Come On Already!!!

I am in a stall!!  For the past 8 days I have been playing with 1lb - which is fine, but the REALLY frustrating part is that I can't break the 200 barrier!!  I was 201 on November 20th, and I have gone up and down and up and down between 200 & 201, but I can't seem to get below 200!  This morning I am 200 even - but then again, I was 200 almost every other day for a week!!! 

I've been keeping my calories between 600 - 800 & exercising (though I did miss a couple of days, but they were very active days...)

I know, it will pass, but did I really have to stall here??  199 is a much nicer place to stall!!!  lol

COME ON ONDERLAND!!!    Thanks for letting me vent!

It will happen Angie!!!

It seems that 200 lbs is a number where our bodies go through a refit & adjustments.  (Plus we`re anxious so it seems to stay there forever--like slow motion) From here on, when your stall ends, the numbers start to drop again at a good pace until the next stall.  From my own experience, you will need to bring up your cals a bit.  And kick your exercise into gear a little more because you are a lot smaller and it is always going to take more effort to burn off the calories than it used to......but the good news is:  you`ll be more fit and have more energy to do this!!!! 

It isn`t easy, but I know what it feels like, I`m right there with you, and it took 3 weeks to pass that 200lb mark.  Now I`m at 198.  I just had to juggle my system and voila the scale moved again!!

Hope you get in some good sweatin' workouts this week and make sure you do some strength training!!!   

Refits & adjustments - that must be it!!!  lol  I guess I will try upping the calories - though it really doesn't make any sense but I know it works for lots & lots of people so I guess it's worth a try  :)  So is the best way to up the calories with pie or potato chips???  I'm really wanting some pie, so maybe I'll try that!!!   Just kidding!! lol  I will get into the gym as well as my walking & maybe shake it up a bit with my regular exercise.  Sheesh - now I can't stop thinking about lemon pie - that's normal, right?? lmao

Thanks for the words of encouragement, girls - I'll try to keep my chins up! 

I almost freaked when I read you want some pie!!!!!!!!!!!!Haha!

LOL, Yep as strange as it sounds, if you read up about SLCD, (severe low calorie diets), you'll see eventually you're body will just start to preserve and our metabolism slows down.  Especially this time of year, it's instinct for our bodies to begin loading the fat reserves for "famine" season (winter).  Too bad we couldn't just hibernate and burn the fat off by spring!!!! 

Be sure to let us know how it goes and when you get into ONE-DERLAND!!!!!

Haha!  I knew I would get somebody with the pie thing!    Hibernate it off - hmmm, so if I were born a bear or a cave man, I could have ruled the world!  lol

I will look up slcd - I knew we could go into starvation mode, but I haven't really done that much research on it - I was never before afraid that my body would think it was starving!! lol  Even now with really low calories I don't really feel hungry...  Yep, going to look that up now - I'm wondering how many calories is considered severely low...  I'm mostly between 600 - 800 /day - though today I only had 530 calories because I was fasting for blood work & missed out on my protein shake for breakfast.

When I hit onderland, I think everyone within a 1000km radius will hear me!  lol  Again, congrats to you on onderland - you look great!

Angie, I could easily live on 500 cals/day.  I'm never hungry.  But that's the challenge I now face.  My stomach is small, I don't eat much, nor graze and still have to re-lose weight.  Tough shot, but it took me 3 yrs of research to figure out how to do this 2nd time around without having to have a revision (my doctor, dietician and fitness trainer all had no idea how I could make it work).  I have to stagger the cals, so if I'm not hungry, I just have a protien shake or yogurt to stay in range.

Otherwise if I just keep going with the low cals and exercise, eventually the time that I do surplus 3500 extra calories I will gain 1 pound.  I realized this after I lost 30lbs 3 yrs ago and then gained it all back (just like all crash diets).  The only thing that changed was I stopped exercising and that made me stop burning and my low calories were still high enough that I was no longer in a 3500 cal deficit. 

I try to burn 250cals/day or 1250/week with exercise.  And my BMR (basic metabolic rate) is 1628cals/day or 11396/week.  I keep my cals around 1000/day or 7000/week.  Simple math means 7000 in/week is a deficit of 4396 cals/week.  One pound is 3500 calories, so this works out to a healthy 1-1.5 lbs burned off per week.  Your BMR will continue to change so you have to play the numbers as we lose weight.

Did I make this clear as mud???  Haha

Yep, never thought in all my years of battling that I would actually be told over and over again, I'm not eating enough!  ~Go figure!!!!

And I'll keep my window open a bit so I can hear your shout for joy!!!!

Wow, I have to read this a few more times - my poor little head is hurting with all of the math!!!  lol  So how did you figure all of that out?

Lots of research!!!  I am against the ODDS second time around so I had to lean it on my own!
But it's a standard rule of how our bodies burn fat/lose weight--no gimmicks. 

Simply put, calories in verses calories out!  And 3500 calories equals one pound of fat, so we need to put our bodies into a healthy balanced deficit  to lose those 3500 calories instead of just starving or killing ourselves with exercise like on the show Biggest Loser. 

I'm past the wonderful Honeymoon phase of losing 10+ lbs/week, so I had to figure out what was a safe way to lose and still eat something--make it a part of my lifestyle that I can continue.

If you think you're past the honeymoon phase, you should check your BMR with an online calculator and that will tell you what you body needs in calories for daily maintenance.  If you want to lose, you need to drop that # of calories a bit and up your workout burn.

I'll try this again:  My BMR is 1628 cal/day.  That is what I will maintain at without loss or gain.  (Another words, if I ate 1628 calories and lay in bed all day ).

What I do is:
When my body reaches a total of 3500 deficit, it will EQUAL ONE POUND BURNED OFF!   And of course it takes a couple days for the body to have those results after.  If you wonder how our WLS tool comes into play:  BONUS, I'm not hungry with 1000cals/day.  Someone else my size would be very hungry with a larger stomach and go over their BMR.

DAILY:                                                                                         
My BMR is 1628 daily                                                                      
Less          - 628 (calories consumed)  1000/day diet      
Less         -  250 (calories burned) exercise                       
EQUALS      750 (Calorie deficit)                        

WEEK:
                  11396   (BMR 7 Days)
                  - 4396   (7 Days Mon-Sun)
                   -1250    (5 Days Mon-Fri)
EQUALS    5750 (week's cal deficit) 

**One pound =3500 calories
***5750 divide by 3500 = 1.64 pounds GONE!

Now I cycle this pattern with consume & burn as my metabolism will naturally slow down for starvation mode otherwise as it detects a regular deficit (starvation simply put).  This is why WLS has limits of 60-80% initial loss of goal before the body slows down, and I think you may be reaching that point.  You can still do this, but it's just at a slower rate and you have to workout more, not eat less!!!  This is where many (including myself) make the mistake!!!!!!!!!!!!!


A calorie reduction and energy burn converts the body fat into waste and we expire the fat through sleep, excretion & sweat.

**Very important to remember, when we are exercising, we may have burned that pound of fat off, but if we're building muscle, we will not see the scale move.  Muscle weighs the same as fat....a pound is a pound, but muscle tissue is lean mass and takes up less room, so that's when the measuring tape comes in handy.  If I plateau too long, it's because I've built muscle and the fat is fading.  I still weigh the same but I've gotten smaller somewhere!!!

Was this any better?   Much easier to explain over the phone. 

Ahhh!  I get it  :)  Calories in = Calories out - makes sense!  So I went & calculated my BMR & it's 2234 calories/day - if anyone wants to do this here is a link: 
http://www.bmi-calculator.net/bmr-calculator/

So if I am eating 800 calories/day I should be losing 2.8lbs every week - which is generally the case, however I had a stall last week (which is hopefully over now) --  you think the stall is because my body detected a regular deficit - so to overcome this I need to up my caloric intake, but by how much??  And then keep the higher calories for how long - couple of days, a week...? and then lower caloric intake again?  It is a very interesting concept after I did some reading on the subject!  I'm hoping my honeymoon isn't over quite yet though - I'm only 4 months out... 

Interesting!!  Thanks for bringing this up!  Hopefully I will create more of a deficit now that I have decided on a gym!  :))   

Angie,

I only cycle my cals intake by 200-500 cals and increase for maybe 2 days and then go down a little again back to my regular count.   I cycle my workouts the same.  I'll write a separate post about this as Debbie T requested.

The gym will be your new favorite hobby!