I've hit a wall, please help

mickysquint

Hi everyone, ok so I apologise if I'm gonna sound stupid here but I'm just looking for a bit of help.

So I'm 34, 6'2", and 4 months ago I hit the scales at just over 18 stone. Really felt fed up and not feeling great about the way I looked I made some changes to my diet and went back to the gym. I've managed to get myself down to 16 stone but I've hit a wall and can't lose any more (I want to get down to 13 and a half stone). I've gradually increased going to the gym to 5 times a week, one day cardio, the next weights, I play football on a Friday, during my lunch hour I go for a walk and I also have a physical job so I'm always doing some thing.

For my diet I've tried to cut out crap food, eating plenty of foods with protein and low carbs, drink plenty of water and snack on fruit instead of chocolate. I have a treat on a Saturday like a Chinese but apart from that I'm really trying to eat healthily.

So can some one please help me and tell me why after losing 2, 3 and some times 4 pounds a week I'm stuck on 16 stone and losing nothing more.

Any advice greatly appreciated.

Alf Veedersane

More often than not, it's down to diet. So first step is to post up a day's intake of food, including how much of the different foods, insofar as you can tell. You should also use myfitnesspal to log your intake and it'll work out your calories to give you an idea

doctorwhogirl

Plus one for what Alf said.

You've lost a good chunk, you may need to revise what your calorie needs are now and also change up your food and your exercise. Bodies are fairly adaptable so you need to change it up every so often just to give it a kick start again.

Post up a sample days food, and as Alf said, investigate cals you need and track intake using myfitnesspal or something similar.

Exercise-wise, see are there any other exercises you could do? Lift heavier? Change up the cardio and do intervals? Loads of options.

Another option is to take a diet break. Eat at maintenance calories (not using calories for junk by the way! healthy food!) for a week or two then cut the calories back to your losing levels. Body might just need a break.

oscar_mike

Sounds like you hit a weight loss plateau, there fairly common and it just the bodies way of resisting change. It usually doesn't last more than 4-6 weeks. If you have been loosing weight up until now then don't get bogged down about counting calories either, your obviously doing it correctly.

In the mean time, try cutting down on bread, rice, spud, cereals etc., and make up the difference with some extra protein and fats like omelettes, meats, nuts. As for exercise, focus more on circuit and resistance training than cardio as this will help your muscle burn fat to.

mickysquint

Thanks so much guys for the replies and input. In terms of my daily food intake I've been trying to stick to:
Breakfast: low fat yogurt and a banana,
Lunch: 2 pieces of fruit
Dinner: 2 or 3 grilled chicken breasts, 6 or 7 egg whites
Snack: fruit
Water: 3 litres a day

I have been using that myfitnesspal app, like I said in my original post I usually let myself go more than I should with maybe a Chinese or pizza and maybe a fry up in the morning but even with all this myfitnesspal is predicting I should be losing around 5lb a week.

But I'm just gonna stick at it now that I've heard possible reasons for the stall in weight lose. Thanks again folks.

mickysquint

Sorry I forgot to say that it's a Saturday when I have a Chinese or pizza.

oscar_mike

Diet sound pretty clean to to me.... whats the deal with the egg whites if you don't mind me asking?

silverharp

mickysquint wrote: »

Thanks so much guys for the replies and input. In terms of my daily food intake I've been trying to stick to:
Breakfast: low fat yogurt and a banana,
Lunch: 2 pieces of fruit
Dinner: 2 or 3 grilled chicken breasts, 6 or 7 egg whites
Snack: fruit
Water: 3 litres a day

I have been using that myfitnesspal app, like I said in my original post I usually let myself go more than I should with maybe a Chinese or pizza and maybe a fry up in the morning but even with all this myfitnesspal is predicting I should be losing around 5lb a week.

But I'm just gonna stick at it now that I've heard possible reasons for the stall in weight lose. Thanks again folks.

From a low carb perspective your breakfast and lunch isnt great, bananas and fruit are high sugar foods so might increase your appetite and weight gain . I'd have the eggs for breakfast, lunch something with pulses, beans, salad. And evening 1 chicken breast with green veg or the like. 3 chicken breasts is a huge portion by my standards, by volume veg should be 2:1 to meat at least
what I do is have 1 cheat day a week and one cheat week every quarter to help stop the body adjusting and not get fed up. so essentially I have no wheat products or milk during the week have have a mixture of healthy and unhealthy cheats on a Sat, also ensure that meals out cinema etc fall on a sat.

sopretty

Where in God's name did you come up with such a diet?
You're a 6 ft 2 inch man, and apart from fruit and yoghurt, you eat nothing until dinner where you then eat 3 chicken breasts?? Have you sauce on them? Anything with them?
That sounds like complete and utter torture!

sopretty

You need to be more balanced. Clearly, that is an issue for you, since you feel the need to divide meals between food and the vitamins as I call them (fruit!).
Could you try two poached eggs, or even fried, with some wholemeal bread as a breakfast? Maybe some of those large mushrooms grilled - they're yummy. Grill the white side first, then turn over and grill the brown inside (if you do it the opposite way - the lovely juices run out of them) - garlic granules are yum.
Even a grilled rasher or two - with no butter on bread (enough grease/flavour on rasher - even add some ketchup!)
Something like a salad for lunch - couple of slices of ham, tomatoes, lettuce dressed with olive oil & vinegar, small portion of cheese, small portion of coleslaw, olives, beetroot etc.? Increase the fatty/protein portion here - i.e. the ham part, and have no bread with this. Alternate with chicken breast, tin of tuna, tin of salmon.
Dinner then could be a relatively small portion of anything really!!
Night-time, have a sandwich (brown is obviously better). Cup of tay!

God, I would hate trying to eat the way you're eating. Thin people don't eat that way! Seriously - they don't!

sopretty

Also - snack away on FULL FAT lol yoghurt (just a normal sized one!) with added Alpen, nuts, seeds, fruit etc. Probiotic yoghurts are lovely - buy the Lidl or Aldi ones - a packet of sunflower seeds for crunch, some dried fruit, or a packet of alpen - it's yum. Bananas are great snack foods - mandarins - apples. Water obviously - but you're drinking loads as it is.

sopretty

Also - another fab tip for a breakfast 'fry' (grilled of course), is a tin of plum tomatoes - they're so cheap - if you're making for two or more people, one tin wouldn't be wasted - so, for weekend breakfast, maybe 2 grilled rashers, 2 grilled wide mushrooms and tinned plum tomatoes (cheaper and easier than fresh ones - same amount of nutrients I reckon!) - bit of brown bread, as little butter/olive spread! as possible - add in a fried egg (poached if you could) and you'd have a very nutritious and balanced breakie.
I'd love to bring you here and cook for you!

mickysquint

sopretty wrote: »

Where in God's name did you come up with such a diet?
You're a 6 ft 2 inch man, and apart from fruit and yoghurt, you eat nothing until dinner where you then eat 3 chicken breasts?? Have you sauce on them? Anything with them?
That sounds like complete and utter torture!

Too be honest it's more of a habit that I eat like this, even as far back as my school days I've always eaten very little during the day, if I'm being completely honest I have to force myself to have breakfast.

Thank you so much for the tips and advice, I really do appreciate it. I'm pretty confident that once I fine tune my diet I'll be flying as I'm pretty confident I'm doing enough at the gym.

Thanks again

thegreatiam

Don't eat breakfast if you don't want to. Your meal times won't matter. If your forcing your self to eat then you're doing it wrong.

Eat when you feel comfortable doing so.
Your diet is woefully high in fruit and low in veg. Stop eating so much fruit.

Fruit is simply sugar. And sugar burns in your body quickly leaving you empty shortly after.

Why are you eating 6 egg whites? Just eat whole eggs. He yolk contains all the nutrients of the eggs. If you're throwing the egg away from some delusion that it is bad for you you are operating on 30 year old incorrect information. Whole eggs are good for you.

Full fat yoghurt if you wish. High protein and low sugar.

And most importantly eat some veg. Replace all that fruit with veg and your diet will improve 1000% and even if you did only that change you might pass your plateau.

You also need to recalculate your tree and adjust your calories. Your body is different now than when you started. Punch your current stats into a decent calculator and work off those numbers

mickysquint

thegreatiam wrote: »

Don't eat breakfast if you don't want to. Your meal times won't matter. If your forcing your self to eat then you're doing it wrong.

Eat when you feel comfortable doing so.
Your diet is woefully high in fruit and low in veg. Stop eating so much fruit.

Fruit is simply sugar. And sugar burns in your body quickly leaving you empty shortly after.

Why are you eating 6 egg whites? Just eat whole eggs. He yolk contains all the nutrients of the eggs. If you're throwing the egg away from some delusion that it is bad for you you are operating on 30 year old incorrect information. Whole eggs are good for you.

Full fat yoghurt if you wish. High protein and low sugar.

And most importantly eat some veg. Replace all that fruit with veg and your diet will improve 1000% and even if you did only that change you might pass your plateau.

You also need to recalculate your tree and adjust your calories. Your body is different now than when you started. Punch your current stats into a decent calculator and work off those numbers

I love egg whites but not keen on the yolk, another one of my strange eating habits! lol

Thanks very much for the advice mate, really appreciate it.