Ugh, you guys, this is not the way I hoped to start the new year. I am, as you know if you've seen any of my recent comments, rocking a plateau that's going on three months now. I've done a lot of things to try to shake it up, but my body is being just as stubborn as it can be, and no matter what I try, the scale keeps sticking firmly at 155. Except when it bounces up to 157, of course. Every once in a blue moon it'll go all the way down to 152 for a day, just to mess with my head, but then the next day I'm right back up to 155.
I don't post a lot, so maybe you don't know that this happens to me every 30 pounds or so. The first plateau lasted a year. A full year. I finally gave up a decade of vegetarianism to get the scale to budge.
This time I've upped my exercise so much that I am literally burning about 1000 calories a day just from workouts, according to my heart rate monitor. I've been lifting fairly heavily, which probably accounts for some water retention/muscle gain, but not this horrendous plateau. Upping my cardio more hasn't done the trick either.
So I'm terrified to do it, but I'm upping my calories from ~1500 a day to ~1800. It's scary! Dropping them to 1300 hasn't worked, though, and if I do go that low I just feel terrible all the time because I don't have enough fuel to keep up with my vigorous workouts. (Currently I'm doing P90X and Insanity simultaneously. It is no joke, let me tell you.)
Anyway, the scale went up two pounds this morning and my immediate reaction was 'OMG must reduce calories!' But I'm going to give it a week, maybe stay off the scale for awhile, and see if upping my calories makes any difference at all. If my weight continues going up, well, I'll reassess. I don't want to see 160 again, I really don't. But I don't know what else to do.
My point? I don't really have one. I just wanted to gnash my teeth for awhile over how hard I'm working and how stubborn my body is being. I'm in the best physical condition of my life to date, yet I am carrying around 40 extra pounds of fat that refuses to budge. My before and after pictures after 30 days of doing this weight training program show no real difference. I'm trying not to get discouraged, but it's hard.
So if you're stuck too, come tell me about it. It'll be like a mini support group. Something has to give eventually, that's what I keep telling myself. I'm just hoping it doesn't take a whole year this time.