I’ve lost 81 lb since 2009, slowly and sensibly, but for the last year or so it’s slowed down to nothing. I still have 4lb to go until I’m in the ‘healthy’ weight category and about 28 lb until I’m at my ideal weight. Initially, I thought my weight loss had halted due to the fact that I began weight training, but I’m over a year on now and water retention can only last so long.

In the last twelve months I have only lost about 8 lb and in recent times I’ve been gaining! In the last few weeks I decided to increase my cardio and I did 45 minutes of hard cardio everyday in addition to weight training for thirty-five minutes three times per week. I was eating 1800, as that gave me a deficit of six hundred a day. Hopped on the scale a week later and I’ve gained 3 lb! Absolutely gutted! I know it isn’t a fluke either because for the last six months I have continually been gaining/losing the same 4 lb over and over again. This is despite counting calories, weighing everything, looking at micronutrients and exercising about six times per week, including interval training.

I know there are situations where the scale stays the same, but body fat % goes down, but this doesn’t seem to be the case for me. My dress size hasn’t gone down, I haven’t lost many inches and I my body looks exactly the same as before.

My stats:

Female
20 y/o
5 ft 8 inches
169 lb
Small frame
Calorie consumption, 1800, 2000 on Saturdays

After six months of this turmoil it’s really beginning to depress me. I’m wasting hours a week for absolutely nothing. Is it time to get a doctor involved? I’ve had my thyroid checked before, so I know it’s not that. Is there anything I can do that I haven’t already tried to get things going again?

can you post a sample menu?

I hit a plateau recently and went to see a nutritionist. She didn't change my calorie intake, but she did tweak what was making up those calories. I was having crackers as my carbs, and she switched me to quinoa, brown rice or whole grain bread. Healthier food with more nutrients. it's only been a few days so I can't say it works, but I figured I'd share.

I will say that times i've been closer to goal weight, I've had the most success with losing by cutting back on my exercise (like just walks) and cutting way back on calories. It got the weight off, and then I rebuilt fitness. Of course this was also back in my 20's when my metabolism was different...

My sample menu would look something like this:

Breakfast: Porridge oats and fruit/eggs on wholemeal toast/weetabix

Lunch: Wholemeal bread with lean meat/pitta with lean meat/vegetable soup/salad with a 150 g tin of tuna or meat like turkey or chicken.

Dinners: M: leak steak, mash potatoes and vegetables, T: baked/jacket potato with tuna and salad, W: Chicken breast, sweet potatoes and vegetables, Th: Wholewheat pasta and tuna Fri: Spanish omelet and salad, Sat: Wholegrain rice, chicken, black bean sauce and vegetables, 1-2 glasses of red wine. Sunday: A chicken roast with potatoes and vegetables.

The reason I don't want to cut calories too much is because I'm only 20 and it's not recommended that anyone under 21 goes under the 1700-1800 calorie range.

I had never heard that rule about the calories for people under 20, but I see you are in the UK, so it might be different there.

Do you have any ideas what it might be?

It could be that those calories are the maintenance level for your weight, and that's why you aren't losing.

<<The reason I don't want to cut calories too much is because I'm only 20 and it's not recommended that anyone under 21 goes under the 1700-1800 calorie range.>>

Not sure where you heard that. I think it's fine to go below 1700-1800 if you're trying to lose weight. In your shoes I would try cutting back to 1500 and not changing your exercise. Try it for a month and see where it gets you.

JMO Freelance

You're eating too many calories. I calculated your BMR (with your age) and 1,615 calories a day will hold you at 169p with zero exercise.

But, if my understanding of BMR is correct, BMR is the absolute minimum a person would burn if they are in bed all day, in a coma etc. Obviously that's not the case with me, so, even excluding exercise I should be burning more, yes? All the calculators I have checked put me at about 1930 a day without exercise.

When I began this weight loss attempt, I was losing only 1 lb a month (that's 12 lbs a year - and at a starting weight of 394 lbs).

I complained to my doctor that I was failing and that I should be able to lose "at least two pounds a week like a normal person."

My doctor scolded me, saying that "normal" isn't losing 2 lbs a week, it's not even losing 1 lb a month. Normal is losing nothing. Normal is gaining wieght. Normal is losing a few pounds and then giving up and regaining it all with some extra to spare.

He reminded me that even losing nothing more and just more or less maintaining the 30 lbs I had lost (at the time of my complaining to him) would be an extraordinary accomplishment, just because most people who want to do it, don't. They try and fail (if they try at all).

It's taken me seven years to get off 105 lbs (year 1 I wasn't trying to lose and didn't own a scale but I lost 20 lbs from sleep apnea treatment. I spent the next two years trying to lose more weight by eating healthier and moving more. I did get healthier but I only succeeded in "not gaining" which in itself was an accomplisment. Then in the last four years actively losing at a rate of about 1 lb a month (it's getting a little faster as I get better at eating less and moving more).

My point is that you aren't failing at anything. You're succeeding at maintaining a loss of 81 lbs. Even if you lost nothing at all this year, it would still be a glorious acheivement worth celebrating your blankety blank off.

If you want to lose more, by all means see your doctor. Ask for suggestions. Maybe you'll be able to speed weight loss with his help, or maybe not. Maybe it will take another year to get another 6 to 8 lbs off.

You might consider experiment with different protein/carb/fat ratios (some people burn more calories on low-carb - For me there's about a 300 calorie difference (and a recent study someone sited here on 3FC also found a metabolic advantage to low-carb averaging about 300 calories).

That means if you switch to lower carb, you might be able to lose some weight even without changing your calorie level. (maybe, maybe not), but it may be worth a shot.

Regardless, you need to acknowledge and celebrate your success. Do not make the common mistake of thinking that if you can't lose more, you've failed and can't make it to goal, what's the point of even trying.

Feeling doomed to failure (and refusing to see partial success as being worth anything) is probably the main reason that most diet attempts fail. We don't celebrate the success of "not gaining." We often see gaining as no worse than stalling, and we decide that if we're not going to be able to lose, if we're not able to get to the ultimate goal, there's absolutely no point in even trying - and if we're going to be fat anyway, we might as well get to eat whatever we want.

The logic is faulty, and we know it, but we're also "taught" to believe it. You have to unlearn that belief, and realize that absolutely every pound matters, and even if you never do get to your ideal goal, where you are is better than going back - and you're not failing, you're having mad success.

Celebrate the success every day. I've managed to succeed only because I switched my goal from losing to "not gaining," and while I'm at the business of not gaining I try to lose one more - but I always remember that the not gaining is the REAL accomplishment. It's the part that most people fail at. Just fighting the same 10 lb is better than most of my life spent fighting the same 60.

Your fighting the same 4 lbs is a stunning acheivement. Fighting the same 4 lbs is called successful maintenance (and whether you're at goal or not, maintenance is success). Ok, you want to lose a little more, and that's great - but don't for a minute minimize your successful maintenance. Don't forget to celebrate like mad when you step on the scale and see no loss or when you see that you're in the same range you've been in for six months.

Focusing on the success of not gaining has made a tremendous difference in my stress level while dieting. Stress has always been the number one killer of previous weight loss attempts. And stress can inhibit weight loss because of the effect it has on hormones and sleep. If you reduce your stress, you may also burn more calories without having to cut calories (maybe, maybe not). Regardless stress reduction will make the process much easier and much less discouraging.

You are succeeding, whether it takes you one year or seven to get to your ultimate goal. You are succeeding, whether or not you lose another pound. Always remember that every pound matters and healthy weights are averages (for health you may not need to lose any more weight, or you might need to lose 10 - talk to your doctor about what you need to lose for health AND what you need to get to your ideal weight - or even if you might not be at your your personal ideal weight now).

If you're quite muscular, you may be at a healthy weight and your ideal weight might be 15 or 20 lbs a way, not almost 28.

Yes, talk to a doctor, but celebrate the success you are accomplishing, or you're going to doom yourself to discouragement, and discouragement can be fatal to your success if you let it overwhelm you.

Celebrate, celebrate, celebrate (not with food, but with pats on the back for being such a fabulous success - and it's not just past success. Not gaining is every much today's success as the 81 previous pounds have been. In fact, maintenance is the bigger success, because most people can lose some weight, it's keeping it off that is the bigger, harder battle).

Have you ever tried eating right at maintenance calories for 1-2 weeks and then cutting your intake back down? Might help to jump start your body a little bit.

I would definetly cut back on the calories. Your metabolism supposedly slows when you lose weight so you are not burning the amount you see on those calculators anyways most likely. For example im 250 and 5'7 and the calcs all pit me at 2300-2350 cals without exercise. But from my own calculations (what i eat and what i lose on average) I actually burn only 2100 without exercise. Thats 200 calories different so I eat 1200 a day and burn an extra 100 a day to get 2lbs a week. Besides the theory our metabs burn less after weight loss is the fact that everyones bodies are different. Yours probably burns slower then those calcs and youll need to drop your calories. I would say 1400. I know people say that is too low but you are not a big girl as it is so 1400 is plenty of food , 1500 if you exercise a lot a day. Any more then that and you're just even keel. Just my opinion but even at my goal weight and when im active I wouldn't eat 1800 a day O_O

If you are not losing for months at a time, and are in fact gaining, and you are serious about getting the last pounds off, IMO you need to cut your calories. I don't know where you heard 20 year olds shouldn't eat below 1800, but that's simply not true!

Other than that, I don't have much advice other than to stick with it. Exercise improves your health, so there IS a point to it, even if you aren't losing weight! It's beneficial in many aspects.

Good luck to you!

Someone recently posted posted a link to a study demonstrating that people who've lost a lot of weight are a bit more efficient when it comes to basic day-to-day staying alive by burning calories. Knock two or three hundred calories off what the calculators are telling you, because the calculators are based on the metabolism of someone young and healthy who's never been overweight.

If I were you I'd look at reducing carbs slightly, as your sample menu shows you could be having bread at breakfast, bread at lunch, and pasta for tea. Everyone's different of course, and that may not work for you, but I find it's helped me to only have something bread-based once a day.

I would definitely say try cutting your calories - I'm also in the UK and have never heard that under 20's thing before.

Also well done on what you've already achieved!

I think this is key. If you've been honest with yourself about your calories, and have been fighting the same few lbs for the past several months, then I think you've found your maintenance level of calories. I've seen this in many places over the years. Formerly obese people are not like always normal weight people, even if they look the same on the outside. The book Thin For Life used the examples of many experienced maintainers to show that formerly obese people just need to eat less. I was watching the HBO show The Weight of the Nation last night. The experts on that show claimed that formerly obese people need to eat 20% less calories than never overweight people of the same height, weight, and age. That's huge. This means that the 1800-2000 calories you've been eating may well be what you need to maintain your current weight and exercise level.

Thank you for the replies everyone!

Thank you so much for this post. When I started at 250 lb I was in a state of denial – I gained the weight so quickly and it just seemed impossible that I got there. I’m still in a kind of denial about that – I can’t believe I let things get that far. Because of this I think I sometimes forget how far I’ve come. I’ve spent so much time beating myself up over it – thinking if I’d started just 30 lb lower things would be so different. And they would be. But I’m trying to slowly let go of that, but it’s difficult. No-one in real life knows what I weighed at my heaviest and who knows whether I’ll ever be able to tell anyone. My family think I started my weight loss journey almost 40 lb lower than I was. Pretty scary! When I actually think about how much I’ve lost and how much I’ve done to get there – it is really amazing. I should appreciate that more. Given my situation I’ve constantly been looking forwards, forwards, forwards – always to the next goal post and never back. I think it’s because looking back is so frightening. I feel like a different person now. Nevertheless, thank you for the post – it really puts things in perspective and is a lovely reminder!

I think for now – given all the replies in this thread - I am going to cut my calories down by 2-300 and see if it gets me anywhere! I’ve spent a lot of time worrying about eating too few calories, whether it will affect my health, cause muscle loss etc. But I suppose ultimately if I cut calories to 1600 and that is the correct level for me and my metabolism, then I should be OK.