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This is what a plateau looks like - how did you cope with yours?

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Replies

  • Posts: 14,464 Member
    P.S. the little dips upwards closely spaced apart are two scales on two different days. Just goes to show.
  • Posts: 4,926 Member
    ana3067 wrote: »
    2) you averaged around 1000 calories a few weeks ago. This is ridiculously low. Cycling calories is not about eating way too few calories, it's about cycling between maintenance needs and deficits. This is an example of how you would properly estimate your cycling needs assuming you are including exercise into your calculation 1percentedge.com/ifcalc/

    calculate your TDEE or NEAT needs, subtract 10-20%, set as your daily goal, and you will lose weight just fine.
    I don't think she's asking you to explain IF to her, or 'proper' dieting. She's using a published plan that is not the web site you linked to. It's a valid plan that has nothing to do with calcing your TDEE or averaging your calories across a week.

  • Posts: 49,124 Member

    My diary's open. Go nuts.
    Nah, I'd rather you tell me rather than me analyzing your eating program.
    Anyway, it's NOT been 6 weeks so it's not a plateau. A "stall" yes, and that's COMMON with any weight loss program. Revisit it in 3 more weeks to see if anything's changed.

    BTW, sleep patterns and stress DO affect weight loss, so if there's been any change there, then that's something to look at.

    A.C.E. Certified Personal and Group Fitness Trainer
    IDEA Fitness member
    Kickboxing Certified Instructor
    Been in fitness for 30 years and have studied kinesiology and nutrition

    9285851.png

  • Posts: 242 Member
    edited October 2014
    jgnatca wrote: »
    This is what a year's weight loss looks like.
    r9ovy4rskcyy.jpg

    The long view means don't pay attention to the freaking scale! NOW it looks like a long and steady downward trend; very encouraging.

    If someone asks how much I have lost, I round it up to the nearest five and say "give or take".

    Cool, here's mine. The plateau is the last bit. I like to throw a trend line in there.

    r9uwxh5fzmxu.png
  • Posts: 242 Member
    edited October 2014
    ana3067 wrote: »
    You are clearly not following this type of diet then, because you averaged 1000 a few weeks ago.

    Are you talking about the time I was getting over gastro? See all the Hydralyte in there?
  • Posts: 458 Member
    edited October 2014
    My wife had a problem losing weight until we got her thyroid under control.

    "What thyroid patients need to know more about are three factors that are likely at work for many of us with a difficulty losing weight -- a changed metabolic 'set point,' changes in brain chemistry due to illness and stress, and insulin resistance." -About Health

    You can have a huge deficit and not lose weight. If this the thyroid has nothing to do with it, and there are not insulin issues, I would gain motivation by changing my workout plan and doing things I haven't done, yet. I may cut back on exercise for a few days and then come back full steam. I try to keep it fresh the best I can.



  • Posts: 458 Member
    jgnatca wrote: »
    This is what a year's weight loss looks like.
    r9ovy4rskcyy.jpg

    The long view means don't pay attention to the freaking scale! NOW it looks like a long and steady downward trend; very encouraging.

    If someone asks how much I have lost, I round it up to the nearest five and say "give or take".

    Thanks for sharing this. It is interesting how you could go a whole month and then, "whoosh!"
  • Posts: 5,623 Member
    I don't think she's asking you to explain IF to her, or 'proper' dieting. She's using a published plan that is not the web site you linked to. It's a valid plan that has nothing to do with calcing your TDEE or averaging your calories across a week.
    And as she already showed, she's not even following the "valid plan" correctly - 1000 as a weekly average does not equal 500 cals every other day with 3 or 4 days of eating at maintenance or above.
  • Posts: 3,203 Member
    ninerbuff wrote: »
    Anyway, it's NOT been 6 weeks so it's not a plateau. A "stall" yes, and that's COMMON with any weight loss program. Revisit it in 3 more weeks to see if anything's changed.

    Yup. Like the the other poster who shared her graph, mine is much the same, lots of flatness followed by big drops. It happens more often to some of us apparently, but I am pretty certain it happens to almost everyone.

  • Posts: 5,623 Member

    Are you talking about the time I was getting over gastro? See all the Hydralyte in there?

    No. actually I meant last week, not a few weeks ago. Oct 12-18. You averaged 1000 calories, give or take. Which is very very very very very unlikely to equal your TDEE (or higher) combined iwth a few 500-calorie days.

    And if it does, then you really should be eating far above your maintenance, or you should follow a far more reasonable intermittent fasting plan. <1200 calories for weight loss is only appropriate for very short and very very slim women who likely do not work out.

    Btw, TDEE means total daily energy expenditure, so that includes your average exercise. Just in case you have been using NEAT, which is non-exercise activity thermogenesis.
  • Posts: 15,267 Member
    edited October 2014


    500 calories one day and your TDEE + up to 75% is how the Alternate Day Diet is done. If this starts a rash of ill-informed "opinion" on ADD then I'm SMDH.

    Actually no ...once I saw the patten I figured it out...

    and yes you said you are "fastidious" with logging...and this is not an attack it's a statement of fact.

    No you are not, I see to many "generic" entries, too many in oz measurments and 15 of this, half a cup of that...

  • Posts: 34,971 Member
    Maybe use your food scale more than you do? I see a lot of going by the size of veggies, using cups for cereal, etc. You are probably eating more than you think.
  • Posts: 4,926 Member
    ana3067 wrote: »
    And as she already showed, she's not even following the "valid plan" correctly - 1000 as a weekly average does not equal 500 cals every other day with 3 or 4 days of eating at maintenance or above.
    If I recall correctly, she's following Varady's Every Other Day Diet plan, which I believe is to alternate 500 calorie max days with unrestricted eating. There is no rule about needing to average 1200 or above. The concept is most people wind up choosing to eat around 110% of their maintenance on their unrestricted days. Many days she's well over 2200.

    If someone felt like eating 1500 on some unrestricted days, I doubt that'd send their weight into a 2-week plateau. But I'm guessing your whole point is since she's not weighing each food item to the gram and keeping her small-interval average strictly above MFP's lower suggestion, she has no credibility and is doing it (whatever plan she's doing) wrong, right?

  • Posts: 242 Member
    If I recall correctly, she's following Varady's Every Other Day Diet plan, which I believe is to alternate 500 calorie max days with unrestricted eating. There is no rule about needing to average 1200 or above. The concept is most people wind up choosing to eat around 110% of their maintenance on their unrestricted days. Many days she's well over 2200.

    If someone felt like eating 1500 on some unrestricted days, I doubt that'd send their weight into a 2-week plateau. But I'm guessing your whole point is since she's not weighing each food item to the gram and keeping her small-interval average strictly above MFP's lower suggestion, she has no credibility and is doing it (whatever plan she's doing) wrong, right?

    I am surprised my average is so low. There was a dinner I didn't log on the 13th and I can't remember what caused that. I am always surprised by how little you need to eat to feel full when you've virtually fasted the previous day - that's what a shrunken stomach will do for your capacity. I'm not deliberately trying to undereat - just training myself to recognise when I'm full and stop eating.
  • Posts: 74 Member
    Just one other note- I had a "plateau" (not 6 weeks) after we started back to school. I was going crazy trying to figure out what had changed. Then, I realized my activity level had plummeted. I switched to "sedentary" calories, and began to lose weight again.

    As for motivation- I just kept reminding myself that the equation HAD to work.
  • Posts: 1,942 Member
    I don't know much about plateaus but if you aren't on any medications/supplements that affect urine color you may want to call a doc. It may be normal, but I would ask someone about it sometimes being concentrated and orange.
  • Posts: 15,151 Member
    Cold_Steel wrote: »
    Over a year and a half period I lost 135 lbs (gained some back recently) and I can tell you plateaus exist. I did a strict regiment when I was not losing as much as I was originally losing down to the same time, weight resistance, sleep cycles and I ate literally the same darned food for a month. I plateaued, I was pissed. I went to my doctor/nutritionist and she basically told me to stop being conscientious for a week. I stopped, consumed alcohol, ate delectable deserts and generally pigged out. I gained about 2 lbs that week. The next week I lost 4, the following 3, the following 1.5, in the course of the following month I lost about 14 lbs.

    I am not suggesting or condoning to jump off the healthy choices but it may have just been a mental thing more than anything but plateaus do exist.

    Yay for diet breaks!! On one right now-love it!
  • Posts: 9,532 Member
    "If you think I'm chugging a twinkie every now and then and not noticing... no." was an amazing retort.

    If strawmen are your thing, yeah, it was amazing...

  • Posts: 1,005 Member
    lorib642 wrote: »
    I don't know much about plateaus but if you aren't on any medications/supplements that affect urine color you may want to call a doc. It may be normal, but I would ask someone about it sometimes being concentrated and orange.

    I am supplementing (on my dr.'s orders) b12. It will turn your urine orange for sure. It's a bit disconcerting for sure.

    Also, pyridium (for kidney stones) turns it an 'omg orange jello' neon orange...even MORE disconcerting.

    http://www.sharecare.com/health/vitamin-b12/does-vitamin-b12-bright-yellow-urine
  • Posts: 12,942 Member
    I've been on a plateau for almost a year!

    Oh wait, I've been maintaining for a whole year. :smiley::blush:

    Seriously, anytime I thought I'd hit a plateau, it indeed turned out to be my user error. I think the most recent was when I forgot to allow MFP to recalculate my calorie goals. As we get smaller our bodies need less calories to function.
  • Posts: 12,942 Member
    A plateau would look like that, except it would be a lot more than 13 days long.
    Cool text!
  • Posts: 88 Member
    Back to the OP's question... I'm not at a true plateau but after gaining this week (after eating right on my mfp recommended calories plus tons of exercise) it has refocused me. After many weeks of this, maybe it would get discouraging. The truth of the matter, though, is that over the long run you simply cannot continue to be overweight if your lifestyle doesn't support it. Over the long run the weight WILL come off.
  • Posts: 618 Member
    I've been at a deficit of 3850 calories a week for the last 10 weeks, and in the first seven I steadily lost 1kg per week.

    The scale went down by that much, but assuming your counts are right, you've only created a deficit equivalent to 11lbs of fat, not the ~15 of scale loss. Hence the apparent scale stall.

  • Posts: 853 Member
    I tend to hit plateu every ten pounds. Seems the body has trouble dropping below the next number. Sometimes it takes alittle convincing your body to drop the weight. I tend to have a high calorie day when I hit a platue then I drop like a rock the following week.
  • Posts: 242 Member
    Back to the OP's question... I'm not at a true plateau but after gaining this week (after eating right on my mfp recommended calories plus tons of exercise) it has refocused me. After many weeks of this, maybe it would get discouraging. The truth of the matter, though, is that over the long run you simply cannot continue to be overweight if your lifestyle doesn't support it. Over the long run the weight WILL come off.

    Thanks, I needed to hear that :smile:
  • Posts: 242 Member
    Falcon wrote: »
    I tend to hit plateu every ten pounds. Seems the body has trouble dropping below the next number. Sometimes it takes alittle convincing your body to drop the weight. I tend to have a high calorie day when I hit a platue then I drop like a rock the following week.

    I've got to keep an eye on the numbers to see if this bears out for me too. I've been waiting to hit 86 for weeks... every time I get close I bounce back up.
  • Posts: 242 Member
    edited October 2014
    allyphoe wrote: »

    The scale went down by that much, but assuming your counts are right, you've only created a deficit equivalent to 11lbs of fat, not the ~15 of scale loss. Hence the apparent scale stall.

    Yeah I also don't eat back my exercise (and because of this I don't bother logging it) so your maths is going to be out.
  • Posts: 99 Member
    Look in my profile pictures for a chart. Looks like a plateau, but isn't. It is sodium, food and exercise.
  • Posts: 22 Member
    jgnatca wrote: »
    This is what a year's weight loss looks like.

    <image>

    The long view means don't pay attention to the freaking scale! NOW it looks like a long and steady downward trend; very encouraging.

    If someone asks how much I have lost, I round it up to the nearest five and say "give or take".

    Not the OP, but that was actually super motivating, thank you! The long view really is incredibly different than a few weeks at a time.
  • Posts: 17,456 Member
    I am in love with all the tables and trendlines and charts

    *geekheaven*

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