Classification of a Plateau?

benjaminlight
benjaminlight Posts: 78 Member
in Health and Weight Loss
Curious what everyone uses to consider whether they've hit a 'plateau' in their weight loss. What metric do you use, what time period, etc...

Replies

  • ninerbuff
    ninerbuff Posts: 48,866 Member
    lgfrie wrote: »
    I'm not a big believer in plateaus.

    I assume we're not talking about a 3 or 7 day leveling off of weight, because that isn't remotely a plateau; that's just the body doing its thing, in which burning off fat is just one of the many things going on, and others, like water retention, can counterbalance that on a scale for a week or two.

    So, you are referring to "plateau" proper, in which someone claims to be dieting the same as before, but hits a weight shelf for, say, 3+ weeks or longer.

    There are two possibilities in that case. Either the person has, knowingly or not, slacked off on hitting his or her calorie deficit, or there is a mystical process that heretofore cannot be accounted for by physics and chemistry, in which a fat-burning machine continues to produce all the output it always did (activity, exercise, moving), and is getting exactly the same inputs of fuel (in the form of food), and yet uses noticeably less energy to do it. Which, of course, doesn't really make sense.

    That is why I believe 95 % of all "plateaus" can be accounted for by gradual slippage on the part of the dieter - some diet fatigue setting in, a bit of "I'll just ballpark this meal today", having that second glass of wine and not bothering to log it, or logging it as 100 cals when you know it's 175 LOL, etc.

    In my own case, I lost a quick 50 lbs in 6 months and then "plateaud"; my weight loss flatlined. It was hard to sort out what was going on with that, because some diet fatigue had set in and I wasn't being as serious about the diet. I was counting more casually, letting some things slip, "approximating" instead of exactly measuring the weight of all food, taking some more off meals instead of hitting it hard every single day, and other things that are totally understandable after 6 months of dieting. Well, when I knuckled down a few weeks later and got serious again with the counting, logging, and most importantly really getting back to my target caloric deficit and hitting it EVERY DAY, guess what, no more plateau. What a coincidence!

    I'm not saying plateaus don't exist, just that one should look first to behavior before assuming the body has some top-secret fat-conservation mechanism that exists outside the boundaries of known physics.

    But as far as directly answering the question posed, even if I believed plateaus exist, I would not characterize anything weight flatline under three weeks as a plateau, and without a doubt, nothing that happens during the first 5-6 weeks of a diet, when the body is adjusting and doing all sorts of inexplicable things, could possibly be called a plateau.
    Agree. Which is why I believe plateaus are very rare. It gets thrown around the fitness industry like the word "toning" (another peev of mine).


    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
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  • benjaminlight
    benjaminlight Posts: 78 Member
    edited February 2021
    Great responses - thank you!

    I've noticed, even with consistent logging (doing a daily weight measurement, and measured caloric intake using a food scale) that the past 3-4 weeks have been essentially yo-yoing the same 3-4 pounds. But. When I looked at my other spreadsheet - which is measuring weight each Wednesday morning - there is a fairly consistent 2 pound drop during that same time period, which is what is to be expected. So I needed to take the step back and see the week by week picture, not the 2-3 pound random fluctuations within the week.

    The slippage concept I think could also be in play - I'm not sticking as tightly to my macros as I need to be, with my carbohydrates a little higher in the past week than they should be, as well as water intake/sleep schedule a little messed up the past 3-4 weeks with some additional stresses. Still logging with consistency and no cheating the caloric measurement, but had a few more 'over' days in the past couple weeks too. Will be redoubling efforts this coming week.

    All that said - if a person is maintaining consistency, accurately logging, and and sees zero loss for a period of approximately 5-6 weeks however (obviously not account for potential of body recomp, etc..) - we would consider that to be a plateau.

  • lgfrie
    lgfrie Posts: 1,449 Member
    edited February 2021
    benjaminlight wrote: »
    Great responses - thank you!

    I've noticed, even with consistent logging (doing a daily weight measurement, and measured caloric intake using a food scale) that the past 3-4 weeks have been essentially yo-yoing the same 3-4 pounds. But. When I looked at my other spreadsheet - which is measuring weight each Wednesday morning - there is a fairly consistent 2 pound drop during that same time period, which is what is to be expected. So I needed to take the step back and see the week by week picture, not the 2-3 pound random fluctuations within the week.

    The slippage concept I think could also be in play - I'm not sticking as tightly to my macros as I need to be, with my carbohydrates a little higher in the past week than they should be, as well as water intake/sleep schedule a little messed up the past 3-4 weeks with some additional stresses. Still logging with consistency and no cheating the caloric measurement, but had a few more 'over' days in the past couple weeks too. Will be redoubling efforts this coming week.

    All that said - if a person is maintaining consistency, accurately logging, and and sees zero loss for a period of approximately 5-6 weeks however (obviously not account for potential of body recomp, etc..) - we would consider that to be a plateau.

    Carb intake would make a big difference as far as scale readings go. The body needs lots of water to process carbs - more than for sodium, in fact. That's why when people go on Keto they see such dramatic weight loss at first - and when they go off Keto, they gain it back quick, and, in a kind of Cargo Cult mindset, they assume it means that Keto causes faster weight loss than other forms of dieting. In actuality, even small differences in macros can cause differences in water retention measurable in pounds, not ounces, due to the carbs (or lack thereof). Do note, however, that this is just water retention, not fat. In the end, it isn't important; it is going to come and go. BUT, all that said, if your macro balance has shifted in favor of more carbs, it is most likely masking an underlying weight loss being temporarily hidden by water retention. Try one or two low carb days in a row and you will probably be pleased with the scale results.

    As a daily weigher, I too have had to make my peace with the fact that daily fluctuations do not always show what is going on accurately, and sometimes it's frustrating. Comparing once-per-week weigh-ins (same time, same day, and ideally, similar sodium and carb levels in the previous 24 hrs), even if one is weighing in every day, is definitely the better way to get a sense of the overall direction of the weight loss. It sounds like your overall direction is right on point.
  • ninerbuff
    ninerbuff Posts: 48,866 Member
    I daily weigh. I've leveled off after a 40lbs loss since June of last year, but I know it's because my deficit is much smaller than it was initially. I'm about 15lbs off of goal weight, so I'll have to tighten up if I intend to reach that by June of this year. But I'm totally okay with how the scale fluctuates because I understand how the body works.

    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
  • FitAgainBy55
    FitAgainBy55 Posts: 179 Member
    If you use something like trendweight.com (there are other tools like it), it takes the guess work out of the ups and downs.

    l2aywk9iqkso.png
  • kshama2001
    kshama2001 Posts: 28,053 Member
    benjaminlight wrote: »
    Curious what everyone uses to consider whether they've hit a 'plateau' in their weight loss. What metric do you use, what time period, etc...

    As a woman with big hormonal fluctuations from my menstrual cycle I'd personally use at least 5 weeks. I've never had a plateau. If I haven't lose weight in 5 weeks, that means I wasn't eating in a calorie deficit.

    As I use a food scale, I'm very confident in my food logging, and it's clear to me when I'm not in a calorie deficit.

    Exercise calories are trickier. I'm constantly reevaluating how I use them. For example, I do a lot of gardening, which provides a lot of calories. But I only take the full amount of time when I am doing heavy gardening, like digging with a big shovel, as opposed to a trowel.
  • AnnPT77
    AnnPT77 Posts: 33,502 Member
    FitAgainBy55 wrote: »
    If you use something like trendweight.com (there are other tools like it), it takes the guess work out of the ups and downs.

    l2aywk9iqkso.png

    Y'know, when I'm losing very slowly, even my weight trending app (on default settings) gets the trend wrong, sometimes, has thought I was gaining/maintaining for up to a few weeks, when I was actually losing super slowly, but fluctuating in the short run for one reason or another. Eventually, the real life long term trend (not the statistical one) tells the true story. 🤷‍♀️

    Don't get me wrong, I think a weight-trending app is a *very* useful tool. I recommend using them. But occasionally we've had folks around here who thought those apps were some kind of magical crystal ball (not saying you think that!), when it's just a statistical projection.

    There was even one guy a long time back who was pretty mad when he found out the weight-trending app didn't tell him his "true weight". Really, truly, literally, I was not misunderstanding. He expected it to do that. 🤣

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