Plateau doesn't even begin to describe it anymore. It's more like a long endless flat plain where you can see the bend in the Earth because there are no hills or anything.I know lots of people would be happy to maintain a weight this low for 6 months. I've lost 65 lbs and kept it off. Not a single pound has crept back on. But at the same time, I haven't lost any more weight either!
I think I set a reasonable goal weight for my height: 140. It's right at the top of the (semi-useless) BMI scale. At 150 I can still see problem areas where fat is definitely stil stuck (namely my stomach and my thighs). I have muscle and most of me looked toned except those areas. So, it should be possible to get another 5-10 lbs off my body... but it's become practically impossible.
I've been trying a few things in the last 6 months, I tried to eat more base calories and eat back some exercise calories. That seemed to work at first but the scale didn't move for good. Same with zigzagging my calories. It was working the first 2 weeks and now it's stalled again and I'm back in te 150s. It might be a few bad days are enough to completely counteract everything I'v been doing, but who knows. And I've kicked up the exercise with running at least 3-4 days a week, interval running, speed running, and longer running sessions all mixed up.
So, I don't really quite know where to go from here. I can't imagine I'm the first person to get stuck for a prolonged period of time. When does it stop being a plateau and start being my "happy weight"? Because I'm still not 100% happy. I really dislike having a small roll of fat over my size 6 jeans. And having to buy one pant size larger because my thighs won't fit. I didn't come this far to settle!
I have two routes I can go at this point:
1.) Keep doing what I'm doing and hope for the best. Maybe I'll end up staying the same, maybe it'll go down. I'm at a place where it's not hard to maintain this weight and that's a good thing. I can still enjoy dinners with my boyfriend and drinks with my kickball team and the occasional treat. A few days of eating better and drinking water and I'm back to 150 again.
2.) Push myself even further, try something new... I don't know. I don't really know what else I can do! Eating more, eating less, working out more, more strength, less cardio, more carbs, less carbs, more protein...
I'm open to suggestions... or a pep talk. I haven't come this far to give up with 10 lbs to go. But there's a point where I don't know if it's worth it to focus every little bit of my energy on getting rid of them...
EDIT/UPDATE:
I've gotten awesome advice in the comments below!! I think I've narrowed down my plateau reasons to overindulging on the weekends and not holding myself accountable for it, and not enough strength training. At the moment, I only strength train once a week for 30 minutes, not enough! And I'm also going off track Thursday nights with kickball, and then on the weekend with my boyfriend. So, I'm going to try to focus on both those things so I stop derailing my progress every single weekend. I'll start getting there by Thursday and then it's back up again. With such little wiggle room, I can't keep going this way and expect to lose. I could pull it off when I was heavier, but at my lowest weight right now, it's not something I can keep up. So thanks for all the tips and I'll keep you posted on how it goes! I'm going to keep zigzagging my calories too, it's important to keep eating enough. Lowering my calories further won't do me much good...
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