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Weight Loss Plateau Issue

Asking question for my wife who has hit a plateau, delete if not allowed.

Techiecal
Techiecal g Cal Holfeld
5 Post(s)
5 Post(s) Gender: Male Goal: Gain Muscle Date Joined: August 8, 2018
Posted

Hello all, (Asking this question for my wife)


About a year or so ago I decided to take control over my health and learn to get into a workout routine and also learn how to manage nutrition. I started with Scott's PPL program in the summer and when winter hit, switch to FBE and have had great results from both.


About 2 weeks into my start, my wife and I had our second daughter and a month or so after that, my wife was seeing my results and decided to work on her health and weight issues. 


Over the past year or so, she's lost around 50 pounds while breastfeeding so was able to keep caloric intake higher (research said around 500 above your proper allowance to avoid supply issues) and that worked well.


Fast forward to now, she's been struggling with a plateau for the past month or two and we're having a hard time figuring it out. We adjusted her calories to a little below where the calorie calculator was suggesting (~1800 /day) and she's also decided to start tracking macros instead of just calories. Changing to the ~1800 had a positive result for a couple weeks but then the weight bumped back to where it was and since has jumped but not actually dropping.


We were both intermittent fasting to allow the bigger meal portions and now she's trying to incorporate carb cycling in to see if that helps.


Her workout consists of a dance routine following a youtuber called "The Fitness Marshall" and she's happy doing that. I've suggested potentially adding resistance training with weights but she has no interest in that and is quite adamant in that she won't like it so she won't stick with it.


I'm curious if potentially her body has adjusted to her dance routines and is not burning calories like it used to? 


Calorie Calculator suggests around 1900 calories a day for her weight/height so the 1800 or so should be OK I would think? Maybe her body has adapted to that amount so it has to drop a little more? 


I should also mention, she has PCOS which tends to mess with insulin and other things, which, from what I understand, make it potentially harder to lose weight so not sure if you've dealt with any women with this issue.


Hopefully that's enough information! Thank you.

Scott_Herman
Scott_Herman a Scott Herman
7.1K Post(s)
7.1K Post(s) Gender: Male Goal: Bodybuilding Date Joined: August 8, 2008
Posted
Posted By: Techiecal

Hello all, (Asking this question for my wife)


About a year or so ago I decided to take control over my health and learn to get into a workout routine and also learn how to manage nutrition. I started with Scott's PPL program in the summer and when winter hit, switch to FBE and have had great results from both.


About 2 weeks into my start, my wife and I had our second daughter and a month or so after that, my wife was seeing my results and decided to work on her health and weight issues. 


Over the past year or so, she's lost around 50 pounds while breastfeeding so was able to keep caloric intake higher (research said around 500 above your proper allowance to avoid supply issues) and that worked well.


Fast forward to now, she's been struggling with a plateau for the past month or two and we're having a hard time figuring it out. We adjusted her calories to a little below where the calorie calculator was suggesting (~1800 /day) and she's also decided to start tracking macros instead of just calories. Changing to the ~1800 had a positive result for a couple weeks but then the weight bumped back to where it was and since has jumped but not actually dropping.


We were both intermittent fasting to allow the bigger meal portions and now she's trying to incorporate carb cycling in to see if that helps.


Her workout consists of a dance routine following a youtuber called "The Fitness Marshall" and she's happy doing that. I've suggested potentially adding resistance training with weights but she has no interest in that and is quite adamant in that she won't like it so she won't stick with it.


I'm curious if potentially her body has adjusted to her dance routines and is not burning calories like it used to? 


Calorie Calculator suggests around 1900 calories a day for her weight/height so the 1800 or so should be OK I would think? Maybe her body has adapted to that amount so it has to drop a little more? 


I should also mention, she has PCOS which tends to mess with insulin and other things, which, from what I understand, make it potentially harder to lose weight so not sure if you've dealt with any women with this issue.


Hopefully that's enough information! Thank you.

@Techiecal First off, congrats to you and your wife for the second addition! And congrats to your wife for losing 50lbs! That's insane progress!


That's good you've started to track macros AND calories, not just calories. The set-up of your macros can be important as well. Do you know what your wfie's current macros are? In particular, what are her carb numbers on her high, medium and low carb cycling days?


You can't force her to try some more resistance stuff. But at the end of the day, if weight loss is the goal, then just moving and burning more calories is going to help her with that. So it could just be a matter of doing a little more.


So post the carb macros (and all macros) if you can, then maybe suggest a little bit more activity and see how that goes for a start!

Need 1 on 1 coaching? Send me a direct message to learn more!
Techiecal
Techiecal g Cal Holfeld
5 Post(s)
5 Post(s) Gender: Male Goal: Gain Muscle Date Joined: August 8, 2018
Posted
Posted By: Scott_Herman

@Techiecal First off, congrats to you and your wife for the second addition! And congrats to your wife for losing 50lbs! That's insane progress!


That's good you've started to track macros AND calories, not just calories. The set-up of your macros can be important as well. Do you know what your wfie's current macros are? In particular, what are her carb numbers on her high, medium and low carb cycling days?


You can't force her to try some more resistance stuff. But at the end of the day, if weight loss is the goal, then just moving and burning more calories is going to help her with that. So it could just be a matter of doing a little more.


So post the carb macros (and all macros) if you can, then maybe suggest a little bit more activity and see how that goes for a start!

That's what I told her, 50 pounds is nothing to shake your head at! ;)


She said she's only really tracking carbs, low carb days are less than 60g and high carb would be in the 150-200g amounts.


Protein and fat is whatever that's left. She does try to help me with my protein goals though which is close to 200g of protein per day, so most of our meals are pretty high protein.

Scott_Herman
Scott_Herman a Scott Herman
7.1K Post(s)
7.1K Post(s) Gender: Male Goal: Bodybuilding Date Joined: August 8, 2008
Posted
Posted By: Techiecal

That's what I told her, 50 pounds is nothing to shake your head at! ;)


She said she's only really tracking carbs, low carb days are less than 60g and high carb would be in the 150-200g amounts.


Protein and fat is whatever that's left. She does try to help me with my protein goals though which is close to 200g of protein per day, so most of our meals are pretty high protein.

@Techiecal Maybe consider sticking to just low carbs every day? I would say 50g - 100g max daily.


Aside from that, see if she could do another dance routine maybe 3 days per week, or even just 15 minutes extra of what she is already doing each day!

Need 1 on 1 coaching? Send me a direct message to learn more!
Techiecal
Techiecal g Cal Holfeld
5 Post(s)
5 Post(s) Gender: Male Goal: Gain Muscle Date Joined: August 8, 2018
Posted
Posted By: Scott_Herman

@Techiecal Maybe consider sticking to just low carbs every day? I would say 50g - 100g max daily.


Aside from that, see if she could do another dance routine maybe 3 days per week, or even just 15 minutes extra of what she is already doing each day!

I'll mention that, she REALLY likes carbs so that would be a tough challenge! haha


I'll tell her to bump up the exercise a bit more as you suggested and we'll give the carb cycling a chance and if it doesn't work well, then she may have to try a plan with the 100 or less grams of carbs per day.


Due to PCOS, I definitely don't think her body responds well to carbs so I do agree that having a lower daily amount of carbs would benefit her but that's something she'll have to decide for herself.


Thanks for the help! I'll try to circle back in couple weeks or so and let you know how things are going.

Scott_Herman
Scott_Herman a Scott Herman
7.1K Post(s)
7.1K Post(s) Gender: Male Goal: Bodybuilding Date Joined: August 8, 2008
Posted
Posted By: Techiecal

I'll mention that, she REALLY likes carbs so that would be a tough challenge! haha


I'll tell her to bump up the exercise a bit more as you suggested and we'll give the carb cycling a chance and if it doesn't work well, then she may have to try a plan with the 100 or less grams of carbs per day.


Due to PCOS, I definitely don't think her body responds well to carbs so I do agree that having a lower daily amount of carbs would benefit her but that's something she'll have to decide for herself.


Thanks for the help! I'll try to circle back in couple weeks or so and let you know how things are going.

@Techiecal Haha yeah man we all like carbs! But it's a sacrifice to make when trying to cut down and get lean!


It can be a challenge but that's what it's all about, challenging yourself to make a change!


Happy to help! Hope your wife is able to break through this plateau!

Need 1 on 1 coaching? Send me a direct message to learn more!
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