Hitting a plateau

blondiebabii06

so I've been on MFP for almost 4 months now & I've lost a little over 30 lbs with maintaining a clean diet & gym 5 days a week. But the past couple weeks i feel like the scale has hardly moved & I'm not seeing many changes. Anyone have tips on what they've done when they've hit a plateau & felt a little discouraged? Thank you

kristen6350

A couple of weeks isn't a plateau. Weight loss slows down naturally the closer you get to goal. You just have to keep doing what you are doing and be patient.

blondiebabii06

Okay thanks for your feedback

malibu927

Tighten your logging. If you aren't using a food scale, invest in one. And remember that weight loss isn't linear.

blondiebabii06

Very true, thank you

earlnabby

When I hit stalls, the first thing I do is make sure I am weighing, measuring, and logging correctly. If that is all good, I wait. 2 stalls have lasted 3 weeks each and one lasted 4 weeks. I did nothing different and the losses started up again.

Some say you can switch things up a little. Don't eat less or exercise more, but change your routine. If you eat your main meal at night, try eating it for lunch instead. Work out on different days and/or different times of the day. There is no proof that this works, but it can help the frustration because you are doing SOMETHING and, who knows, maybe it will work for you. Definitely can't hurt.

4thDegreeKnight

I actually just posted a thread on this. I'll relay what my trainer told me years ago and it makes a big difference when I plateau.

Try to suddenly confuse your body. If you are consistently hitting X calories, say 1500 - zig zag around it over the period of a week. Eat 1300 on Monday, 1600 on Tuesday, 1500 on Wed, etc ...

If you are at the gym, break consistency. If you are always on the treadmill at 4.0 - go to elliptical for 2 days. If you don't lift weights, lift a few. Don't do classes, take one.

Religious on your calorie counting, have a massive cheat day and let yourself gain a lb because your body will work it off as well as a second lb.

Add an additional meal and make the others smaller.

Do whatever you can to break routine for a week and see what happens. This has helped me more than once. Also look at your sugar intake for the past two weeks. I know at one point I was religious of my calorie intake but I always saved calories for a Coke as my treat. Found out my body was sugar sensitive and I had to cut it out for a few days, as soon as I did - weight loss.

So keep trying and know that after you have lost significant weight like you have, it does also fall off slower but confusing your body may help.

blondiebabii06

Thank you both sooo much. Now that I think about it I do tend to stick to the same things. Like my meals I tend to eat the same thing for dinner, same snacks etc. which i don't get sick of lol, but I'll try breaking out of my habits and switch it up a bit. cardio I do tend to switch up, but maybe I should switch up my strength training. I do some now, but I've been doing the same things for a little while now.

abarriere

I am having similar feelings as you. What has helped me was to look at non-scale achievements, while the weight isn't budging. I did a side plank with leg raises for 30 seconds last gym session, i have never been able to do that. During the cardio portion of training, i was able to up my speed on the treadmill on a 12 incline. I am obviously getting stronger and more fit, the scale will budge eventually.

I have been doing an awful lot of elliptical and treadmill these past 7 weeks, so i think my trainer is going to change my exercises to incorporate other modalities.