Despite being on plan since starting to lose weight again, for the last five days, my weight hasn't changed at all. I'm feeling discouraged and I really don't understand why this is happening.
A bit of background information: I lost approximately 40lbs about a year and a half ago over a period of around four months, through eating around 1200 calories a day and taking regular exercise (swimming and walking). I've been maintaining my weight since then, until a couple of weeks ago when I'd been (unconsciously) eating more healthily than usual. I hopped on the scales and realised I'd broken the 13 stone (182 lbs) plateau that I'd been on for the past year. Spurred on by this, I decided to begin to shift the final 30lbs that I wanted to lose.
I've now been stuck on the same weight for 5 days, and I don't understand why. It might sound silly to be discouraged, but this didn't happen before when I was losing weight. I've stuck to my plan, which I thought was sensible and healthy, and I don't understand why I'm not seeing the results on the scale. I've been eating 1200 - 1300 calories a day, been going to the gym regularly (around three times a week), and making sure to get some sort of exercise on days where I haven't been at the gym (e.g. walking). I think that my diet has been good: I've made sure to eat three meals a day, I've eaten if I've felt hungry, I've tried to eat plenty of fresh fruit and vegetables. If you want to see what I've been eating, you can see my FitDay (linked to the left of this post). There's only been one day that's been not-so-healthy, but it's still been under 1700 calories.
Here's what happened to my weight over the past week or so. You can see that at the start of the week I was losing a pound every couple of days, which is about on track for a 2 - 3 lb weekly loss (what I was hoping for and what I had been used to in the past).
Mon 24 Nov: 179 (lbs)
Tues 25 Nov: 179
Weds 26 Nov: 178
Thurs 27 Nov: 178
Fri 28 Nov: 177
Sat 29 Nov: 177
Sun 30 Nov: 177
Mon 1 Dec: 177
Tues 1 Dec: 177
I'm on the pill at the moment so it can't really be related to my period, the only thing I can think of is that I've been a bit unwell with a cold since late last week. Could that be the reason my body is refusing to shed any weight? I know 1,200 is the minimum calories that should be consumed in a day, but I've never been below that and am usually nearer 1300. I don't feel as though my body is "starving" - I'm eating similar to what I ate before when I lost lots of weight, I haven't felt deprived or hungry.
I'm finding it really discouraging that my weight has maintained for the past 5 days when I've been burning more calories than I consume. I'd really appreciate any comments or advice about why this is happening, as I just feel quite fed up and want to understand what's going on.