[Daisybrownlock]

Hi,
I'm 5'0" tall, and 34 years old
I started off 3 years ago at about 180lbs and am down to about 142, which is great! however, my goal is still a long way off. (i'd like to get down between 112 and 125 which for my height would put me at the upper end of 'normal')
I'm really happy to be out of the 'obese' category and into the 'overweight' category, and honestly don't remember ever being this 'thin'.
I work out regularly, I study Taekwondo 3-4 hours a week (2-3 times) and usually run 2-3 times a week. Last November I ran a half marathon (2:36).
my usual food day runs between 1200-1600 calories. (I usually have about an 800 calorie deficit)
breakfast usually consists of 1/2 cup oatmeal with peanut butter.
dinner veggies with whole grains/legumes of some combination (ie vegetable curry with brown rice, or split pea and beet soup)
lunch is leftover dinner.
snacks, whole wheat pretzles, almonds that kind of thing.
occasional dark chocolate indulgence

i sometimes keep track of my food regularly, sometimes don't... but it doesn't usually vary too much.
i try to stay away from white breads and pastas

I only eat meat a couple times a week at the most.

so, as far as i can tell, i'm doing everything right, although i'm not taking metformin or anything like that.

but i've been stuck at this weight for almost a whole year....
even when i was running 30 miles/week training for the half marathon my weight only dropped by about 1 lb.

as you can imagine, i'm getting frustrated!
anyone have a similar experience?
Any suggestions?

[astrophe]

You are doing so great! WTG!

But if you want to shake it up to bust a plateau...

MEASURE. It's possible your weight may stay the same while you lose inches. And it's the smaller inches that changes clothes size anyway -- not the pounds. You may have to rethink your final goal a bit.

FOOD. You may need to calorie cycle or zig zag calories now. Eating always the same can only get you but so far. And you may want to think about keeping a food log at least while you are figuring out where the tweaks need to come in. Maybe your portion eyeballing has gotten off track?

EXERCISE. Once you get "good" at a sport and efficient at it, it's not burning the calories like when you weren't as efficient and good at it. Your body may need a new challenge. So you are looking at changing activity, changing speed, changing duration time, etc.

I'm seeing cardio stuff like the running and martial arts. I'm not familiar with Tae Kawn Do and all its components but your exercise sounds cardio heavy to me.

Where's your weight resistance and flexibility stuff (yoga, pilates, etc)?

GET A CHECK UP. If it has been a while, it wouldn't hurt to get a check up and labs drawn to see where you are with managing your PCOS just to make sure something there isn't holding you up.

Just my 2 cents...

GL!
A.

[Rana]

I'll also add that I was on a 9 month plateau and it was 99% because I wasn't treating my IR (I don't take met, but I am taking chromium) and I was eating too many calories AND too many carbs in my diet.

You're shorter than me and I found that at 1600 calories, I simply couldn't lose. I needed to be under 1600.

Because of your height, you may be eating too much. I also exercise hard for at least 7 hours a week.

Personally, because of PCOS, I found that I can't do a deficit of my exercise calories in counting my total calories. In other words, I eat 1500 or less and I lose, regardless of exercise. Using my BMR, I'm at about 400-500 deficit then. Exercise is just a stress reliever/IR helper.

Without changing anything.... I would try eating closer to 1300 for a couple of weeks and see what happens.

Make sure that your calories are dense (no junk foods or refined carbs at all) because you'll need it with all the exercising you're doing. Then see if the scale has moved at all.

Don't change anything else.

If it doesn't change, then go back up, but change some of your whole carbs to proteins (lower the amount of brown rice you're eating, increase the legumes, stuff like that).

Don't change anything else.

See if that helps.

If it doesn't, increase calories or calorie cycle and see if that helps.

Eventually you'll hit the right combo.

[Daisybrownlock]

thanks for the advice everyone,
my food log isn't perfect but I do try to measure things higher in carbs like pasta or bread. I don't eat any white pasta or rice or bread if I can help it. I think the hardest thing for me is avoiding anything sweet. so right now I've spent the last few weeks trying to cut out all deserts, still no change in the scale, but I know it's a good plan. It's kinda silly when you've carefully consumed only 1200 calories, but 200 of them were a candy bar and the rest were fruits, vegetables, whole grains etc.....

[Daisybrownlock]

Originally Posted by Rana

Personally, because of PCOS, I found that I can't do a deficit of my exercise calories in counting my total calories. In other words, I eat 1500 or less and I lose, regardless of exercise. Using my BMR, I'm at about 400-500 deficit then. Exercise is just a stress reliever/IR helper.

good to know!
thanks!

[astrophe]

update from me...

I do keep a good food log. And in mine I do count my exercise. And according to it I should have lost 30 lbs last year. Instead I maintained.

So... endoc and I had to accept that my metabolism is where the food log said it is and just chalk it up that where we thought it was, wasn't the place! The proof was in the food log. PCOS/hypothyroid was slowing me down and it wasn't going to work with the "usual" math that guesstimated my previous AMR level. Though that probably works just fine for putting normal non-endocrine problem people in the right ball park.

To put ME in the ballpark? We took my 2300 ish as the AMR since I'd been maintaining there and went -500 from THAT instead.

Lo! Things are moving again.

So that's another possible way to go at it. Don't worry -- keep trying and you will find YOUR way, PCOS be damned! You can do it!

GL!
A.