Hi. Help with switching to maintaining weight after 2 months diet plateau.

M

MissFrankie

New member
Hi

I'm 20 years old, 62" and 115 pounds. I started losing weight just after I got back from hols in sept I was 9.1 and by Halloween I was almost 8.2 stone. I cut my calories to between 1000 or less and eating whatever I liked and drinking alcohol only on the Saturday. The weight was falling off, for the past 2 months though I have been stuck around 8 stone, it's so frustrating.

My job means I'm sat on my bum most of the day so I started going to the gym twice a week and doing hour of cardio, I tried increasing my calories to 1200 and lowering them, right now I'm trying low carb (which when I first started I lost 2 pounds and then it stopped again) not atkins low but I try and keep it under 50g without eating too much fat and including fresh fruit and veg I still enjoy my naughty foods on the weekend it stops me giving up completely, I write everything down and I know muscle is heavier than fat but I'm not losing inches either

I think I have tried everything and it just seems so pointless depriving myself of all these yummies and working so hard in the gym and not seeing any results so the only thing I can think of now is switching to maintaining weight for a while and increasing my calories to as much as I can without putting on weight for a month especially over the christmas period cus I don't want to be miserable while everyone else is enjoying the nice food and I can let my metabolism (which I think has taken a beating) go back to normal but I'm scared that after these 3 months my metabolism might be shot and I will pile the pounds back on.

So please could someone advise me on how to switch go back on to maintaining weight when my metabolism is all confused without putting any on unless anyone has a better idea.

Look forward to your replies. Sorry if this is in the wrong place, I'm a Newbie.

Kind Regards. Frankie x
 
to begin with, according to the bmi calculations, your weight is good for your height.

now, to maintain it, i would say that you increase the calories you eat by small margins until you find the balance where you don't gain/lose any longer.

so try to have a week of 1300 cals, then 1400 and continue like this until you find your ideal maintenance calories. it will be dependant on how physically active you are on average and you muscle mass, so there's no magic number anyone can give you.

trial and error is all you can do, just make sure you don't deprive yourself of any nutrients.

well done for having a nice healthy weight.
 
Yes, you are at a very healthy weight right now. In fact, I am that exact height and weight, and am maintaining it. A general rule of thumb is 15 calories per pound to maintain your weight, so around 1700 cals a day to maintain at 115 pounds.
If you have been eating much lower, try increasing this gradually, and see what happens. I weight myself twice a week, so if my weight starts climbing, I can adjust my intake and go from there. I know it is scary increasing the amount you eat, thinking you will gain, but if you are working out and eating healthy foods, you should be fine.
 
Thanks for the advice. I'm scared cus I've been doing low carb that I will balloon when I start eating them again and also I'm so short and with my job my lifestyle isn't very active. Before I started low carbing I was eating around 1000 a day, which in some peoples opinion is crash dieting. That's also why I'm worried about eating normally again.

I think I'll increase it to 1200 and by 100 each week and see what happens. I'm not going to weigh myself now though as it's the wrong time of the month and also a Saturday so I've been nibbling Haribo.

I've heard it better to give you body different amount of calories each day. Like the 2468 diet but obviously not to that extreme. Perhaps 800 1000 1200 1400 or something of the sort. Has anyone tried that sort of diet?

Also another thing strange thing I found is when I started going to the gym I still didn't shed any weight or inches. Why do you think this could be?

Loved the advice so far, please keep it coming. Thanks all xxxx :)
 
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If it helps, I made the switch off of low carb about a year ago.

The first thing I did was rather than counting, I made myself spend a good chunk of my day at home on my feet. I didn't do an hour of cardio twice a week, instead I watched TV standing, did housework treating it as exercise, and basically tried to keep my metabolism going.

That was working, except I didn't always want to be on my feet when I got home, so I actually started counting calories. I now have 4 rules for the day.
1) Get at least 100g of protein a day (This is based on my lean body mass, about 1g per pound of lean body weight)
2) Get at least 25g of fiber a day.
3) Stay under 20g of saturated fat.
4) Stay between 1200 and 2000 calories, with an average of 1600.

I probably manage this 90% of the time. I also do try to go to the gym and do strength training to maintain my muscle. I'm also doing the usual minimizing of white breads and pasta and sugars etc.

I try to target higher calories for the days when I'm working out, and lower calories for the days I'm particularly sedentary. Or if I eat heavy, I make myself not sit down all evening :p

I haven't tried a cyclical diet specifically like you're talking about - but I have heard of people doing them. Generally you don't need to get into that kind of detail unless you're already lean and trying to get leaner. The average will be more important than the specific days if that's not the case.

At least, that's what worked for me, and it sounds like you're in a similar situation to where I was a year ago :D
 
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