My First Plateau. Comments welcome.

jbud52
jbud52 Posts: 9 Member
in Health and Weight Loss
Zero progress for one week and counting.

Today I hit an important milestone: a 50-day streak on MFP. That's something I think I've only been able to accomplish once or maybe twice before. Today also marks 17 lbs down and only 39 more to go before goal. It's weird thinking about how short 50 days is -- less than two months?? -- and yet it's never easy getting this far because it can feel like ages when you're changing your lifestyle.

This is my third best attempt at hitting my target weight. The 2nd Best: lost 23 lbs in Summer '17 only to put it all back within a year; Best: when I first signed up for MFP and started logging religiously in the beginning of '15, I managed to lose 27 lbs. Took me two years to put that back on.

The dieting is going very well now that I've formed a solid habit, but it takes a lot of willpower to say no to all the fun things when my friends are partaking and I can't. The diet isn't magical, but I swear it works like it is; I eat whatever I want, I just keep it below my goal calorie target (currently 1,840/day for 1.5 lbs/week loss). That's not entirely true. I also try to hit close to a 50/20/30 or 50/25/25 splits of carbs/protein/fat macros, but I don't really chase those as much as I do the cals.

I broke my foot over Thanksgiving and I'm still wearing a special boot so I'm barely beginning to get back into an exercise routine. I love to ride my bicycle for cardio and I try to hit 30-min rides at least 5x/week. The real challenge for me is weight lifting. Haven't started that again yet but I'm eager. Once this foot heals it's game on. Too bad all my friends tell me I'll be lucky if that's the case "4-6 weeks out" like the docs told me. I've been in the boot for 6.5 weeks as of today but I've resolved to taking it off this week! Woo. I dunno if it's a smart idea trying to learn how to deadlift this weekend though. And during one of the best snow seasons we've had in years... <Sigh> I wish I was skiing, but I digress.

Back to the plateau. This past week I've watched the scale stay the same, despite having a net weekly average caloric intake under my target. Super frustrating. Having been here before though I know it's only temporary. The worst part is trying to keep the faith after seeing constant results for so long. You know how long it's been since I've seen results? Only one week! Haha, did I say 50 days seems short? At my stated pace of -1.5lbs/week I'm looking at an additional 26 weeks until goal. That puts me mid-July after 182 more days, give-or-take. Yikes. I'm pretty sure I've NEVER hit a 100-day streak on MFP. That's my New Year's resolution this time though: to log until I hit my goal, no matter how long it takes.

Please help keep me honest, friends. Add me, comment, thumbs up, thumbs down, it's all welcome. And to those who've come before, can you give me any guidance on plateaus and what to expect? Are they somewhat regular, like say every other month? Do they last a week or two then your progress resumes? Do they just keep happening, or do you only experience a couple on your journey? If I'm a betting man, the day after I post this I'm gonna see a pound lost! Pfft, I'd take it.

A good buddy of mine told me "weight loss is just a simple math equation man. You either eat less or burn more, but if you take in less than you're using, you HAVE TO lose weight."

Cheers,

- JB

Replies

  • try2again
    try2again Posts: 3,562 Member
    https://www.aworkoutroutine.com/why-am-i-not-losing-weight/
  • mmapags
    mmapags Posts: 8,934 Member
    PAV8888 wrote: »
    You're aiming for 1.5lbs a week and losing 2.38

    A very fast rate of loss suitable for morbidly obese people who are in the over 240lb weight class AND have enough fat available to lose to support such a rate of loss

    And at the same time you say you have had continuing compliance issues.

    Long term compliance wins over short term quick results when it comes to the long term...

    There is every reason to not make things too hard and to enjoy the trip all the way!

    Take care.

    (sorry, I am not currently adding friends; but given the history you detailed I hope you consider my comment)

    Excellent observations!
  • jbud52
    jbud52 Posts: 9 Member
    I love each and every one of you. Seriously thanks for all the comments, and so fast. I had no idea there was so much support on the social aspect to MFP. Like I said, I've been on here for four years now and I'm just diving into the blog/forums.

    I'm attaching a screenshot of my total progress. You'll notice there are three large downswings, each representing my "best" attempts. All the other peaks and valleys are are from started, but quickly failed, attempts. Never quit quitting, eh? What I see overall is a quick downswing while I'm losing weight, then I fall back into old habits and put it back on over time. I'm sure this graph isn't unique to me or my situation. (As an aside - can we see our progress graph on the online version? That screenshot is from my phone).
    mmapags wrote: »
    A couple of thoughts.
    One week is not a plateau. Weight loss is not linear. 3 weeks might be a plateau.

    Have you taken a diet break at maintenance yet? If not, that might be a good thing to do.
    Here is a link to a thread about that. It is long but the most important content is in the first page or 2.
    https://community.myfitnesspal.com/en/discussion/10604863/of-refeeds-and-diet-breaks/p1

    How tight is your logging and food weighing and measuring? That area is often the area that gets a little loose resulting in a weight loss slowdown.

    Overall though. I'd give it a week or 2.

    My logging is as tight as I can make it. During 2nd Best attempt a year ago I went to see a nutritionist for some extra guidance. She's the one who gave me those macros targets. She also counseled that "if I feel hungry, I should probably eat a bit more. And watch what times you eat to find good practices. The goal should be getting to a place of comfort while losing because otherwise you'll fail." I'm a firm believer that without accurate data, we're purely guessing so I try to log as close as possible. I have a food scale I use at home for nearly everything, or I'm pouring into measuring cups to get volumes, etc. I know, there's only so much accuracy to be had, but after reading that especially when it comes to food, we tend to underestimate what we're eating, I try to be really good about this one point since logging is one of the few things I can control.

    That said, I really didn't know one week isn't a plateau. I'll keep the faith and update my progress. Again, thank you all for the encouragement. This is just what I needed.

    Also, what pray tell, is a diet break at maintenance? Now THAT sounds magical. Pretty sure I wanna steer clear of that until I'm much further along... <begins reading articles in this response>.

    PAV8888 wrote: »
    You're aiming for 1.5lbs a week and losing 2.38

    A very fast rate of loss suitable for morbidly obese people who are in the over 240lb weight class AND have enough fat available to lose to support such a rate of loss

    And at the same time you say you have had continuing compliance issues.

    Long term compliance wins over short term quick results when it comes to the long term...

    There is every reason to not make things too hard and to enjoy the trip all the way!

    Take care.

    (sorry, I am not currently adding friends; but given the history you detailed I hope you consider my comment)


    Thank you, good Sir. I definitely considered your comment, and would have added you were you looking for adds. As to my current average of 2.38/week, I never count the first 5-7 lbs. In my experience, when I first start the diet, those 5-7 lbs come off in like 2 days (according to my logging, I was at 221 on 26Nov, and 216 01Dec). It must be water weight, and if I were to start back into old habits I'd surely gain it back just as fast. That actually impacts my goal: I'm shooting for 165 because I'd like to live at 170. Sadly, at 9' 9.5", 172 lbs = BMI of 25 and I'm technically overweight again. Whomp whomp. It still counts in my total, but I'd say a more accurate reflection of my rate is: 17 lbs - 5 initial pounds / 6.14 weeks instead of 7.14 = 1.95 lbs/week. I dunno if those first 5 should be in there or not; I simply wasn't giving myself credit for them in my own head.

    Still, not bad now that I do that math!

    Cheers,

    - JB


  • pierinifitness
    pierinifitness Posts: 2,226 Member
    I’ve had my fair share of plateaus or multiple days when my scale numbers show no southernly direction. I’ve found it really motivates me to remain steadfast and double down. Thus far, all is well and a new morning BW low sure feels good. Hit one today.
  • jbud52
    jbud52 Posts: 9 Member
    UPDATE TIME!! Woo.

    Man oh man have I been doing it wrong. So, a couple of things: 1) I stopping thinking of "1 week" as a plateau. Thank you all for the guidance!; 2) sadly, I think I'm on an actual plateau now as I've been floating along for the past couple weeks with no perceived progress (but one of my own making); and 3) I've made some significant changes, which I'll outline below.

    First, for my size and weight, MFP says I should be eating ~1,800 cals/day in order to lose 1.5lbs/week. The intake is getting progressively lower as I lose weight which is to be expected. The big change so far is that I'm finally able to start exercising again, which is very exciting. I told y'all how I broke my foot on Thanksgiving. Welp, I've finally taken the boot off and I started by hitting my stationary bike. Beginning back in mid-January, I try to go at least 30 min 4x-5x/week at a moderate pace (say, 12mph). MFP tells me this burns +/-400 cals. I've been eating my exercise cals back. Oops -- more on this later.

    I'm told that "being healed" is different than "being 100%." Story checks out, as my poor little tootsies on the broken foot were aching some when I first started the bike. I'm not trying to re-injure myself, so I made sure not to push it too hard. After a week of biking, I tried to incorporate walking the Pup to the park and back (~2mi round trip). Every single step was painful, but strangely, my foot felt better halfway through the walk. I realized that the pain I experience is due to compensating for the broken side by placing the weight towards the outside of my foot and thus not putting weight on the broken side. Halfway through the walk, I started correcting my walking back to "normal" and this helped the pain a ton! So I kept walking and biking for a couple weeks and my foot starting feeling way better. Still not fully healed though. The funny part for me was realizing that the residual hurt wasn't from the break, but from trying not to aggravate the break.

    Fast forward to now, and I've just begun lifting again too (this is barely week two of lifting, and going into week four of working out again). I was scared to start the lifting because of the foot, but I eased into it. Here's the new plan: lift 3x/week and do cardio 2x, with two rest days. Nothing fancy on the cardio - still keeping it to a 30~35min bike ride, or walking the Pup. The lifting is starting off with high-reps HIIT but I'll eventually progress towards more classic squat/dead/bench stuff. (As an aside, I DO NOT know how to dead. I really need to get a trainer to show me how to do that cuz I'm gonna injure myself real fast messing that up I feel). A few strange things have started happening... I feel WAY better now that I'm exercising again; shocker. Now that I'm down 20lbs my clothes are fitting better; double-shocker, I know. The lifting is stupid hard at the moment and I swear it makes my cardio on the off days harder too. I feel like a pipsqueak because the weights are embarrassingly light. But I don't care, because it's literally week two of lifting... This is gonna take some time.

    So, back to that plateau. I think the real reason I've not seen any losses is that I wasn't thinking about this situation logically. It seems obvious now and I feel like an idiot when I admit it, but I've been eating back my exercise cals and expecting the weight loss to continue. Here's where I went wrong -- MFP asked me how active I am in calculating my goals. I'm not active. At all. I sit at a desk all day. But I thought to myself "if I start working out, surely I should be using 'lightly active,' right!?" So that's what I did. I realize now that means that my goal already includes the fact that I'm working out and by eating back my exercise cals I'm just back to maintenance, even possibly gain. Sure enough, the scale confirms that because I've been floating at 201~203 for these past couple weeks unable to dip below that magic number. Sigh. Full disclosure, I had a couple cheat days in there too and that can't have helped.

    Spoiler alert - that's not a plateau. That's me not sciencing this situation/just plain doing it wrong. So now I've resolved to try and hit my goal of 1,800/day for the next couple while also working out as planned. I expect the weight will start coming off again and I hope my next update to you will be because I'm below that magic number (and that much closer to the end goal). I plan on tweaking the numbers a bit if I find I'm too hungry to sustain the momentum. Say, up it to 1,900/day or even 2,000 and see if I can't sustain. I also figure that the actual -2.0 lbs/week I was getting at first probably means 1,900~2,000/day is gonna be just fine but I'm definitely going to start by trying to keep it to 1,800 and see how I feel.

    The current lifting plan I'm on calls for an off-week once every 8 weeks or so. I believe I'll coincide that off-week with the necessary
    JeromeBarry1 wrote: »
    "diet break"
    I should be including too. If I'm thinking about this correctly, then that week will be not lifting AND eating maintenance cals (but not over-eating, obvi)!? That sounds like a holiday.

    Cheers,

    - JB




  • PAV8888
    PAV8888 Posts: 14,254 Member
    Diet break is eating at maintenance. This may or may not include lifting, running, walking, or whatever else you do. Just eating at an energy balance.

    Obviously it is harder to determine your energy balance if you're engaging in unusual activities, so, as with many things, how you go about implementing things matters :wink:

    On to other things.

    Very few people are truly sedentary while making an effort to move around. I WAS truly sedentary at some point of time. I would have days with LESS than 1000 steps. But, most people with a job and activities that take them out of the house qualify for lightly active given that the entry point is at about 35 minutes of non sitting activity in a day.

    So, if you spend at least 35 minutes to an hour walking around doing stuff... you probably qualify for lightly active.

    But, but, but I gain weight when I am setup as lightly active. <-- whether you are lightly active or very active or sedentary doesn't matter one whit. These are all *estimates* of your caloric needs. Your logging prowess and consistency affects your calculations, and so does how closely your body tracks to "average". So, yes, the only thing that matters is your weight trend over time and whether the information you've been collecting about calories in and out is sufficient to give you guidance on how you should compensate in order to reach your goals.

    And to the crux: YOU have started a new weight lifting program. YOU have started walking after a long period of time sidelined. You also had a "cheat" day or two (your term) (did you log them by the way? why not? how do you know how much or how little you consumed if you didn't? Did you at least take pictures so you can 'guestimate' after the fact?) <-- let's all sing together "a ton of water weight". Let us also sing together that some of the water weight will stay with you for as long as you keep exercising. And some, especially the sodium stuff and any extra superbowl food in transit through your body... will be leaving shortly.

    So. Some final thoughts for you :lol:

    Get a weight trend application and look at your weight trend over 3 to 6 week time periods (males can get away with two or three weeks, females with a monthly cycle should include at least one complete cycle when considering their weight trend)

    if you truly need to only eat 1800 Calories to create a 750 Calorie deficit, that deficit may be the wrong goal for you. If your energy reserves are such that you are correctly categorized as normal weight or overweight you should probably limit yourself to 20% deficits. If your energy reserves are such that you would be correctly categorized as obese then 25% deficits are probably sustainable.
  • pierinifitness
    pierinifitness Posts: 2,226 Member
    nicsflyingcircus wrote: »
    According to my scale, I weigh 1.8 lbs more than I did two weeks ago, despite sticking to my deficit.

    It'll show up eventually.

    Like how you expressed that, a nice reminder when the scale is playing with our minds. Thanks.

  • jbud52
    jbud52 Posts: 9 Member
    PAV8888 wrote: »
    Very few people are truly sedentary while making an effort to move around. I WAS truly sedentary at some point of time. I would have days with LESS than 1000 steps. But, most people with a job and activities that take them out of the house qualify for lightly active given that the entry point is at about 35 minutes of non sitting activity in a day.

    So, if you spend at least 35 minutes to an hour walking around doing stuff... you probably qualify for lightly active.

    But, but, but I gain weight when I am setup as lightly active. <-- whether you are lightly active or very active or sedentary doesn't matter one whit. These are all *estimates* of your caloric needs. Your logging prowess and consistency affects your calculations, and so does how closely your body tracks to "average". So, yes, the only thing that matters is your weight trend over time and whether the information you've been collecting about calories in and out is sufficient to give you guidance on how you should compensate in order to reach your goals.

    And to the crux: YOU have started a new weight lifting program. YOU have started walking after a long period of time sidelined. You also had a "cheat" day or two (your term) (did you log them by the way? why not? how do you know how much or how little you consumed if you didn't? Did you at least take pictures so you can 'guestimate' after the fact?) <-- let's all sing together "a ton of water weight". Let us also sing together that some of the water weight will stay with you for as long as you keep exercising. And some, especially the sodium stuff and any extra superbowl food in transit through your body... will be leaving shortly.

    So. Some final thoughts for you :lol:

    Get a weight trend application and look at your weight trend over 3 to 6 week time periods (males can get away with two or three weeks, females with a monthly cycle should include at least one complete cycle when considering their weight trend)

    if you truly need to only eat 1800 Calories to create a 750 Calorie deficit, that deficit may be the wrong goal for you. If your energy reserves are such that you are correctly categorized as normal weight or overweight you should probably limit yourself to 20% deficits. If your energy reserves are such that you would be correctly categorized as obese then 25% deficits are probably sustainable.

    My experience tracks with your commentary 1:1. MFP's *estimate* of lightly active makes me gain weight. I probably walk ~2,500 steps/day average if you don't count my new workout routine so I doubt I'm truly sedentary but that's the only other option.

    Regarding my cheat days, yeah, I logged everything to the best of my ability. Some of those days were WAY above where I wanted. But the world didn't end, I didn't gain all my lost weight back, and I was able to continue with the plan afterwards. My brother-in-law also uses MFP and he says he now looks at his weekly totals vs. daily like I do. Obviously you can access both with a button click or two, but weekly is kind of nice to get a snapshot of how you're doing overall as a day or two of higher cals isn't gonna ruin the plan.

    I'm confused by your last paragraph though. I put in "lose 1.5 lbs/week" as my goal, does that mean MFP is trying to create a 750 cal daily deficit? That seems like a lot. If my maths are correct, that also means I'm looking at a 29% deficit as opposed to your suggested 20% eh? (Which, by the way, would give me a ~2,050 cal daily budget. Also, when I first started this attempt 11 weeks ago, I was technically obese. Yikes. Thankfully that is no longer the case.). I think my energy is pretty good for now but I have found I need to spread my cals out better throughout the day. Currently I'm eating +/- 400 cals each for brekkie and lunch. I feel great all the way to lunch, and I'm fine until the afternoon as well. That leaves me with 1,000 cals for dinner and snacks, but it also leaves me ravenous and grumpy come 4:00pm. I end up coming home and snacking more than I'd like. What's worse is I don't see the sense in snacking so heavily about an hour or two before dinner...

    I've consciously started having a smaller snack at 4:00pm at work. Even bought a second food scale to hide in my desk and track more accurately. This helps a ton. It's so amazing what all this data is able to tell me if I pay attention!

    The real reason I'm writing is that I promised an update once I broke that made-up barrier. Ladies and gentlemen, as of this writing I'm back under 200lbs and at 199.4 I just surpassed my second-best attempt which means this time is my new second best! Feels great. You know what I call that now? A real good start.

    Cheers,

    JB
  • neugebauer52
    neugebauer52 Posts: 1,120 Member
    Plateaus are nasty things and they seem to be never - ending. I understand that the body needs to adjust to a number of things and there is also something called water retention. But eventually the weight drops again - and soon after we hit the next plateau! Patience is something I just don't have, but in this case I need it more than ever. I just take it day by day, meal by meal and weigh myself only once or twice a month.
  • LivingtheLeanDream
    LivingtheLeanDream Posts: 13,342 Member
    6 weeks plus at same weight is a plateau, not one week - stick with it, eat consistently at calorie deficit and you will lose. When I was losing I would go usually 3 weeks at a time before I saw any loss, then it would stagnate or spike upwards until the next 3 weeks. The main thing is the overall trend is downwards. It takes time and patience.

  • jbud52
    jbud52 Posts: 9 Member
    Good Morning Everyone!

    Another quick update. Down 25lbs according to the most recent movement on the scale. 106-day MFP streak and counting, and 58 days since beginning working out again after breaking my foot.

    This week marks my first diet break where I eat at maintenance for the entire week. I've coincided it with my workout routine (Book of Muscle, Beginner Program) which is a 6-month program broken into 4 stages. Upon completion of each 6-week stage, it recommends a full week of rest from lifting. Stage 1 is an anatomical adaptation stage that's mostly a HIIT style routine designed to get you back into lifting and correct imbalances. I've tried this program before and could never finish the full 6-months. If memory serves, I stopped halfway into Stage 2, or a little over 2 months in. Stage 2 is hypertrophy, and the workouts get much harder. I feel very confident this time around because I feel great physically but I'd be lying if I didn't say I'm nervous to start these hard ones next week!

    I don't intend to become sedentary this week--instead I'll still be doing my bike rides for cardio. It'll be interesting to see what happens after a week of maintenance while still eating my exercise cals back (albeit very conservatively: I try to only eat back half of the cals being reported into MFP). I'm expecting to gain a little, but that happens naturally day-to-day anyways. I'll really be shocked if eating maintenance works and I just **maintain**. So far my experience has always been that when my intake increases, those first 5lbs pop right back on. Full disclosure: I never once tried to track for maintenance. I probably gorged myself once I lost all MFP accountability so it's funny to say "I'll be shocked" when in reality I was probably waaaay over maintenance cals. Oops.

    But I tell you what - if I can float around +/- 198~200 for a week, I'm not going to lose any sleep over it. My last post was one month ago, and I'm down 4 lbs from then. Sure enough, after changing my settings to "lightly active, lose 1lb/week" it appears that I'm tracking right where I should be! I want to lose another 25~30lbs, so if I continue the trend I'm hoping to hit goal around September/October. I've sorta augmented my thinking on that goal however. I think it's more important to me that I lose pure fat, and not just pounds. So I have a new primary goal: completing Book of Muscle Beginner Program while still in deficit/periodic breaks at maintenance. If I'm gaining muscle, but that process slows my weight loss, well, I think that's okay as long as I'm still moving in the right direction. More importantly, I should be losing body fat % even if the scale isn't showing it.

    So now I've started to incorporate more data. I'm beginning to track body fat %. Still haven't gotten up the courage to bust out the tape measure and start tracking all my dimensions, but I sorta figure why not add that too? I've been using one of those little hand-held sensors to track body fat %. It seems wildly inaccurate because that thing fluctuates worse than my scale does... However, you all have helped change my thought process and now I think about the trend "over a sufficiently long period of time" instead of day-to-day. Since I just started tracking, it'll take a while before I can see the trend in that data set.

    For those wondering - my Beginner Program should end right around the beginning of August.

    Ahh, life is good.

    Cheers,

    JB

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