I am following the old program and my range is 18-23.. at the moment I weigh 148-149. I try to shoot for as close to 18 pts as possible, which leaves some room for nibbles here and there [maybe this is what's slowing my progress]. I'm just wondering how people make it down to the 130s - don't you ever plateau?

I don't think I'm plateauing just yet but I worry that it can't be avoided.
I'm 23 and I do tae bo advanced M-W-Fri, Tae bo abs/glutes T-Thurs-Sat along with lifting weights. I drink a lot of water. I have started walking and jogging, but if I end up plateauing before reaching goal, I don't know how much more exercising or whatever I could do.
I have noticed changes in my body, everything is firmer and I'm stronger - I just worry I'll plateau before getting down to a trim 130 something.
I'm not trying to speed up the losing process, I'm just wondering how people continue to drop lbs with the lowest points range. Any thoughts??

Beek - I'm not even close to the lowest point range, but with all the exercise you're doing, you may want to try eating at the higher end of your range and use your activity points as well. If you're not taking in enough calories to fuel your body, your metabolism will slow down accordingly and your weight loss will stall. So use those points!

Hi Cece, if only that would work for me!! In July, in order to up the ante, I decided to alternate between two tae bo advanced tapes every day (except sunday) combined with my abs + weights. This was a lot of work and pretty hard on the body because the moves are similar in the tapes. THE SCALE DID NOT BUDGE. It was terribly discouraging. At that time I weighed 154 (pts 20-25) I think, and it was only after I moved to the lower points range and I drank more water that I finally lost a few. I now only do one of the advanced tapes.

It makes sense that the more exercise you do, the more food you can take in - but this doesn't seem to apply in my case. I don't get how people can just go for walks and ride their stationary bikes and the pounds fly off! I ride my bike practically every day and move around a lot at my job, and it's taken me since June to lose 8 pounds.

WHAT IS WRONG WITH ME???

I keep reading how gaining muscle and changing body shape can occur without the actual loss of weight, so maybe inches should be my focus rather than pounds. Still, it's discouraging. My friend last year lost 20 pounds on WW from May-Aug with ZERO exercise.
BAH!

Perhaps if you tried eating more points on one day, say at your maximum point value, then eating your minimum the next day, then eating somewhere in between your minimum and maximum point values the following day ... I've read that it is good to change your caloric intake from day to day if you are not experiencing weight loss. Maybe that would work?

Cheers,

Candyce

Candyce has a good suggestion - shake up your points a bit. I can understand how it can be discouraging to do all that exercise and still have to eat low points in order to lose. Maybe vary what you eat too. Have a couple of days of eating perhaps more protein, etc. Sometimes plateaus just seem to last awhile until the body gives in and gives up the weight. I wish I could give you better advice. Do what you mention - focus on how many inches you've lost, how you've changed your body. Congratulate yourself for treating your body well by eating right and exercising. And finally, I know it seems like a slow pace to lose only 8 pounds since June, but it's still 8 pounds less that you weigh. If you weren't doing all these things, where would you be?

Good luck and hang in there. Feel free to come to our weekly "weigh in" threads for support and encouragement.

Carla

I have finally lost one pound! It's been about 2 months I think. In the last two weeks I have started running and this weekend I ate a bit of extra food so I'm not sure what I can attribute the loss to.
Candyce, thanks for the suggestion - I'm going to try it. It is very similar to the Wendie plan, a spinoff of WW, that someone has suggested.
The Wendie plan is for people who can't kick their plateaus!

beek, I accidently end up in here but you really need to eat more than 18 points a day. You said you ate a bit more. By eating such a low number day in and day out you can slow your metabolism severely. Most people can eat all their points during the week (some days low points, some midrange and some high) and still lose. W/W did away with the 18-23 point range and went to a minimum 20 pt a day TP because new research showed 18 was way toooooooo low.

Wendie plans is really what FlexPlan is....using your FPs (aka what you could bank all week) to have low days, midrange days and high days.

When I was at your weight (actually 146) I exercised not as nearly as much as you, just treadmill, but kept my points at 20 and got down to 133. I have recently just restarted WW, I started out with Phase I of South Beach to cut out my carb cravings then switched to WW, but I don't eat any sugar, everything sugar free or with Splenda, I don't eat any pasta unless it's whole wheat, and no white bread, whole wheat wraps only. I also would suggest "one a day weight smart." I'm sure you've seen them on TV it's a multivitamin with EGCG and green tea to help keep the metabolism up. I started out on 9-21-04 at 144, and am now 136 as of 10-15-04. I make sure I speed walk on my treadmill at least 2 miles, and at least 5 times a week. Plus with all that exercise you have to remember that you are building muscle. When I use to lift weights at the gym then rollerblade 6 miles either before or after my workout, and often run on the treadmill for at least 30 minutes, all in one day, I still could NEVER get lower than 125lb but after a class that I took, I now know why. I never changed my workout routine, never added weight or reps, just always did the same exact routine for over a year. I recently took a body building class at my college and found out that to keep improving you have to increase whatever amount of exercise that you are doing by 10% every two weeks. Otherwise if you don't increase this 10% you will just be maintaining your current condition. So if you are running for 20 minutes now, you need to increase to 22 minutes, then in two weeks, 24.2 mintues. Hope this helps.

SW 144
CW 136
GW 120

Would you happen to know how many calories 20 points is?

I was very inspired/encouraged by your email, seeing someone at my weight get down to 120 <!!> but then I came back to earth.. I fear this is not in the cards for me!
Okay. I did WW last summer for the first time from June-Sept. I went from 162 to 154.
A friend of mine started in May and went from 165-140, ending in Aug/Sept. she did NO exercise, and I was doing my tae bo with quite a bit of effort.
I don't understand how I can have such minimal success when I do more exercise now, more weights, and am eating at the lower points.


Do you mean you don't eat sugar on purpose or you eat foods totally void of sugar? Because I've been eating very well lately, no junk, always whole wheat, but still there is sugar in cottage cheese and stuff where I'd least expect it - I would find these foods impossible to phase out of my diet and I wouldn't really want to get rid of them..

Regarding the vitamin, I will only be able to get it the next someone goes to the states because we seem to only have women/men/adult formulas here - but it seems to have a good combination, regardless of the EGCG.
I thought the whole green tea/metabolism claim has yet to be supported by research or is that untrue? I'm not sure it will do any good but can't hurt right?
I also like that the Vitamin A in the weightsmart is 100% beta carotene rather than retinol since that remains controversial.

I find it incredible that you're down to 136 in a month, congratulations! I figure a trim 135 would be good for me but at this rate I may not even see 140.
I'm not really sure what I should take from your experience with the treadmill/20 points/ and reaching 133 lbs.
Are you saying I should cut down on the tae bo, and in that way, be able to increase it to three times/wk or something...or continue all this exercise and ADD to the running? Or add 10% to my weights?? I'm not quite sure how I could change my routine.

Are you naturally skinny? The last time I was skinny/slim was when I was 9 and weighed 89 pounds. In high school I must have been 140-154 and can't ever remember when I was lower than that. Maybe I'm just not destined to be very slim, is it possible?? I think I must be a very slow loser too.

By the way, is there a better way to quote ??

Beek: mixing up your routine (both food and exercise) may help too... Also and I hope you don't take offense to this, sometimes our bodies just don't work on the time tables we have in our heads... sometimes it's slower.... I got to goal and gained about 20lbs more than I like to be, and my weight has been dropping but s-l-o-w-e-r than I would like it to be. I know, it bites sometimes, i have lost 10.5lbs in 3 months, sometimes our bodies just do that. Maybe you could try that, it mixes up points from day to day... You can get the weight smart stuff in Ontario too I think... I just use the woman's formula though.

BTW: I got to goal going to WW in the West-Island a few years ago... I was born and raised around MTL!

Cheers!

Ali

Hi sweatergirl, I am in the west island! but I won't be going to WW meetings. Today I am feeling pretty discouraged and wonder if I'll ever get to "goal". My friend keeps saying maybe I'm at my ideal weight, which really annoys me because I still have so much I want to get rid of and I hope she isn't right.

I am trying to do the Wendie plan, mixing up the points. I did kind of go off points last week, and I've had a 'super high day" as recommended by the W plan, so I'll probably gain this week and maybe never lose again!

I started running two weeks ago - to spice up my exercises. The first week I ran for 5 days, then last week only 3 days, and I don't know if i can bring myself to run tonight. I feel wretched.
Maybe you're right, maybe I'm just a REALLY REALLY slow loser..or maybe I've reached an eternal plateau

Hey there Beek

I don't do WW, but reading your plight here I started to see a few repeated patterns in what people were saying and in your replies.

I started at 171 pounds and am now down to 118 at 5'6. I did that over the course of 14 months or so.

This is the part that I found echoing your problem. When I ate SMALL amounts, like 1100 calories, and exercised like mad my weightloss SLOWED DOWN.

When I increased my calories and cut back slightly on my exercise then my weightloss INCREASED.

Sounds weird huh?

Upon doing research into this I found like many here have pointed out, that you NEED to eat a minimum amount just to keep your body ticking over. If you eat under that that your body clings like mad to it's fat stores and fights you like a wild animal every inch of the way (no pun intended :P)

As much as it will grate on your nerves and seem contrary to everything you think you should be doing you quite probably need to eat MORE. It's a matter of striking a balance between eating enough to make the min requirements to keep your vital organs functioning happily and not eating so much that you are going into storage mode.

I also agree that shaking the routine up is a great way to stimulate your body into losing more. By changing your routine i don't mean necessarily INCREASING the amount you are doing. I merely mean that you change what you are doing. So say you run one week, try power walking the next, or maybe cycling a couple times a week and running a couple times a week, do weights 3 times a week and mix it in with the treadmill, or the stationary bikes. Take classes one week then work outside the next. ALWAYS keep your body guessing at what you are going to throw at it next. Our bodies are incredibly adaptable and they will settle into a pattern very easily.

Not only will you aid your weightloss and hopefully prevent a plateau, you'll keep your interest and motivation up because you'll be doing so many varied activities!

I hope some of this helps, it's just what I have found worked for me.

Goodluck and you're doing great!

Livi

Thanks Livi, your message helped a lot along with all the others.
I was really discouraged last week, plus my running didnt go well, so I was disappointed with the diet and myself in general. This week I have been trying the Wendie plan, which advocates a very high points day, and alternating low and high in an effort to "trick" the body. I don't think I've lost any weight yet, but I'm going to give it a few weeks.. Heck, nothing else has worked so why not, I just hope I don't GAIN

This coming week Im going to take a break from my tae bo and abs videos and just run and lift weights. Maybe that will help, it will at least give my body a good rest. I was really happy with my running this week, and only ran every second day.

You reminded me of something I'm too impatient to remember - that weightloss takes time, and took you 14 months. At first, I had given myself the year to lose weight but then got discouraged with how the slow progress. I just have to try to stick with it.

Since you weren't doing weight watchers, what were you doing?

I know it can be frustrating sometimes to see the slow progress. I had periods where things just seemed to crawl! But I always stuck it out. I'm stubborn as an absolute mule and can be completely singleminded towards a goal. Apparently it's a family trait hehe.

I didnt use any diet plans. I never called it a diet period.

I basically just woke up one morning utterly disgusted with the way I'd let myself slide into depression and the way I was abusing my body and feelings with food. Before this depression bout I'd always eaten well and healthy, so I guess all the junk I was consuming was an abberation for me.

So, I cut out ALL junk, went completely cold turkey on it, never kept anything like that in the house so there was no temptation and I even had to avoid the biscuit aisles in the begining lol. I'm fine with it now though, i can have chocolate and biscuits lying about the house and never touch them, but it took a lot of willpower to conquer those cravings! Mind over matter *nods*

I guess you could call my plan just a basic low-fat one. High in fresh fruit and vegetables & legumes, high in wholegrains (breads & pastas included), high in low-fat dairy, moderate in meats like chicken and fish and lower in red meats like steak. I eat when I am hungry until I feel comfortable. I eat slowly and savour my food. I take a lot of enjoyment from eating, so I make sure I eat very tasty and satisfying foods. I also kept a fairly watchful eye on my calorie intake. Since it all boils down to energy in, energy out. I was eating around 1300 cals a day to lose, 5-6 meals a day, and I am eating around 1900-2000 to maintain (but I am not counting so much these days since I know roughly how much and what portions i should be having of things)

And I increased my exercise! I started walking every day, now I run as well, i go to the gym most days, so weights 3 times a week, cardio 5 times a week at the gym. I dance all the time too, just through CD on an boogey around the room like an idiot hehe (I found that actually improved my balance and flexibility as well, unintended but welcome bonuses!)

Hope any of that helps you!

Livi