breaking a weight loss plateau - tips for kickstarting metabolism again

[treacletart]

"Plateau" - sounds like a cross between "Platter" and "Gateaux" - neither of which I've been anywhere near since mid May.

I've (reasonably painlessly) lost a stone, sticking to a less than 1200 Kcals a day with sensible eating and portion control, logging everything on Food Focus.

I weigh myself weekly and I've been 10 and a half stone for the last 4 frustrating weigh ins. Guess my clever old metabolism's recalibrating to less fuel. I don't want to cut out food groups or go any lower on calories. But I do know I need to do proper exercise - I do no formal exercise at all yet, but will probably join a gym after my holiday.

So, has anyone any successful experience of kick-starting their metabolism in similar circumstances? Anyone tried Zig Zagging? - Upping calories one day and lowering the next so overall weekly calories balance out. What do you think?

I'm one for everyso often eating what you want - so once a month (approx) I have a take away pizza delivered. On the exercise front def recommend Jillian Micheals 30 DAY SHRED - we have a thread on here - its amazing

I think 1200 calories may not be enough for your body, and it may well be 're-calibrating' to 'cope' on this amount. The body's equivalent of going 'ho hum' and knuckling down.

Didn't I hear somewhere that ROUGHLY you can do a calc which is your body weight in pounds x 10 and this is what you should be eating on a diet for steady weight loss. This is from memory, and I can't remember where I read it, so it could be tripe. Maybe you need to eat 200 calories more a day?

I was plateauing last week, changed my brekkie from 200 calorie cereal and 350ml skimmed milk to 2 scrambled eggs and 2 wholemeal toast with low-fat marge. Slight calorie uppage whith different sugar/protein make-up. Seems to have startled my body back into losing.

And yes - get the Shred. Will really boost your metabolism and will make working out feel interesting.

Are you eating the same food day in day out? If so, shake up your diet. Try eating larger breakfast, medium size lunch and small dinner. Drink lots of water (at least 2 litres a day). Fit in what exercise you can - walk everywhere. And you will shift from that plateau (believe me, I am the plateau queen so I know this DOES work - you just need to give it a couple of weeks).

1228kcal is my target as set by Food Focus for my weight/height and activity levels to lose 1lb a week. Although I notice it would be slightly lower were I to sign up now with my current weight. Don't really have any set patterns but may well up my protein to carb ratio a bit. Will also try hard to up my water and exercise - have been doing quite a bit of extra walking this week(Ds has gone geocaching barmy). Will also try supplementing with a few healthy snacks between meals to avoid any glucose dips and I'm still intrigued by Zig Zagging - anyone else tried it? Horrid case of Pine Mouth has put me right off almost all food at the moment - really hoping it'll be over soon..