I’m at a plateau in my weight loss, what should i do?

kodadrake7
kodadrake7 Posts: 1 Member
in Health and Weight Loss
I messed up about two months and lowered my calories too low. This was before i knew about BMR and TDEE. I raised my calories back up to about 1800 to 2000 a day. But still plateaued right there. Should i raise them higher and let my body get used to the higher intake then lower them? any tips at all to get past a plateau? i’m 290 now, I was 325 when i started a few months ago. i work out at least 5 days a week, from walking to weight training for 30 minutes to an hour a day. Depends on the day because i work 3 12 hour night shifts a week.

Answers

  • AnnPT77
    AnnPT77 Posts: 35,148 Member
    How tall and old are you?

    How much of a deficit do you think you're in at 1800 to 2000 calories? (How fast would you expect to lose weight at that calorie level, in other words.) How long have you been stalled on the scale?

    How fast (on average per week) did you lose when your calories were too low? How low were they?

    Temporary scale stalls are pretty normal during weight loss. If it was sudden, i.e. you were losing at a good pace and it stopped kind of all at once, it's probably a temporary stall (water weight or waste in the digestive tract). If loss gradually tapers off over multiple weeks, then it might be time for a revision of one's plan.

    I'd like to try to help, but there's not enough information in your post to give nuanced advice.

    As a general rule, I'd suggest sticking with a new calorie goal for 4-6 weeks to see the average results over multiple weeks, before making a change.

    People will give you all sort of advice about breaking plateaus, but much of the common stuff doesn't have much evidence behind it, other than one person's experience. We can try a bunch of things to break a plateau, and if it does break, we tend to assume the most recent change broke it . . . but maybe it would've broken about that same time without doing anything special. We'll never know.

    For sure "confuse/shock your body by changing your exercise to a different type or eating in a different style" is myth. Bodies don't need to be shocked. The same exercise today burns the same calories as it did yesterday. The same food has the same calories, and calories are the major direct influence on fat gain/loss. There can be some subtle things, but nothing dramatic.

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