Plateau's

Commander_Keen
Commander_Keen Posts: 1,179 Member
in Health and Weight Loss
For all of those who have reached at a plateau in your weight loss journey.
How many of you received the advice from the MFP forums to drop the calories.
And how of you did that advice work?

Replies

  • wanttolose40lbs
    wanttolose40lbs Posts: 239 Member
    I've been told that when you hit a plateau, you should up your calories for a week and then lower to the level you were at. That is supposed to give your metabolism a jump start.
  • docdick9120
    docdick9120 Posts: 34 Member
    I'm waiting for more people to comment because I've hit one and not lost for about two weeks. I'm frustrated!
  • jamimiranda
    jamimiranda Posts: 1
    i'm following this post. i've hit somewhat of a plateau and i need helpful hints
  • jollyquilter
    jollyquilter Posts: 30 Member
    I had hit a brick wall and I did not change my eating but added to my movement and it seems to be helping. Plus I have so much more energy than before.
  • LaneB89
    LaneB89 Posts: 93 Member
    A plateau is essentially one of two things:

    1) You are retaining additional water that is masking your fat loss on the scale. Given time, this will resolve itself. Drink plenty of fluids, keep sodium intake low, maybe take a few days off from exercising. These are things that can speed up flushing the excess water.

    2) You've simply reached a point where you're now eating at maintenance. The solution to this is lowering your intake, increasing your exercise, or a combination thereof.

    In either case, 2-3 weeks is not enough to call it a real plateau I don't think.
  • lindsey1979
    lindsey1979 Posts: 2,395 Member
    I agree with Lane. There seems to be two schools of thought on plateaus -- ones based purely on a scale and only for 2-4 weeks and ones for much longer (i.e. 2 months). The former are probably water retention issues wreaking havoc on your system. To help with those, I personally use a weekly refeed day where I eat at maintenance that day. Since I've instituted one of those, I haven't hit anymore water retention plateaus.

    Here are two good articles on water retention:
    http://www.bodyrecomposition.com/fat-loss/of-whooshes-and-squishy-fat.html
    http://www.leangains.com/2010/01/how-to-deal-with-water-retention-part_28.html

    The latter appears to be a caloric issue -- not creating a deficit when you think you are. Cutting back calories can help as can upping exercise. It seems that a lot of people benefit from implementing a new exercise regime -- whether it's new weight exercise, implementing heavy lifting, different cardio, HIIT, etc.

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