Weekly Weigh In – Struggling with Weight Loss Plateau

Well, it’s weekly weigh in time again. This week marked the end date (August 23rd) of my goal to reach 170lbs. I realized a few weeks back that reaching this goal was probably not going to happen, but I have been trying my hardest to get there. I admit that lately I have been slipping up more than usual with the old diet. I miss the carefree days of eating whatever I wanted, but I don’t miss being 30 pounds heavier either. Losing weight takes so much effort and I have to keep reminding myself of all the hard work I’ve done and how stupid it would be to undo it all.

Part of my struggle to stay on track with my diet comes from the fact that my weight loss seems to have slowed down. Yesterday morning at my weekly weigh in my weight was…

188 lbs

Last week I gained four pounds and this is scary for me because it’s the first time in a while that the scale has started to go up instead of down. I know that I still have a lot of weight to lose, but sometimes weight loss becomes very stubborn. When this happens I know that the best thing to do is mix up my routine, calorie-wise and exercise-wise.

Over the past month in particular, I have not pushed myself to a new level physically. To overcome a weight loss plateau, increasing the intensity of your workouts and including variety in your exercises is key. So this week I will try to do this as best as possible.

As for my diet, I consume an average of 1600 calories a day and have been doing this since last January. Obviously, this calorie intake is not doing the trick anymore and may be a bit high for someone of my current weight and size. For the next month I will adjust my calorie intake down to 1400-1500 calories a day and see how that goes.

Hopefully I can start losing weight again by next week. Weight loss plateaus and weight gain can be very frustrating and make it even harder to stay motivated.

Speaking of motivation, setting a realistic weight loss goal to work towards can really help keep you on track. Since my goal date just passed, I would like to set another goal for myself right now. Since my weight is 188lbs and my goal weight was 170lbs, I still have 18 pounds to lose. Since healthy weight loss happens at about 2 pounds per week, a realistic goal would be to lose 18 pounds in 9 weeks. I like to make things a bit more challenging for myself, so I will give myself 8 weeks, or until October 20th to reach my goal weight of 170lbs.

Ahh, I feel better already. Now I have my goal set and I can get to work trying to reach it. Wish me luck.