Ok i have been doing this since november 2007 and last year i lost over 50 pounds.. but it all stopped in november and since i have gained and lost the same few pounds over and over again..

I am still very active im eating good but my body has just gone... huh... i dont think so sister.. In all honesty i feel like giving up.. its just depressing to have no results still.. at first i thought ok this shouldnt last too long.. it will be over soon enough but its now april for goodness sake.. and the longer this goes the worse i feel..

Now i just feel myself slipping further into a dark nasty place.. im doing my best to keep my head up but my mind is going whats the pouint.. its not working anyway..


SCREAMMMM!!! i hate it i just hate this plateau... and i need some tips in breaking it...

Im eating 1500-1700 cals a day and work out 4-5 days a week

1 day swimming ( 2-3 hours)
1 day aqua and swimming ( 45 mins aqau .. 30min -1 hour swimming)
then 30 minutes walking 2-3 times a week ..

im going to start yoga soon too that starts april 29th .

i cant rev up my workouts becuase i have knee and back problems so what to do what to do?? any suggestions would be great.

Couple of ideas:
1. More protein
2. No grain carbs in the evening
3. Cut your calories a little to see if it will get things moving
4. Interval training. easily done with swimming and walking.
5. Light weights or resistance training

Ooh, a near neighbour! How exciting!

It's hard to tell without you posting a wee bit more information, especially around what foods you're eating. I tried having a look at your online food diary but was unable to. Perhaps shaking things up again - maybe you're in a rut with food and exercise and need to change things a bit. Perhaps something like doing another class of aqua when you go for your swim?

In terms of food, as I said it's hard to know what to suggest without seeing what you're eating. Perhaps you're eating food that's high in sodium or perhaps your protein/carb/fats ratio is a bit out of sync. Have a play with your calories - I know some of the lovely ladies in the Calorie Counter forum have had success with upping their calories by 100 or so a day...

Good luck!

First of all, good on you for so much success! You worked hard and it paid off. But the human body is a stubborn thing. It want's to hang on to everything it can, so your body is done cooperating at the level of effort you've been putting into it.

Have you considered changing up your routine? I'd cut out the time at the pool for a few weeks. Swimming is not so much aerobic exercise as it is a conditioning exercise. While conditioning is good, perhaps what you're seeking more now is increased fat loss. That is best served by increasing cardio.

So hopefully you can increase the walking, maybe up to five days a week. I was told by a competing body builder that doing cardio two or three times a day was the most effective thing for fat loss. Be careful with your knees and back, but try a minimum of 20 minutes twice a day, with a five minute warm up and cool down period.

If you want to protect your knees, strengthen your muscles that do the work for your knees, your quadraceps and hamstrings and inner and outer thighs. I've had this problem too and followed the exercises listed on a knee pain website (http://www.bigkneepain.com/knee-exercises.html) and they were a big help to me.

The yoga will be great to keep up the range of your mobility and help your back, amongst a huge host of other benefits, but it's not going to burn as many calories per hour as the walking. The walking will strengthen your core and the muscles supporting your knees as well as burn fat.

I was stuck for several months as well and really had to evaluate everything I was doing. I eventually bought a GoWearFit armband to track how much activity I was actually doing and to motivate me to keep moving. I hadn't been tracking the food so religiously, but once I did that, I saw where extra calories had been creeping in. I added some fasted cardio in the morning (cardio for 30 minutes before breakfast), plus more cardio throughout the day. I actually started watching TV while bouncing on a Fitball, so there aren't any moments when I'm just sitting still. And as Pamela suggests, I drastically cut carbs after lunch. In the last few weeks, the scales started slowly moving in my favor again.

Two more things that are really important, getting good quality sleep, regularly, every night. At least 7.5 hours. And getting enough water to drink.

Georgia

Thanks for your responses .

from what all you have said it sounds to me like i need to up the anty in the cardio area to break the cursed plateau.. and the best no stress way i can think to do that is to get back on my elliptical trainer.. it is fine for my back and knee .. and like you said georgia... things need to be evaluated.. and thinking back when i was losing the weight i was using that 3-4 times a week instead of walking.. and still doing my swimming.... and 30 minutes walking 2-3 times a week doesnt come close to 30 minutes of intervals on the elliptical.. 3-4 times a week ..

I actaully think that may be part of where im going wrong..

also on the sleep front...

and maybe on the water part too lol

and i suppose i shouldn't be so down .. my life has been SH*T ( for want of a better word since november last year ) its has just been like a steam train one thing then another .. mental illness (sister) death(cousin) and murderer(friend) police investigation ......... it just goes on and on.. and all this has affected every part of my life including my kids

Today the scales just really got me down.. im trying .... and getting no where.. and thanks to you georgia i have realised i haven't been trying as hard ..

so my plan for this week will be elliptical 2 times ( been a long time since i used so dont wanna kill myself.. lol aqua and swimming.. and hopefully get a walk in too ..

The only other thing that Pameal suggested is the weights.. i have a set of dumbells 1 kilo 2 kilo and 3 kilo.. but i dont have a clue what to do with them anyone got a good website for beginners in weights.. or even a utube video?? and if i9 do weights how often?? i have got away with not using them till now.. but since ive plateaued .. it might be good to start some?

food calories:1,680
calsexercise minutes:128mins
exercise calories:714
calsnet calories:966
calsfat:58g
saturated fat:22g
carbohydrate:196g
sugar:74g
protein:87g
fibre:15g
sodium:2,414mg
potassium:1,509mg
calcium:584mg
iron:5.0mg
zinc:4.4mg
cholesterol:162.2mg
effective carbohyrate:123g

nicolen here is my daily average breakdown for the last few months
carb is 47.5% protien is 21% and fat is 31.4%

Last week i stopped cal counting so i could see if it changed anything.. becuase i kinda stress over counting.. lol and i lost wieght i thought hooray i finaly broke the plateau yippee.. but .. this week it came back ..

as you can see im willing to try anything.. i thought if i just trusted myself and stopped stressing over counting i would loose and last week i did loose 1.2 kilos.. this week 1.5 kilos came back .. so you can see why when i weighed myself today i got very annoyed.

Just a tip, because this is where I struggle, your sodium intake seems a little high, if you could cut that down a bit that may help. I notice that if I get above 2000mg of sodium, I retain too much water. As for strength training, you should be able to go to muscleandfitnesshers.com or shape.com to view a couple of basic moves that will help in that area, I like both.

The same thing happens to me (twice so far). This last time it was at around 65 pounds lost, and I really had to cut back carbs, especially after, say, 1:00 pm, to see a loss. It's working for me again, but it's still hard to balance my diet just right. I go for 30/30/40 protein/fat/carbs, but try to get the carbs under 40% if I can. If nothing else I'd push up your protein intake.

Definitely add in some resistance training, even if you don't have access to lots of weights. Google 'strength training without weights' for all sorts of great suggestions, or check your library for the Core Performance Essentials book, there are great ideas in there.

ETA: I see now you're in Australia so maybe that book won't be available. Sparkpeople has some decent resistance training videos, you might check those out. They go slow to get you started and show you good form so you don't injure yourself.

Meant to mention this last night. Check out the eating suggestions at liverdoctor.com. Maybe you have heard of Dr. Cabot? She is an Aussie too! Basically it is a whole foods diet with lots of fiber and good fats at every meal. Prevention.com is a great website with lots of suggestions on foods and exercise.

I know how frustrated you must be. I had a very similar experience five years ago. I lost 80 lbs. relatively quickly and easily, then everything just stopped.

I had been calorie counting from the get-go at about 1500/day, I walked 3+ times a week, and went to the gym 3 times a week.

To shake things up, I tried increasing cardio -- nada. I tried strict Atkins for 6 weeks -- nada. I joined Weight Watchers and kept within my points values for 2 months -- nada.

This plateau went on for 9 MONTHS. I finally asked my doctor for help, and she put me on a short course of Phentermine, and I started to drop pounds again. As soon as I stopped taking the phentermine, I began gaining weight again.

The one thing I DIDN'T do (and for some reason, didn't connect the phentermine dots to) is drop my calories. I already felt deprived on 1500 calories a day, I had lost well on 1500 calories a day, and by golly I couldn't go lower than 1500 calories a day.

Obviously, the phentermine worked because my appetite decreased temporarily, and I WAS eating under 1500 calories a day. No clue why I didn't see it at the time.

Of course, your mileage may vary, but trying calorie reduction could be the missing link.

For this chapter of my weight loss saga, I am planning to step down my calories as my weight decreases. I am also making better choices with my calorie "budget", choosing foods that help keep me full longer. I'm currently at 1,622 calories a day, and I'm losing an average of 1.8 lbs. a week (pretty good for an old gal with a used and abused metabolism). I'm using The Daily Plate as a guide to step down my calories, as the software automagically recalculates caloric needs as my weight decreases.

I have the calorie calculator set on 2.5 lbs. weekly, with Sedentary activity levels selected, and I never ever EVER record my exercise (TDP increased my calorie allotment if I enter exercise) because I have found that despite entering my age, my metabolism is just too slow to eat at my true activity level and lose.

Another point to consider is that you might be a little carb heavy and need some more protein. Protein helps you feel full longer.

I hung out at 200-210 pounds for a *year*. I just could not really get focused. It took cutting out sugar (real and artificial) and keeping processed food to a minimum for me to get going again, but I feel great.

Keep at this and don't give up. If it takes you a bit longer, so what? You're doing great -- and YOU CAN DO THIS. So just keep going. Do not get frustrated and quit.

Also, I wanted to add, if you're exercising strenuously for two hours a day, you need to eat more!! Your body needs fuel so it can burn fat. If it doesn't get fuel, then it wants to hold onto fat.

When I bike for two hours on the weekends, I eat 2,200-2,500 calories or so.

Honey, you have had quite an upheaval of a year, haven't you?! And through it all, you kept up with your exercise and fitness goals. So proud of you! I understand about stress and the number that it does on us, physically and mentally. I'm going through some tough stuff now as well, and it's not helping me stay focused at all. But some days, the rest of my life seems to be shattered, but I still somehow manage to get on the treadmill and pump some weights.

Big hugs to you for keeping your head in the game!

Georgia

Amy, looking at everything that's happened to you, it sounds like you've had an absolutely wretched last few months. Seriously, if I'd had half of that happen to me, I would have packed on at least 10 kilos.

Take a lot of heart that you've managed to maintain given all the stress that you've been under, and now that things are (hopefully) starting to settle down for you, the weight is going to start falling off you.

Take care!

Amy-
I was on a 6 month plateau and tried everything to break it. After looking back on it - I was a little sloppy with the food journal and I thought I wasn't getting enough activity over the weekend so I got a Sensewear unit (like Bodybugg & Gowearfit.) I got it in November and managed to maintain my weight through the holidays (lose a few pounds.) Since January I've broken the plateau by calorie counting and interval training (cardio). I have a personal trainer for 2x week strength training (I would highly recommend it for a newbie.) The food journal online has been critical to the success of breaking the plateau. Those 'JAB - just a bites' can add up. I have consistently been losing 1 lb per week since January, feel like it should be more but my body really resists changing!!! (I have hypothyroidism)
Here's my targets -
Calories Burned - 2300 per day
Calories Consumed - 1800 per day
Net Deficit - 500 cal per day (or 3500 cal/week, 1 lb weight loss)
10,000 steps
30 min moderate activity per day
15 min vigorous activity per day
(I actually strength train 2 hrs per week, run/cardio/tennis 5+ hrs per week)
My ratios of protein/carb/fat - 30/50/20
For me, cutting calories is not the thing to do as my body thinks it's starving...I'm very active and sometimes I do have to take some days off to rest and recover (my weight loss actually improves too). I have a higher calorie day once a week also to keep the body guessing. Jillian Michaels goes over this in her weekly radio show - you can find on I-tunes (KFI Sunday) or www.mediafly.com.
Good Luck!
Liz in TX
68 lbs lost!