Hey Camille--congrats on your loss
! I've been feeling a bit under the weather, physically and mentally, so I'm late with my contratulations!
Disclaimer: I'm not a medical/nutritional expert--only giving my opinion from a laymen's perspective, based on experience and research I have done about weight loss and metabolism .
You know, the topic of why weight loss slows down has been discussed on the forum a couple of times before (I know this from the hundreds of back posts that I have read since joining this forum). And Nelly is 100% correct. I'm pasting one of her old posts here where she breaks down physiologically why the weight slows down, especially so markedly for women.
This is straight up biology!
The smaller one is the lesser the weight loss speed. And here's why!
Person 161 lbs that are moderately active (exercising 3x a week) need roughly 2200 calories to MAINTAIN the current weight of 161 lbs. In order to loose a lb, you need a deficit of 3500 calories. If you drop your intake from the 2200 calories needed to keep you at 161lbs down to say 800 calories (5 shakes and lean+green), you would be creating a deficit of 1400 calories per day. That's a 9800 calories deficit over the course of a week or roughly 2.8 lbs loss per week. Again, this is taking in consideration that you are moderately active and a female between age of 25-25 and an average height of 5'5". If you are older, your basic metabolic rate will be slower thus you'll need less calories to maintain your current weight, and your weight loss will be lesser than the 2.8 lbs average above. If you are petite, say 5'1" the same will be true also. And if you are not active the weight loss value will be smaller too.
Therefore, a female 5'5" 250 lbs on the same 800 calories diet would be creating a deficit of 1998 calories per day since it takes 2798 calories to keep her at a weight of 250lbs! Do the math, and that's a weekly deficit of 13986 calories!!!! Or 3.99 lbs loss per week!
Get the picture? So if you are not too overweight..Say 140lbs wanting to be 125 lbs. Your Basic metabolic rate is of only 2070 calories per day in order to keep you at 140lbs. Go on a 800 calorie diet and your deficit will only be 1270 calories per day or 8890 calories a week which translate into 2.5 lbs of weight loss per week. This taking in consideration that you are 25-35, a female of average height and exercising 3x per week.
And that is the mathematic of weight loss! Period! Men will lose weight faster based on several factors. The most important one being that they have a greater lean body mass than women. Your lean body mass is what you weight if you were strip of all the fat leaving just the muscles and bones. And since muscle burns more energy than fat, men who have a higher lean body mass than women, will naturally burn more calories than we (women) in general.
So here you go..Now you have the little neat facts...just keep shaking and don't obsess with the scale! Sorry for the long 2 cents here ..But as a Bio-Chem major in college...I thought I'd pass on some info..
Your Shakin Pal and conductor,
Nelly
I agree with Nelly, maybe it's time to start adding some lean muscle mass. I was just reading an article in Fitness magazine (October edition) where they put four women on different protocols to see which protocol would raise the metabolism the most. One woman was put on a calorie-restricted diet, one did only cardio, one did strength training and cardio, and one did strength training only. Guess which one's metabolism got the biggest boost? The strength trainer--her metabolism went up 61%, about more than double that of the cardio/strength training combo, and about five times more than the dieter (can't remember the exact differences since I don't have the magazine in front of me right now
.
Of course, be sure to up your supplement intakes, correspondingly, to your level of exercise. Another thing, I read about some information regarding plateaus/slow weight loss that was related from one of the Medifast doctors who does weekly phone sessions, that when we reach plateaus we need to UP the supplements, maybe by one or two. On the surface this doesn't seem to make sense to up the caloric intake, but when we do this we also up the protein and nutrition intake, and the metabolic rate, as well, as the body has to work harder to digest the additional sustenance. The body is so darn crafty and adaptable--it will adjust to what we are doing in no time--hence the dreaded plateaus or slowdowns. And genetically, women's bodies have more fat, it's designed this way, and the body hangs on to it more strongly the less of it we have (especially in our hips and thighs, as most of us know!) because it needs that fat for childbearing (at least that what it's wired to do).
Anyways, I say shake it up! Just my 5 cents
.
Sheryl
The one thing that I might add to your routine would be walking. If you walk about 4 Xs a week you might up the loss for this week. Try it out. You are doing so awesome and I bet you look just gorgeous (thats the compliment I get all the time now...that or my mom telling me how hungry I look). Personally I like the "hungry" look and I think my husband does too... 
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