I'm determined to push past this plateau

I WANT to be down under 170. It's so close, yet it alludes me. I'm going up and down between 171 and 172 and cannot figure out why.

My calorie counts have been near-perfect. I've exercised every day this week, I've been drinking water like my life depends on it, (in a biological way it does...)

To reach my goal weight of 168 by Cinco de Mayo, I need to net between 1400 and 1500 calories per day, after exercise. That's more than I'm consuming now, my iPod app wants me to eat just over 1300 calories.

Maybe I should consume a bit more - it wouldn't be a problem, really. But it's scary to up your calorie intake while trying to lose weight, because it seems very counter-intuitive.

Plateaus generally occur because our bodies have become accustomed to the calorie deficit we've created, that is, our metabolic rate slows down enough that the amount of calories we consume more closely equals our energy expenditure.

Also, as we lose weight, our lighter bodies require less calorie burn to move. Things like dancing around require less energy, so we aren't burning as much as we originally were.

There are lots of ways to try to break a plateau. On way is to eat more for a week or two. The body may have stalled fat loss because it is in fat saving mode. In other words, it has become used to the reduced calorie diet and thinks this is the new normal, so it begins saving its fat stores in case calories get reduced even further (it's a survival technique to prevent starvation!). In order to convince your body to use up more body fat, you need to first convince it that food is plentiful and there's no need to hold on to the extra fat stores. You do this by eating about 100 or 200 more calories per day.

So... I guess I'll trust it, and I'll modify my food journal to reflect this change... Alright. It now says I should eat 1500 calories per day. I've already had a 200 calorie breakfast, and went for a run (which I KILLED, by the way. I was running at a pace of 12:30 min/mile!!! Next week is W9, and I'm excited to be able to say I completed the C25K program!)

I've also decided to start the P90X Lean program, which is geared toward women, but I won't start until after showcase, and after I'm done with the running program. Hopefully I can weave in some runs among all the intense cardio! But I'm excited to hopefully see some awesome results.