Plateau anyone?

WildCrone

Any suggestions (that actually worked) when a plateau seeks to derail you?

AnnPT77

If weight loss was happening at a pretty good pace, and stopped suddenly without a notable change in daily life activity, exercise or eating, patience is the answer. It's probably some weird water weight thing.

If it's been less than a month (less than a whole menstrual cycle if you have those), it's more a stall rather than an actual plateau, and you may have a sudden scale drop on the way semi-soon.

If weight loss tapered off gradually over many weeks, you may've found your maintenance calorie level. If so, you'll need a lower calorie goal.

If it tapered off or dropped suddenly and you feel fatigued or weak or have less interest than before in active things, or notice hair thinning/brittle nails and that sort of thing, see this thread to see if it applies: http://community.myfitnesspal.com/en/discussion/10604863/of-refeeds-and-diet-breaks/p1

If it tapered off, and there's been some noticeable life change, take steps to reverse that effect. (Common examples: Moving to a smaller home so less daily life movement, changing jobs so less movement or physical work, different transportation situation for job or daily life that reduced movement, etc.)

If it might be water weight, consider this thread (especially the article linked in the first post): https://community.myfitnesspal.com/en/discussion/10683010/the-weird-and-highly-annoying-world-of-scale-fluctuations/p1

Ignore people who tell you you need to switch up your workouts or eating to keep your body guessing: That's pretty much nonsense. People whose weight stalls start trying things, and eventually loss starts again (at the time when it would've even if they'd done nothing), so they believe the change they made caused the scale drop. (That's just how human thought patterns work, TBH.)

One nugget of truth in that concept: Eating more protein can have a very small calorie benefit, because it takes more calories to digest protein than fat or carbs.

Some people will tell you to add muscle via strength exercise, which is good general advice, but muscle mass gain is very slow (maybe zero in a calorie deficit) and the calorie benefits per pound of new muscle very small (unless having more muscle helps you move more).

Consider intentionally increasing your daily life activity: http://community.myfitnesspal.com/en/discussion/10610953/neat-improvement-strategies-to-improve-weight-loss/p1

frhaberl

The thing that has worked best for me has been asking myself "Is this really a plateau?". I actually googled "weigh loss plateau" a few months ago and when I read "a weigh loss plateau is a lack of weight loss for a minimum of 4 weeks" I had to admit to myself that I was expecting a process that generally is not linear to be linear. I've had to remind myself of that several times, and have seen my "plateau" resolve itself every time without any intentional change on my part. In fact, the most recent "plateau" (10 days) resolved itself after eating wings and fries (within my calorie goal but definitely NOT my sodium goal) the night before.

That said, the things I would double check if I am seeing less weight loss than expected over a 4+ week period:

• Am I logging consistently?
• Am I weighing/measuring vs using generic estimates (1 banana, 1 serving, etc)?
• If the above are "yes", am I consistently averaging a calorie deficit? You'd be surprised how that "cheat day" can erase the calorie deficit of the rest of the week.
• Have I changed anything since I was losing weight consistently? Consider changing it back.
• Do I have reason to believe that I'm holding onto extra water weight? Menstral cycle, increased sodium, increased carbs, muscle inflammation, etc?
• Am I seeing "wins" in other areas? Losing inches around waist, increasing fitness/endurance, etc?
• Before making any changes - Is this a change I can live with long term if that's what it takes to lose weight?

I hope that helps. If you are willing to share more about your recent weight loss and eating/exercise habits, it might ring a bell with someone as to what might be going on.