Have any of you ever had any experience with set points?

200 seemed to have been a "set point" for me the last time I did this and this time I got stuck for a month at 203 and now I'm stuck just under it. I'm wondering if maybe my body is really trying to be stable around 200.

I'm not at all stressed about this, believe it or not. I'm so happy to be on this side of 200! I'm just curious and amused.

That stuck around 200 thing seems to be going around (lol). I am glad you are not letting it get to you, Eliana. When I used to go to WW, they told us that set points don't exist, then again, Mr Bob says plateaus don't exist either. All I can say is eventualy this has got to break!

Eliana the exact same thing happened to me. It seems to be a pattern and happens for 2-3 weeks at other numbers too. I think I just noticed the 200 and decade ones more because they were milestones. The good news is that so far I've always had a woosh eventually.

Not on the way down, but definitely when I was not watching my weight. In my 20's (I'm 50 now) I would stay the same weight for years. Then decide I had to knock off 15 lbs and ironicallly by the time I had failed on the diet I would have "broken" the set point to a new higher number.

I can't decide if "set point" is all in my head... I know that the science about "set points" has been pretty much debunked, but I did think I was sticking at previous stick points on the way down-- 250, 230, both were weights I sat at for a long time on the way up, and I "thought" I stuck on the way down, but I have a feeling it might have been more or less psychological.

Weight loss has not been linear AT ALL for me, but I find that when I'm losing at a rate of 1 pound per week, I'll have a no loss week or two followed by a loss week or two. It evens out when I look at a graph, but it makes me feel stuck a lot of the time.

I feel stuck a lot of the time too. It's very odd because I always do really well at the beginning, like my body was just waiting for me to take on this project. But then along the way it decides it's had enough.

Ah well...one can't possibly eat 1200-1500 calories a day and exercise and remain at 200 lbs...right??

Ha! Sometimes I just think that I will NEVER lose weight, and then I remind myself that I felt stuck at 228, and now, I'm eleven pounds less than that. I think it's just psychological... in the beginning, the scale moves so fast and it's just dizzying-- every week brings some new thing... but when the weight is coming off slower, it's much harder to tell the difference.

Wasn't there a book written years ago called the set point theory? I'll have to see if I still have it...maybe I can scan some pages and email them out...I'll check and see if I still have it...of course we can get probably better and more updated info on the web...

Personally, I do think our body does have setpoints. I think it is times when our body is just trying to catch up with were we are in our journey. Sometimes I think it is psychological as our mind finds it way with our journey to becoming a thinner person and the things that entails.

I got "stuck" at about 230 last time. It took changing EVERYTHING to fix it. I started exercising 2 extra days a week, and dropped 100 calories. That finally got me to 208, where I stopped doing anything and gained it all back.

People have said this elsewhere: Try eating less, try eating more, try a different type of exercise. SOMETHING will work.

For me, the set points are usually mental. I hovered at 203 for three weeks and as much as I want to say it was a plateau, I think it was me freaking out over onderland and then doing a little self-sabotage. The same thing happened right before my BMI went from obese to overweight. It's annoying that I tend to pause right before major milestones, but I am recognizing the problem so hopefully I won't have as many in the future.

Also, in terms of hovering, when I lose weight I tend to woosh & hover. I might lose 5 lbs in one week then nothing the next two, I think that's just my body adjusting. So for you with your set points it might be similar, your body is adjusting to its new smaller size.

Oh me too. I whoosh, then hover, then bounce up, then bounce back down then hover, then whoosh again. At least I'm used to it...

I don't know that I'll ever get used to it! LOL! But at least this time I'm mentally prepared for it. I'm trying not to judge myself by what others experience.

And just for the record...I'm still exactly 198.4. It's amazing to me how completely stuck I can get. There is no fluctuation.