butterfly2222
New member
I joined this subreddit a couple months ago and I have to say, I see a lot of “why am I I not losing weight?” posts.
I thought I’d write this post as somewhat of an ultimate guide to all questions about weight loss and plateaus.
I understand that people want advice specific to their situation and some people are beginners and know nothing about weight loss and nutrition so I’m not criticizing. I’m also not an expert but I like to read research and I’ve been successfully lost weight on multiple occasions and at this point I’ve nailed it enough to know exactly how much I’ll lose and how fast.
First, I know there’s no wiki here but maybe go read the one from r/loseit as it still applies to us short women.
Now, here are the possible reasons why you’re not losing weight / you’ve hit a plateau:
“But I’ve been working out/eating healthy” - That unfortunately doesn’t guarantee that you’ve been burning more calories than you’ve been eating.
“But I’ve been eating only x calories a day” Then either that amount of calories is more than what your body burns in a day, or you’ve been tracking it wrong. Of these 2 options, I would bet on the second.
Option 1: You’re calculating how much you should eat wrong
If you think it’s the first option, go use a TDEE calculator and subtract 250-500 calories to that number, that’s how much you should eat to lose weight (it’s suggested adult women don’t go lower than 1200/day to avoid nutritional deficiencies so keep that in mind). Decide if you log your activity level in the calculator OR track it daily. If you choose to log it in the calculator, don’t add up what you’ve burnt on the daily on that will cancel out your deficit. TDEE calculator, smart watches and cardio machines tend to be very inaccurate at calculating how many calories you burn during exercise (usually it overestimates), so I suggest to make sure you track you intake super accurately first and then adjust accordingly. You can try to aim for maintenance at first so you know your calculations are right. It’s important to re-calculate as you lose weight because that number will decrease as your weight goes down. I’m guessing a lot of plateaus occur because people just never recalculate that.
Edited to add another thing: I’ve seen before a lot of people confusing BMR and TDEE. They are different things, please don’t calculate your deficit from your BMR as this is what your body needs to stay the same in a coma.
I’ll highlight this once more: being short, in a deficit and exercising little or being sedentary puts you at a higher risk of nutritional deficiencies than others: make sure you eat a balanced diet with fruits and vegetables on the daily. When in doubt, seek professional advice
Option 2: You’re calculating your intake wrong.
The second option is the most likely and the appropriate action is to focus calculating how much you eat properly. Don’t forget to log anything: log beverages, log whenever you taste the stuff you’re cooking and log your fruits and vegetables. Even log the “calorie-free” stuff (not plain water obviously, but some stuff is listed as calorie-free but actually has 3-4 calories and it could add up). Use a kitchen scale, it will create less dirty utensils/measuring cups and it will be so much more accurate. Be extremely accurate with calorie-dense foods (especially stuff with a lot of fat: oil, nuts and nut butters). Don’t think you can estimate. You cannot. I have been tracking calories on and off for years and whenever I try to estimate, most of the time I am WAY off. Studies have also shown that people who think they track accurately are way off, pretty much always underestimating how much they eat as well as overestimating how much they burn from movement.
I thought I’d write this post as somewhat of an ultimate guide to all questions about weight loss and plateaus.
I understand that people want advice specific to their situation and some people are beginners and know nothing about weight loss and nutrition so I’m not criticizing. I’m also not an expert but I like to read research and I’ve been successfully lost weight on multiple occasions and at this point I’ve nailed it enough to know exactly how much I’ll lose and how fast.
First, I know there’s no wiki here but maybe go read the one from r/loseit as it still applies to us short women.
Now, here are the possible reasons why you’re not losing weight / you’ve hit a plateau:
- You’re losing weight but you’re not tracking it properly.
- You’ve lost weight but it’s just not been long enough.
- You’re not losing weight because you’re not in a caloric deficit.
“But I’ve been working out/eating healthy” - That unfortunately doesn’t guarantee that you’ve been burning more calories than you’ve been eating.
“But I’ve been eating only x calories a day” Then either that amount of calories is more than what your body burns in a day, or you’ve been tracking it wrong. Of these 2 options, I would bet on the second.
Option 1: You’re calculating how much you should eat wrong
If you think it’s the first option, go use a TDEE calculator and subtract 250-500 calories to that number, that’s how much you should eat to lose weight (it’s suggested adult women don’t go lower than 1200/day to avoid nutritional deficiencies so keep that in mind). Decide if you log your activity level in the calculator OR track it daily. If you choose to log it in the calculator, don’t add up what you’ve burnt on the daily on that will cancel out your deficit. TDEE calculator, smart watches and cardio machines tend to be very inaccurate at calculating how many calories you burn during exercise (usually it overestimates), so I suggest to make sure you track you intake super accurately first and then adjust accordingly. You can try to aim for maintenance at first so you know your calculations are right. It’s important to re-calculate as you lose weight because that number will decrease as your weight goes down. I’m guessing a lot of plateaus occur because people just never recalculate that.
Edited to add another thing: I’ve seen before a lot of people confusing BMR and TDEE. They are different things, please don’t calculate your deficit from your BMR as this is what your body needs to stay the same in a coma.
I’ll highlight this once more: being short, in a deficit and exercising little or being sedentary puts you at a higher risk of nutritional deficiencies than others: make sure you eat a balanced diet with fruits and vegetables on the daily. When in doubt, seek professional advice
Option 2: You’re calculating your intake wrong.
The second option is the most likely and the appropriate action is to focus calculating how much you eat properly. Don’t forget to log anything: log beverages, log whenever you taste the stuff you’re cooking and log your fruits and vegetables. Even log the “calorie-free” stuff (not plain water obviously, but some stuff is listed as calorie-free but actually has 3-4 calories and it could add up). Use a kitchen scale, it will create less dirty utensils/measuring cups and it will be so much more accurate. Be extremely accurate with calorie-dense foods (especially stuff with a lot of fat: oil, nuts and nut butters). Don’t think you can estimate. You cannot. I have been tracking calories on and off for years and whenever I try to estimate, most of the time I am WAY off. Studies have also shown that people who think they track accurately are way off, pretty much always underestimating how much they eat as well as overestimating how much they burn from movement.
- “I do all of that but I’m still not losing weight. Is it my cheat day?” Yes. Yes it is. Especially if you think of cheat days as days where you try to gorge on as many of your favorite foods as possible: you may be surprised that it’s cancelling out everything else you’re doing. “Isn’t 1lbs of weight 3500 calories, I can’t eat that much in a day” Unfortunately, it’s possible. “But I will go crazy without cheat days”. Include treats daily within your calorie budget, space out your cheat days, or replace them with cheat meals. Another possibility is to track daily (even cheat days/meals and do a weekly total, or to save up a bit of your daily budget for a cheat day or meal you’d track, assuring you to stay on track with your goals.
- “I do all of this, I don’t have cheat days and I’m still not losing weight”: either a) go talk to your doctor, get your thyroid checked. Or b) start being honest with yourself and return to the points above.
- “I don’t want to do those things, can I just do something else?” You can but no one knows it if it will work.
- There’s no starvation mode. That would only happen if you were extremely underweight, then your metabolism would slow down so you’d lose slower, it still wouldn’t gain weight out of thin air.
- Finally, if you have a history of ED or think you may struggle with ED, please talk to a professional, it’s too tricky for internet strangers to give you advice on weight loss.
- You’re losing weight but you’re not tracking your weight properly.
- You’re losing weight but you’re not patient enough. 2-3 weeks without the scale going down = you’re actually not losing weight.
- You’re calculating how much you should eat wrong.
- You’re calculating how much you’re eating wrong.
- There’s something seriously wrong with you: talk to your doctor and don’t seek advice on reddit.
