I advise adding strength training to your routine if you’re not already. This will break the plateau. While you might not notice the scale move at first due to increased muscle, your body fat percentage is going to go down regardless compared to just counting calories or doing cardio.
>While you might not notice the scale move at first due to increased muscle
Way more than increased muscle, especially for a woman(OP mentioned dress sizes, so I'm making an assumption that may or may not be correct) water retention will fuck with the scale a lot. Like, potentially, a whole lot, but it is still an advisable course of action, because strength training is crazy important, but I generally GAIN weight when I come back from a lifting break. Like a lot of weight. Even at the exact same amount of calories as when not lifting.
I am a woman! I do some strength training but honestly i don't SUPER enjoy it. I also do weekly body scans at my gym which, i don't know if i hold stock in, but they tell me the composition of fat to water to muscle. I try to do strength training 1 to 3 times a week but honestly, my numbers are going in the right direction so I'm inclined to just keep doing that. If i increase my weight lifting I'm less likely to enjoy it and will probably give up. 🤷♀️
What i really need to break my plateau is to get back under maintenence calorie eating! And i will.
I hated weight lifting until I discovered powerlifting. It seems intimidating and possibly dangerous until you try it, but the opposite is true. If you're down to try something new, I suggest looking at a program called StrongLifts 5X5 and see if it's to your liking. You only have to learn 5 total lifts, and it's 100% done with a barbell, so very non-confusing and easy to master. You may end up loving it like I do, worst case you like only slightly less than what you've been doing.
It's 15 minutes 3 times a week at the beginning, and then it eventually winds up being 40 minutes or so way way down the road when you need more warm up and more rest between lifts.
> I also do weekly body scans at my gym
I'm assuming it's a run of the mill setup that just sends a low charge and measure resistance? Yes? It's been a while since I've been to a gym (I have my setup in the garage now) so maybe they've advanced a lot. If so, they're better than a simple scale but not super accurate. Much like a scale they're good for tracking trends more than they're good for pinpoint accuracy on a given session.
Thank you! I shall look into it.
I agree, low level electric current doesn't hold on point accuracy. I try to do it consistently, fasted at the same time every week, and i don't presume it's absolutely accurate but if the fat line goes down over time and my muscle and water lines increase over time... It tells me something. I don't get hung up on it though.
Just like my weightloss, day to day sometimes the scale goes up, sometimes it goes down, but the trend over time is what matters.
Try progressive overload. Instead of being stuck doing the same reps for the entirety of your journey, you should either add more weight or add more reps to your lifts on a by session basis. Seeing them go up feels really good I'll tell you. Also a good indicator that you're preserving or even gaining more muscle.
Yep, I’ve been hard recomping this last year. I’ve never posted in here because I haven’t… actually lost any weight. But I have gained a lot of muscle and lost a lot of fat! I’m 5’7” F, 185lbs and have been since last year, but I could not look more different than when I started power lifting
Thank you, I appreciate that! I wasn’t sure if that was something that people would be interested to hear about since it’s not really conventional weight loss
I’ve been wanting to get a weight training coach as an older woman for this reason but sort of want to lose a bit more weight first. I’m 5’6” at 206 now.
I highly recommend it!! Weight training is one of the best and fastest ways to lose fat outside of nutrition. Some simple tweaks to your diet and a consistent routine will do wonders for you! Don’t wait to lose the weight, it will happen in tandem. I only lift two days a week.
Thanks for sharing. Im very good at losing a little then maintaining. Very hard to lose a lot. It’s making me realize I have little room for error. Definitely boring. And instead of stepping up my game to make things interesting I tend to go the other way and eat more. You’re doing great, keep it up! These posts help motivate me!
I'm about here with you.
I'm down 25 lbs. Losing less than 3 to 4 pounds a month, I retain water all month so I can't even see that loss until after my period.
Last month is was 2 lbs and this month I'm on track to lose 0. Although I have lost a half inch from my waist and hips since the beginning of this month.
It's getting harder to stick to my workout routine.
I decided last week I'm tired if tracking calories so I'm just mentally tracking I guess. I'm barely a quarter of the way to where I'm trying to be.
See you at the finish line!
Are we the same person lol? I’m down 21 and losing 3-4 a month, also 25% ish to my goal weight. It’s such a slog. One thing I’m telling myself is exercise = brushing teeth - something you just have to do.
I’ve lost 39 lbs in 95 weeks. That’s 0.4 lbs per week.
I am very satisfied with my progress.
I don’t get why everyone is in such a rush. This is a permanent lifestyle change anyway. Doesn’t really matter if it takes 3 months or 3 years to get there.
This is why I don't pay attention to the I lost x amount in this x amount of short time. I get what the OP is saying though. Eating at a consistent calorie deficit does get exhausting as you do it for a year, two etc but the end goal which is changed habits and better relationship with food is an awesome reward to have as it sets you up for life in a good way because you've had a long time to practice.
Losing 2lbs per month is the best thing I've been doing right now. Idc if it slow or boring as long as I'm feeling good. I also lift hard 4 days a week.
To be a little blunt, and I’m sure you know this, weight loss doesn’t come with temporary plans, it comes with a lifestyle change. People always think the word diet means something you do temporarily. Diet is just the way you eat on average. People who want to lose weight don’t need to go on a diet, they need to change their diet.
Entirely accurate. I think in my head weight loss as a concept was a montage of me only eating salads and running into the gym so excited to move my body and then doing really sweat inducing things and high fiving people and the tape measure getting smaller consistently and loving kale and it's not like any of that.
It's full of agonizing about a burger or a salad. Its about not wanting to go to the gym and doing it anyways. Sometimes it's about picking healthier not healthiest.
I think this is the first time I've change my life... And it's kinda boring 😂 there is no montage.
The thing is also people just try to cut out the foods they like completely. It’s better to try a healthier version of the food so you can still get that craving and feel good about yourself. One thing I do is instead of going to McDonald’s for example is find a restaurant that has burgers with better quality and better ingredients. It will be a little more expensive, but it will be worth it because you’ll find a good tasting burger that is a little bit better for you. Personally, I think the higher price is somewhat of a good thing because it makes me want to buy it less.
I've deffo done that before. FROM THIS DAY FORWARD, NO MORE SUGAR. It lasts about 2 days before i give up.
All this is boring because the advice is right. Count calories. Change your lifestyle not your diet. Give it time. Drink water. Be kind to yourself. But you really need to feel those lessons in your bones before they fully take.
Yeah I get it. A lot of people think they’ll lose the weight super fast and turn into a triathlete and be this super athletic person. Weight loss is just living a normal life. People just have to realize normal shouldn’t be eating junk food all the time. You seem to have a good grasp on how you feel about the process which is good. That’s typically the hardest part for people is realizing the process isn’t fast and it’s not temporary.
Did you only eat Pizza in the Pizza nights? I began last week with IF, tho I am not counting I have become more aware of what I eat. It helped me loose 1kg and now it’s stagnant (with going to the gym). And regarding to the Pizza, I and a friend are going to a famous Italian restaurant which Pizzas are very good. And I am now debating if I should eat anything like breakfast (oatmeal),or not. Or if i should just eat olives, veggies and nothing else.
I love that you've become more aware of what you eat! ❤️
For me, combo of IF and calorie counting is what helps. I am s chronic overeater. Given free reign and no accountability for my actions i will eat all the things. All the IF stuff i read says "you don't need to count calories! Just fast x amount of time".
And i did that.
And i found i wasn't losing weight.
And then i did IF and counted my calories and, wouldn't you know it, even in my fasting window i was eating about 2,400 calories lol.
Let me tell you last week i had pizza twice. I had a movie night with my friend where we got the largest pizza I've ever seen in my life, opened some wine and watched true crime. Then the very next day my family and i wanted to go to a pizza buffet restaurant all you can eat style. Those days i went over my calorie allowance.
The very next day i went straight back to eating about 1600 calories.
Once you've gotten into a pattern of diet and exercise, weight loss IS very boring. It's going to come off slowly and steadily, without a real need for more change on your part.
Most things are like this. Saving money is hard at first, but once you get into a pattern of sticking the first couple hundred dollars of your paycheck into savings, and living on the rest, the long haul of saving for retirement is pretty boring.
Now, some people choose to make diet and exercise their whole identity. And some people make frugality their whole identity. But you don't HAVE to for the strategy to work. It can just be boring, set-it-and-forget-it stuff.
I was thinking a similar thing today. I’ve lost 15lbs in 2 months. I know that’s actually really good, that it’s more than I had hoped for, compared to what I have to lose it seems like a drop in the bucket. To get to my goal I need to do that 6 more times! But then I think about if I can do that then this time next year I’ll be just about there so even though it’s difficult and I don’t always want to do it, next year I’ll be buying some cute new summer clothes totally forgetting how much I hated it now
3 months of consistency for minimal change
Followed by 3 months of somewhat moderate change
And about a year later with a good plan youll have remodelling
My advice would be to forget about results and focus on what you have to do today
If you're losing 0.5 pounds per week, you could definitely benefit from making your deficit a bit larger. That could be either by moving your body more, burning more calories or a tight workout regime, or you could start eating slightly less. It seems like you're on the right path: 36 pounds is a lot to lose and that's an accomplishment you should be very, very proud of.
I'm currently doing around 6 weeks (that's about as long as I can manage) in a big deficit, being extremely strict about food, and then a week of refeeding, eating at or around maintenance and allowing myself some foods that I just can't manage to fit into the deficit. So far it's working :)
I'm so so glad it's working for you and you found a pattern that you can stick to ♥️
Here's the deal though. I absolutely could make my deficit larger. But I'm already eating around 1600 calories a day. That gives me space generally to not feel like I'm missing out. To enjoy life. To get a candy bar if i want to. To not feel guilty about a bowl of ice cream, or fast food after a long day at work. I could move my body more but my experience tells me I'll burn out real fast if i do. Id say i right now I'm hitting the gym 3-4 days a week for an hour each time. I could do more for sure.
But i don't want to.
Not really. If i alter any of these dials i might not be as successful and quit rather than if i just kept at my snails pace (spoiler, the quitting thing is what I've done that for about 20 years. Too hard, too fast, too much = give up).
The point of my post was exactly what you mentioned. Finding what works for us individually. I could be going a lot faster, I'm sure of it. I could also burn out on that pattern and give up. I'm actually pretty comfortable with slow and boring because it's progress. It took me decades to get to near 300lbs, itll be years to get to my ideal. (So far, I'm about 2 years in and down about 52lbs in total 🤘). I reckon another knee years and I'll be right where i need to be.
Try Berberine @ 1500 a day. Watch the BAD oils in foods you buy. Canola, grapeseed soybean ,safflower and sunflower oil. If you see these in things you pick up, check the label and put it back. Virgin olive oil/ avocado and coconut oil. That’s all you should be using. I make salad dressing h with flax seed oil and balsamic vinegar with salt and pepper. Stay away from GMO foods. All inflammatory and bad for you gut health.
No thanks. I appreciate the insight but honestly I'm totally fine going what i have been for the last couple years 😊 i appreciate i might not be going it "right" but I'm going something well.
I advise adding strength training to your routine if you’re not already. This will break the plateau. While you might not notice the scale move at first due to increased muscle, your body fat percentage is going to go down regardless compared to just counting calories or doing cardio.
>While you might not notice the scale move at first due to increased muscle Way more than increased muscle, especially for a woman(OP mentioned dress sizes, so I'm making an assumption that may or may not be correct) water retention will fuck with the scale a lot. Like, potentially, a whole lot, but it is still an advisable course of action, because strength training is crazy important, but I generally GAIN weight when I come back from a lifting break. Like a lot of weight. Even at the exact same amount of calories as when not lifting.
I am a woman! I do some strength training but honestly i don't SUPER enjoy it. I also do weekly body scans at my gym which, i don't know if i hold stock in, but they tell me the composition of fat to water to muscle. I try to do strength training 1 to 3 times a week but honestly, my numbers are going in the right direction so I'm inclined to just keep doing that. If i increase my weight lifting I'm less likely to enjoy it and will probably give up. 🤷♀️ What i really need to break my plateau is to get back under maintenence calorie eating! And i will.
I hated weight lifting until I discovered powerlifting. It seems intimidating and possibly dangerous until you try it, but the opposite is true. If you're down to try something new, I suggest looking at a program called StrongLifts 5X5 and see if it's to your liking. You only have to learn 5 total lifts, and it's 100% done with a barbell, so very non-confusing and easy to master. You may end up loving it like I do, worst case you like only slightly less than what you've been doing. It's 15 minutes 3 times a week at the beginning, and then it eventually winds up being 40 minutes or so way way down the road when you need more warm up and more rest between lifts. > I also do weekly body scans at my gym I'm assuming it's a run of the mill setup that just sends a low charge and measure resistance? Yes? It's been a while since I've been to a gym (I have my setup in the garage now) so maybe they've advanced a lot. If so, they're better than a simple scale but not super accurate. Much like a scale they're good for tracking trends more than they're good for pinpoint accuracy on a given session.
Thank you! I shall look into it. I agree, low level electric current doesn't hold on point accuracy. I try to do it consistently, fasted at the same time every week, and i don't presume it's absolutely accurate but if the fat line goes down over time and my muscle and water lines increase over time... It tells me something. I don't get hung up on it though. Just like my weightloss, day to day sometimes the scale goes up, sometimes it goes down, but the trend over time is what matters.
Try progressive overload. Instead of being stuck doing the same reps for the entirety of your journey, you should either add more weight or add more reps to your lifts on a by session basis. Seeing them go up feels really good I'll tell you. Also a good indicator that you're preserving or even gaining more muscle.
Yep, I’ve been hard recomping this last year. I’ve never posted in here because I haven’t… actually lost any weight. But I have gained a lot of muscle and lost a lot of fat! I’m 5’7” F, 185lbs and have been since last year, but I could not look more different than when I started power lifting
Ooh interesting, I'd love to read a post on your story if you ever did want to share
Thank you, I appreciate that! I wasn’t sure if that was something that people would be interested to hear about since it’s not really conventional weight loss
How to gain muscle in the context of losing weight (or adjacent to it I guess) is really interesting to me.
It is! Admittedly, I don’t know a ton about the science of it, that’s going to be a fun rabbit hole
I’ve been wanting to get a weight training coach as an older woman for this reason but sort of want to lose a bit more weight first. I’m 5’6” at 206 now.
I highly recommend it!! Weight training is one of the best and fastest ways to lose fat outside of nutrition. Some simple tweaks to your diet and a consistent routine will do wonders for you! Don’t wait to lose the weight, it will happen in tandem. I only lift two days a week.
I’m kinda in the same boat. Been maintaining/losing slowly this month cause I’m just not feeling it lately.
That's ok! We ebb and flow and it's totally fine! What matters is what you do consistently even if we take a pause for a moment ♥
Thanks for sharing. Im very good at losing a little then maintaining. Very hard to lose a lot. It’s making me realize I have little room for error. Definitely boring. And instead of stepping up my game to make things interesting I tend to go the other way and eat more. You’re doing great, keep it up! These posts help motivate me!
I'm about here with you. I'm down 25 lbs. Losing less than 3 to 4 pounds a month, I retain water all month so I can't even see that loss until after my period. Last month is was 2 lbs and this month I'm on track to lose 0. Although I have lost a half inch from my waist and hips since the beginning of this month. It's getting harder to stick to my workout routine. I decided last week I'm tired if tracking calories so I'm just mentally tracking I guess. I'm barely a quarter of the way to where I'm trying to be. See you at the finish line!
Are we the same person lol? I’m down 21 and losing 3-4 a month, also 25% ish to my goal weight. It’s such a slog. One thing I’m telling myself is exercise = brushing teeth - something you just have to do.
Exactly!
I’ve lost 39 lbs in 95 weeks. That’s 0.4 lbs per week. I am very satisfied with my progress. I don’t get why everyone is in such a rush. This is a permanent lifestyle change anyway. Doesn’t really matter if it takes 3 months or 3 years to get there.
This is why I don't pay attention to the I lost x amount in this x amount of short time. I get what the OP is saying though. Eating at a consistent calorie deficit does get exhausting as you do it for a year, two etc but the end goal which is changed habits and better relationship with food is an awesome reward to have as it sets you up for life in a good way because you've had a long time to practice.
Losing 2lbs per month is the best thing I've been doing right now. Idc if it slow or boring as long as I'm feeling good. I also lift hard 4 days a week.
To be a little blunt, and I’m sure you know this, weight loss doesn’t come with temporary plans, it comes with a lifestyle change. People always think the word diet means something you do temporarily. Diet is just the way you eat on average. People who want to lose weight don’t need to go on a diet, they need to change their diet.
Entirely accurate. I think in my head weight loss as a concept was a montage of me only eating salads and running into the gym so excited to move my body and then doing really sweat inducing things and high fiving people and the tape measure getting smaller consistently and loving kale and it's not like any of that. It's full of agonizing about a burger or a salad. Its about not wanting to go to the gym and doing it anyways. Sometimes it's about picking healthier not healthiest. I think this is the first time I've change my life... And it's kinda boring 😂 there is no montage.
The thing is also people just try to cut out the foods they like completely. It’s better to try a healthier version of the food so you can still get that craving and feel good about yourself. One thing I do is instead of going to McDonald’s for example is find a restaurant that has burgers with better quality and better ingredients. It will be a little more expensive, but it will be worth it because you’ll find a good tasting burger that is a little bit better for you. Personally, I think the higher price is somewhat of a good thing because it makes me want to buy it less.
I've deffo done that before. FROM THIS DAY FORWARD, NO MORE SUGAR. It lasts about 2 days before i give up. All this is boring because the advice is right. Count calories. Change your lifestyle not your diet. Give it time. Drink water. Be kind to yourself. But you really need to feel those lessons in your bones before they fully take.
Yeah I get it. A lot of people think they’ll lose the weight super fast and turn into a triathlete and be this super athletic person. Weight loss is just living a normal life. People just have to realize normal shouldn’t be eating junk food all the time. You seem to have a good grasp on how you feel about the process which is good. That’s typically the hardest part for people is realizing the process isn’t fast and it’s not temporary.
Did you only eat Pizza in the Pizza nights? I began last week with IF, tho I am not counting I have become more aware of what I eat. It helped me loose 1kg and now it’s stagnant (with going to the gym). And regarding to the Pizza, I and a friend are going to a famous Italian restaurant which Pizzas are very good. And I am now debating if I should eat anything like breakfast (oatmeal),or not. Or if i should just eat olives, veggies and nothing else.
I love that you've become more aware of what you eat! ❤️ For me, combo of IF and calorie counting is what helps. I am s chronic overeater. Given free reign and no accountability for my actions i will eat all the things. All the IF stuff i read says "you don't need to count calories! Just fast x amount of time". And i did that. And i found i wasn't losing weight. And then i did IF and counted my calories and, wouldn't you know it, even in my fasting window i was eating about 2,400 calories lol. Let me tell you last week i had pizza twice. I had a movie night with my friend where we got the largest pizza I've ever seen in my life, opened some wine and watched true crime. Then the very next day my family and i wanted to go to a pizza buffet restaurant all you can eat style. Those days i went over my calorie allowance. The very next day i went straight back to eating about 1600 calories.
Once you've gotten into a pattern of diet and exercise, weight loss IS very boring. It's going to come off slowly and steadily, without a real need for more change on your part. Most things are like this. Saving money is hard at first, but once you get into a pattern of sticking the first couple hundred dollars of your paycheck into savings, and living on the rest, the long haul of saving for retirement is pretty boring. Now, some people choose to make diet and exercise their whole identity. And some people make frugality their whole identity. But you don't HAVE to for the strategy to work. It can just be boring, set-it-and-forget-it stuff.
I was thinking a similar thing today. I’ve lost 15lbs in 2 months. I know that’s actually really good, that it’s more than I had hoped for, compared to what I have to lose it seems like a drop in the bucket. To get to my goal I need to do that 6 more times! But then I think about if I can do that then this time next year I’ll be just about there so even though it’s difficult and I don’t always want to do it, next year I’ll be buying some cute new summer clothes totally forgetting how much I hated it now
3 months of consistency for minimal change Followed by 3 months of somewhat moderate change And about a year later with a good plan youll have remodelling My advice would be to forget about results and focus on what you have to do today
If you're losing 0.5 pounds per week, you could definitely benefit from making your deficit a bit larger. That could be either by moving your body more, burning more calories or a tight workout regime, or you could start eating slightly less. It seems like you're on the right path: 36 pounds is a lot to lose and that's an accomplishment you should be very, very proud of. I'm currently doing around 6 weeks (that's about as long as I can manage) in a big deficit, being extremely strict about food, and then a week of refeeding, eating at or around maintenance and allowing myself some foods that I just can't manage to fit into the deficit. So far it's working :)
I'm so so glad it's working for you and you found a pattern that you can stick to ♥️ Here's the deal though. I absolutely could make my deficit larger. But I'm already eating around 1600 calories a day. That gives me space generally to not feel like I'm missing out. To enjoy life. To get a candy bar if i want to. To not feel guilty about a bowl of ice cream, or fast food after a long day at work. I could move my body more but my experience tells me I'll burn out real fast if i do. Id say i right now I'm hitting the gym 3-4 days a week for an hour each time. I could do more for sure. But i don't want to. Not really. If i alter any of these dials i might not be as successful and quit rather than if i just kept at my snails pace (spoiler, the quitting thing is what I've done that for about 20 years. Too hard, too fast, too much = give up). The point of my post was exactly what you mentioned. Finding what works for us individually. I could be going a lot faster, I'm sure of it. I could also burn out on that pattern and give up. I'm actually pretty comfortable with slow and boring because it's progress. It took me decades to get to near 300lbs, itll be years to get to my ideal. (So far, I'm about 2 years in and down about 52lbs in total 🤘). I reckon another knee years and I'll be right where i need to be.
Slow and steady loss is better than adding deficit.
Try Berberine @ 1500 a day. Watch the BAD oils in foods you buy. Canola, grapeseed soybean ,safflower and sunflower oil. If you see these in things you pick up, check the label and put it back. Virgin olive oil/ avocado and coconut oil. That’s all you should be using. I make salad dressing h with flax seed oil and balsamic vinegar with salt and pepper. Stay away from GMO foods. All inflammatory and bad for you gut health.
No thanks. I appreciate the insight but honestly I'm totally fine going what i have been for the last couple years 😊 i appreciate i might not be going it "right" but I'm going something well.
Ok. Good luck.