Anonymous wrote:I started trying to lose weight in late January and lost a good amount pretty fast - about ten pounds in a month. However, I have been stuck in the same 3-ish pound window for the last six weeks.

I’m 5’3, 170-173. I workout (HIIT or strength) 3-4 hours a week, otherwise work a sedentary job but am “active” (gardening, chores, walks take up a good portion of my afternoons and weekends). Since I started losing weight I have tracked my calories ruthlessly: last week I averaged 1312 a day, the week before that, 1530, then 1489, 1066, 1600. If I didn’t post it, I didn’t eat it.

I don’t track macros but generally have coffee (with cream and sugar, which I log), broth, maybe eggs for breakfast , soup or leftovers for lunch, and dinners which might look like lamb stew, chicken wings, rice, and salad, shrimp cocktail, sweet potatoes, greens, and steak.

I eat whole food forward, only drink water after my morning coffees, don’t drink alcohol.

So what am I doing wrong?

you are eating too much. I am your height and my basal metabolism is less than 1100 calories. go under 1000 and you will start losing quickly.

Try going lower carb and see if that budges the scale.

No rice (substitute riced cauliflower) or sweet potatoes. Salad - no croutons, very low calorie and low carb salad dressing. Brands to look for: Skinny Girl, G Hughes, Walden Farms

Fish and Chicken - grilled or blackened, no breading, certainly not fried. Again, look for low calorie and low carb BBQ sauces and ketchup like G Hughes.

Make lasagna using zucchini (instead of pasta) and Rao's marinara sauce.

Continue tracking your calories and aim for closer to 1200 than 1500. Aim for <20 net carbs per day (net carb = carb - fiber - sugar alcohols)

If you order a lunch salad or meal at a restaurant, eat half and take the rest home for dinner. Consider bringing a discrete small container of salad dressing from home.

Avoid all sugar, flour, pasta, corn, potatoes, rice, chips, crackers, alcohol, caloric beverages. Fruits - only berries in moderation.

If you go out, look at the menu online and already know what you plan to order. If Mexican, usually chicken or shrimp fajitas, no beans, rice or tortillas. If it's a casual place, discretely bring a bag of quest chips to use with salsa. At Italian, sub broccoli for pasta. Elsewhere, ask for salad or grilled vegetables as the sides to steak, grilled chicken or fish. Get a hamburger or chicken sandwich with no bun. Salad instead of fries.
Breakfast is eggs or omelette and bacon or sausage (no hash browns, grits or toast). Soups should be broth based, no pasta or beans and if you can check the nutrition online so you know the calorie and carb count.

If you need a snack, celery and cream cheese, mozzarella stick or 1/4 cup nuts (Spanish peanuts are fairly low carb). If you want crunch or "fried" chicken or fish, sub crushed pork rinds for panko. Experiment with almond flour as a sub if you want a breaded texture. If you crave sweets, try a small amount of Lily's chocolate.

You don't have to do this forever, but try it for 2 months and see if it breaks your plateau.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I've been at a plateau now for 8 months. Only 1100 calories a day, and not a pound lost. In fact, gaining weight.

We need a lot more info than that. People are going to tell you that you are starving and to eat more.

How much do you weigh and how tall are you? Are you taking any meds?

I ate 1200 for a long time and didn’t lose barely anything, like 0.5 pounds per month. I started zepbound and the weight came off easily without tracking.

5'5" currently 158 lbs, up from 151. Taking a beta blocker and thyroid replacement,of course they are definitely not helping. But, previously to this I lost 20 lbs in a year! That is how long it took to just get 20 lbs off.

My GLP provider would suggest more protein and eat meat and veggies first, carbs later. I would drop the sugar, as I feel like it kills the effectiveness of GLPs. I always tried to work with the rhythm of the shot cycle, it made me feel icky and eat much less on day 1-2 vs day 6-7. I was eating under 1100 calories to lose but I’m shorter and more sedentary.

Anonymous wrote:How often do you weigh yourself? I recommend daily and tracking the trend over time as weigh fluctuations can hide fat loss.

Other than that i would stay the course. Make sure you are accurately weighting and measuring everything. Also track consistency. If your goal is say 1400 cal/day are you hitting that at LEASE 6 days a week. Sounds like you are as the average over a week really matters, but worth tracking.

This is bad advice. Most medical professionals recommend AGAINST weighing yourself daily because your weight can fluctuate 5-6 pounds in a given day.

OP, I use the Lose It app which allows me to track both calories and macros. I use one on the advice of a dietician I worked with for a while. It's been helping in identifying that I eat way more saturated fat than I should be eating, even when I think I am eating a very healthy diet. Some of the foods I was eating to get more protein were also high in fat, for example.

I would also start working with a dietician (a lot of people call these nutritionists, but you want someone who is an RD or an RDN). If you don't have access to one through your medical practice, there are plenty of online services now - I see ads for them all the time. Nourish, Fay, etc.

What did your doctor say about it?

Anonymous wrote:I'd say give the zepbound time to work again. Jumping back right onto 7.5mg is a hell of a shock to the system. Be patient, titrate up to 10mg in a few months if you need to. Honestly, you might also need to eat more. An average of 1300 calories with heavy workouts might have put your body into more of a starvation mode.

Yes, you're not supposed to do this. You're supposed to start again at 2.5 and work your way back up.

Anonymous wrote:I've been at a plateau now for 8 months. Only 1100 calories a day, and not a pound lost. In fact, gaining weight.

We need a lot more info than that. People are going to tell you that you are starving and to eat more.

How much do you weigh and how tall are you? Are you taking any meds?

I ate 1200 for a long time and didn’t lose barely anything, like 0.5 pounds per month. I started zepbound and the weight came off easily without tracking.

I've been at a plateau now for 8 months. Only 1100 calories a day, and not a pound lost. In fact, gaining weight.