WHAT TO DO WHEN YOU'RE TRACKING CALORIES BUT STOPPED LOSING WEIGHT

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Way back in 2016, I went to the doctor and realized I'd gained about 30 pounds, all without realizing it was going on. I've already made a post about that; you can read it here. This post isn't about my journey or how it happened, rather it's about how I managed to break my weight loss plateau when I was tracking calories but stopped losing weight. Hopefully the things I talk about here will help you break your own plateau so you can get back to the business of feeling your best. (read more)

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TRACKING CALORIES AND NOT LOSING WEIGHT
​THE VIDEO

I try to make a video when I post about stuff like this, so you're welcome to watch it if you like. If not, I do cover all of it in this post, keep reading. 

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TRACKING CALORIES WITHOUT LOSING WEIGHT

My big plateau came when I was just a few pounds from my goal weight of 125. I am 5' 5" tall and well within a healthy weight for myself, but I have always felt good at 125 pounds, so that's where I wanted to be. It gives me some wiggle room, while keeping me firmly away from the 130 pound mark, which is the place where I tend to start feeling not as good, my clothes don't fit as well, etc. 

I decided to lose about 30 pounds around three years ago. I used Lose It, which is a completely free calorie tracking app. I lost 20 pounds and some change in that first year, and then put it to the side. I stopped tracking, but stayed pretty true to how I knew I should be eating. Still, the weight crept back on a little bit, 3-5 pounds, and by August of 2019 I knew I was ready to commit to tracking again so I could get down to 125.

​It wasn't quite 10 pounds that I needed to lose, but it was close, and I was determined to make it happen.

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TRACKING CALORIES BUT NOT LOSING WEIGHT

At first, everything went well. I logged into Lose It, changed my goal to a pound lost per week, and looked at the caloric intake the app recommended. 

Depending on the weight I entered, the calories I needed to lose a pound a week were between 1300-1400 per day. 1400 on the high end (when I was 134 pounds) and 1300 on the low end (when I'm now at 127 pounds). 

I wasn't losing a pound each week, not exactly, but it was around there, and I knew that there were a lot of factors that could keep that exact number from happening, namely water weight.

However, after a month of diligently tracking and still being stuck at 128 or higher, I was beginning to get frustrated. I had experienced plateaus before, but never for more than a week or so, and always around a week before my period. I knew when this was coming, I knew what was causing it, so it made things a little more bearable.

This plateau was different. I felt bloated and gross, my caloric intake was on point. I wasn't cheating, and I was being exceedingly honest with my logging. 

I'm going to assume you're doing all of the same things. This isn't a post for those of you who are guesstimating your calories, tracking in your head, kinda-sorta tracking, or just telling yourself that you really ought to be losing weight even though you really cheat once a day, and you do eat out a lot, etc. 

This is a post for those of you like me. 

You're tracking
You're being totally honest
You're doing what you need to do

And you're stuck at a plateau.

So, let's talk about a few reasons this could be happening, and how you can help yourself out to get over that hump.

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TRACKING CALORIES BUT STOPPED LOSING WEIGHT
​GLYCOGEN AND WATER WEIGHT GAIN

The first thing I'm going to mention is the thing that I believe was happening to me. 

When my plateau first started, the weather in Texas had begun to cool down. Cool weather (for me) means baking. I baked loaves of banana bread, and I ate it (within reason). I still tracked my calories, I knew how much bread I was eating, and I made sure to plug that number into Lose It. 

My husband also likes to bake during cold weather, so he made biscuits for breakfast on the weekends a few times and I ate those. I still tracked, I knew the calories, and I made sure I was staying within my caloric budget.

Yet, the scale kept creeping up, and I was freaking out.

After much Googling, I realized what I might be dealing with was water weight attributed to my increased ingestion of carbs.

See, three years ago when I started losing this weight, my tastes changed. I knew that carbs didn't keep me as full as other food items, so I sort of stopped eating a lot of bread and pasta. After a few months of this I didn't enjoy carbs as much, so they became less and less a part of my eating. 

However, for two weeks during the start of fall, I'd been eating bread in copious amounts every single day. 

If you aren't aware, it takes approximately 3-4 grams of water for your body to process 1 gram of glycogen. To put this simply (and I'm taking liberties), it you were to eat a pound of bread, your body would store an additional 3-4 pounds of water to process that bread.

This isn't exact of course, but as long as you get the idea of the ratio, that's my goal.

I went from not really eating bread, to chowing down like it was my job. My body grabbed this increased glycogen and went to work, doing its thing. 

So, if you've had an influx of carbs after a long spell of moderation, your weight gain could be attributed to it, even if you're staying within your caloric goals.

​What can you do about it?

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TRACKING CALORIES BUT NOT LOSING WEIGHT

The first thing you need to do when you have an influx of carbs is to realize that it's going to take time for your body to process it and shed the extra water weight.

This could take a week or two. 

The next thing you can do (to prevent this from happening again) is to try to keep your carb intake around the same level every day. 

I know that's not always possible, so practice some grace and acceptance. You ate the bread, it was amazing, you stayed in your caloric budget, and now you just have to wait it out. 

What you don't want to do is chuck your scale across the room and go get some cookies because it doesn't matter anyway.

If you eat to punish the scale for not moving, I promise you that the scale does not care.  So, keep on with your tracking, wait it out.

What else could be causing your weight gain?

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TRACKING CALORIES BUT STOPPED LOSING WEIGHT
PMS

I'm figuring you probably already know this one, but if not, welcome to the joys of being a woman. 

During the week or so before your period (it can be longer) your body is going to hold on to water like a sponge. Your clothes aren't going to fit right, you're going to feel gross, moody, angry, and not at all in a state of mind to think of this weight gain rationally.

Unfortunately there's not a whole lot you can do to prevent it, but you can help it a bit, and I'll talk about that more below.

Also unfortunately, if you're like me, you're going to want to eat yourself out of house and home, especially if house and home is covered in chocolate and salt.

Stay strong, my friend, this too shall pass.

It'll probably start to ebb off once your period starts, and you'll see a giant "whoosh" of weight loss as your period ends. You'll lose all the water weight you gained and anything you should have lost during "hell week", since you were of course still tracking your calories and staying on course.

Now, let's talk about one more thing that could be causing this issue. Exercise and/or eating back exercise calories.

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TRACKING CALORIES BUT NOT LOSING WEIGHT
NEW EXERCISE AND/OR EATING BACK CALORIES

I'm adding this section to the post after having a text conversation with my sister this morning. She is 45 years old, around 144 pounds, and stuck on a plateau. I'll show you the conversation below, but the gist is that she's stuck, she's frustrated, and she has no idea why it's happening.

Starting a new workout routine means muscle tearing. Muscle tearing means your body grabs up more water to repair the muscles. This can take a few weeks to sort out as you get into the rhythm, but I don't think this was her whole issue.

When she told me that she was burning 700 calories a day in just 30-45 minutes, all sorts of alarm bells went off in my head. 

It's not that I don't want to believe this can happen, I really do, it's just that burning 700 calories in that amount of time....I don't think it's even possible. 

I used to do Insanity back in the day while wearing a Polar heart monitor, the kind with a chest strap, and that was intense, 40 minute workouts. If I burned more than 200 calories, it was a great day.

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If I didn't have access to a Polar or a Fit Bit (even a Fit Bit can be not super accurate if you sweat on your wrists a lot and the contacts slip), I wouldn't bother counting my workout calories, and I definitely wouldn't eat them back, not even when I was counting them.

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So, I asked her if she was eating back her workout calories...and this is what she said:

Once I realized what she was doing, I found an article about the average calories burned on an elliptical and sent it her way. If you want to read it, here you go.

Even when I put in her weight, age, and high intensity for the MAX amount of time she said she was working out, the number burned came back at 309, a FAR cry from the 700 her machine was giving her. 

She ate back 460 calories on a max burn of 309 calories. And that's the MAX burn. If she didn't workout for 45 minutes, or if she slowed down for a bit, that goes down a lot. 

This is the kind of thing I hated telling people back in my Beachbody days. 

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I think she took the news pretty well. :)

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Thankfully, everything I've listed so far is just water weight (most likely), so let's talk about how to handle it and how to get your body processing that water instead of hanging on to it unnecessarily.

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TRACKING CALORIES BUT NOT LOSING WEIGHT
​WHAT TO DO

MAGNESIUM - I'm going to quote a study here, and you can read it if you like, as well. Basically, studies have shown that women who take around 400mg of Magnesium each day suffer less with water based weight fluctuations than those who do not take Magnesium. 

Studies have shown that many women who take Magnesium gain less water weight during PMS, suffer less from sore breasts, anxiety/anger, and suffer less with headaches. 

Don't expect it to happen right away, though. These same studies have also shown that women saw little change during their first cycle on Magnesium, but saw true changes during the second cycle.

So, if you're going to start taking Magnesium, it's probably going to take two months before you can really tell if it's working for you.

DRINK MORE WATER - This sounds counterintuitive, but it's true. If you're drinking plenty of water, your body is much less likely to hang on to it. It knows you're getting plenty of water, so there's no need to hoard.

POTASSIUM - This is another great way to balance out your water weight gain. Add a banana to your daily routine, or, if you want to do the research, go ahead and see if a Potassium supplement might help. I don't take Potassium, so I don't have any solid information on it, but the data is out there if you want to Google.

SALT INTAKE - Eating a lot of salt means you hold on to more water. If you haven't been tracking long enough for your tastes to change, salt might still play a big role in your eating habits. If so, cut back. You'll get used to less heavily salted foods in time, and you'll be able to enjoy much more subtle flavors, all while not packing on the watery pounds.

EXERCISE - I don't exercise, not at all. I was a Beachbody coach for four years and I know how hungry I get when I exercise. It's actually while I was coaching that I gained 30 pounds, go figure. :) If you're not worried about toning up while you lose weight, I would suggest getting close to your weight goal first, then picking up a light exercise routine once you've set your calories back to maintenance. 

Now, this might not be the case for everyone. You might exercise and never feel hungry. If so, that's great, get on that exercise. It'll help your body get rid of water weight and fat weight (once you get over the initial hump), which is a win/win.

But, if you start exercising and find out you're starving and angry all the time, it might be your cue to back off and just focus on your food.

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FINAL THOUGHTS

You'll notice that I don't talk about "fat" gain in this post at all. It's because, when you jump a pound or two (or more) in a day, it's not fat. It's not possible. Unless you've eaten 7000 calories over your budget the day before, it's not fat.

But it certainly can be water.

If you're doing it all correctly, being honest, tracking, not making excuses, then it's very likely to be water, and hopefully this post will help you fix it.

If you have questions, feel free to ask, I am always happy to help if I can. 

​Ty

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