How long should a plateau last?

Pablosammy82

I've been watching my calories and cycling regularly for the last three to four months. I lost an initial couple of kilos, but since then my weight had plateaued or gained slightly.

I've been monitoring with some Fitbit scales and my fat mass is steadily decreasing, and lean weight steadily increasing, so I'm happy for now as my body is adapting to the exercise, but I won't pretend that being stuck at my current weight isn't getting slightly frustrating!

How long does the initial adaptation to exercise last? I'm keen to take it steady and don't want to cut the calories any more just yet - in the past I've set off too quickly and ended up getting injured, so I want to 'feed the change' until my body is ready to move on

cmriverside

It should have started moving downward...but at just under 88 kilos, you probably don't have much weight to lose, right?

So with not much to lose, you need to really know exactly how much you are eating if you're not losing. A long plateau means you're eating at your weight-maintenance level. Basically you need to eat a little bit less...not a lot, but a little.

Could you open your food diary page for us to take a look? It's usually about food tracking and we may be able to help there. (I know you didn't ask for help - just an idea.)

FOOD > Settings, scroll down, click "Public" and save.


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earlnabby

In general, a plateau is 4 or more weeks with no change in weight OR measurements. If the chart with the fat mass trend is correct, you are not in a plateau because you are still reducing fat mass.

Pablosammy82

cmriverside wrote: »

It should have started moving downward...but at just under 88 kilos, you probably don't have much weight to lose, right?

So with not much to lose, you need to really know exactly how much you are eating if you're not losing. A long plateau means you're eating at your weight-maintenance level. Basically you need to eat a little bit less...not a lot, but a little.

Could you open your food diary page for us to take a look? It's usually about food tracking and we may be able to help there. (I know you didn't ask for help - just an idea.)

FOOD > Settings, scroll down, click "Public" and save.


_______________

Cheers for the reply. I'd love to get to my 'ideal weight' but that's right down at 65 kg or so! I'm taking it 5 kg at a time, but I do have a lot to lose. I haven't been using my food diary, maybe that's where I'm going wrong. I cook all my dinners from scratch so find it a bit exhausting to log calories, but if I don't see a downward turn soon I might pay that a bit more attention.

Pablosammy82

earlnabby wrote: »

In general, a plateau is 4 or more weeks with no change in weight OR measurements. If the chart with the fat mass trend is correct, you are not in a plateau because you are still reducing fat mass.

Cheers, I hadn't considered it like that. I guess I'm just sick of seeing the same readings on the scales each morning, without really taking credit for the changes that ARE happening. I'll keep stepping on the scales and keep plugging away.

AnnPT77

Pablosammy82 wrote: »

cmriverside wrote: »

It should have started moving downward...but at just under 88 kilos, you probably don't have much weight to lose, right?

So with not much to lose, you need to really know exactly how much you are eating if you're not losing. A long plateau means you're eating at your weight-maintenance level. Basically you need to eat a little bit less...not a lot, but a little.

Could you open your food diary page for us to take a look? It's usually about food tracking and we may be able to help there. (I know you didn't ask for help - just an idea.)

FOOD > Settings, scroll down, click "Public" and save.


_______________

Cheers for the reply. I'd love to get to my 'ideal weight' but that's right down at 65 kg or so! I'm taking it 5 kg at a time, but I do have a lot to lose. I haven't been using my food diary, maybe that's where I'm going wrong. I cook all my dinners from scratch so find it a bit exhausting to log calories, but if I don't see a downward turn soon I might pay that a bit more attention.

If you want to lose weight, and have no profound reason *not* to log calories (like a history of eating disorders, or obsessive impulses, etc.), then logging carefully, if only for a short period (a month, say) will give you tremendous insight into how to better manage your eating in order to lose weight, while balancing that with feeling full, getting good nutrition, cooking/eating in ways that are practical for you, etc. At least, that's what I'd predict from my own experience, and what I've read many other people here write.

I think it's common (maybe near-universal?) for people who start carefully calorie counting to quickly discover certain things they're eating that "cost" more calories than they're worth for nutrition, satiation, tastiness, etc., or whose portion sizes could be reduced with minimal pain.