My original goal was 135 lbs, but I started a plateau at 140 lbs in March 2005. I tried everything, working out more, eating less, but my weight refused to budge at all from March 2005 - June 2005. 140 lbs on the dot.
In June 2005, I decided to stop struggling and being miserable. I weighed 140 lbs, I wore a size 10 (down from a tight size 18), I felt good. I decided to enjoy how far I had come and how good I looked. I decided my body must be done with weight loss and 140 was my body's "happy weight." So, I started to maintain. I slowly increased my calories to around 1800-2000 (adding healthy calories).
In July, I lost 2 lbs to 138. In September, I was 135. By February 2006, I weighed 127 lbs (where I have been ever since).
I definitely plateaued at 140 from late Feb to June eating 1400 calories and then lost an additional 13 lbs by eating 1800-2000 calories. My own personal pet theory (I am not a nutritionist, dietician, doctor) is that the body reacts to perceived famine/starvation by slowing the metabolism and holding on to fat reserves (that is what I would want it to do if I were really not getting enough to eat). When the body gets plenty of healthy calories every day, it doesn't need to hang on to stored food. Like I said - just a theory!
Eat more AND LOSE weight?
What the 
, right? 
This is awesome! 
Maybe in that case, I should go back down to 1,200-1,400 until I'm done with weight loss. 
I DO feel pretty great 
Just like you say "I still can't believe it myself sometimes" in your sig, neither can I for myself. I just can't believe I'm no longer fat by any normal person's standards, that I no longer see jelly rolls, that my thighs no longer touch, that I can kind of see my abs... sometimes I just want to cry.
)
