Plateaus (for those consistent in their methods) ?

icrushit

Just wondering for those of you who are consistent in your intake and exercises, what your personal experiences have been with weight loss plateaus. If you could say what your deficit too is, and whereabouts you are in terms of your weight goal, that would help a lot too, to provide some context

Myself, I've learned a lot about my bodyweight from daily weighing in the morning after I use the bathroom, but before I take in any food. As such, my weigh-ins have produced pretty consistent results, ie no wild swings like some, but moreover they've shown me quite clearly the pounds do not drop in a linear manner for me, and thus plateaus are nothing to be feared as things will start to move eventually again.

That said, the plateaus I've been experiencing recently have been lengthier than usual, with my weight reading the same for the last 8/ 9 days, whereas before it would have been unusual for me not to see some form of loss after 3/ 4/ 5 days, thus my question, and hope perhaps to learn a little more about plateaus.

I know the scales will start moving again, and I'm really just looking to expand my knowledge around plateaus

Liftng4Lis

My longest one lasted 5 weeks and it drove me batty! At the same time I had a. quit smoking, b. increased weights tremendously in my workout and c. wasn't sleeping more than 4 hours a night. I chalked it up to water retention. Although I wasn't losing, I wasn't gaining either.

terbusha

If it's been ~8 days, I wouldn't worry about plateauing yet. My weight would maintain all week and then drop 2-3 lbs on Friday morning. Give it a little more time. If you are still stuck, something will have to change. How many calories are you eating/day? If you've lost a good deal of weight, then you may very well need to bump that up. I was losing weight at 1800 cal/day (30% carbs) and got stuck. I broke it by bumping up to 2000 cal/day with more carbs in my diet (40%). As your body becomes more fit, you need more fuel to make it work.

Allan

jemhh

In general, I will lose for around 6 weeks, consistently. Then I will have a 3-3.5 week plateau. My deficit is 20% of TDEE, so around 450 calories per day. Right now I am within 5 pounds of my first goal (but then I'll likely try for a another 8-12 pounds after that.) That pattern, 6 weeks/3 weeks, held throughout pretty much my whole weight loss effort from January through mid-June. I changed around my workouts over the summer so things have been different lately.

Oh, and I weigh myself daily but only log it once a week. I have noticed that during the plateau I will still be up and down daily by as much as 2 pounds but then on my official weigh-in day I'll be back at the plateau weight. That can be really annoying but I just have to keep reminding myself that this too shall pass.

ana3067

If you've been eating the same calorie limit since you started, then that's why. Let's say you eat 2400 calories right now, your TDEE when you started was about 3000. After a while, you're down 26lbs, maybe your TDEE is now... 2800 or something. So before you were eating at a 20% deficit, now you're at a 15% deficit from your new maintenance. Which will result in slower losses.

So if you want to get back to your old weight loss speed, try dropping your calories by 50-100 and monitor for a few weeks.

I've been inconsistent with my methods. Lots of calorie changing, ate at maintenance for half a week, and then after that I was super bloated from water retention and lady times. And now after more than 2 weeks I'm down a lb lol. It's slow, but if my estimated TDEE is around 2450 then I'm eating between 15-20% deficit. Although I'd bet my TDEE is closer to 2500-2550 now from walking around more on campus, which puts my deficit at or a bit over 20%. I'm going to monitor my results and how I feel, for me performance in the gym and not being hungry trump faster weight loss. So I may be increasing my cals to 2100 (closer to 15% deficit). So all of this will alter my weight loss rates.

icrushit

Thanks for all the replies so far, and keep them coming I'm genuinely interested to hear people's experiences with plateaus, and find personal and anecdotal experiences often suggest great avenues to explore and learn more about something

Myself, I'm pretty consistent in my methods, although will change things gradually in organic ways as I go if I feel it suitable, but am not one to make sudden/ panicky changes to my plan because I get a shock from the scales or anything like that, lol.

I'm sure a bit of background would probably be helpful for any of those generous enough to give advice. Namely I'm a low carber since I started this 9/ 10 weeks ago, and usually stick to 50g of net carbs a day. My caloric intake I've changed as needed along the way, for example I started at something like 1800/ 1900 initially, but that was too low, and also my exercise volume increased along the way, bumping my daily calorie needs, so that 1800 I changed to 2000 and more recently again to about 2200/ 2250, basically because I was losing too fast. Initially I was losing somewhere in the region of 3/ 4 lbs a week, which was too high, but I wanted to let that settle properly after the initial water weight loss, to see where things stood. After the loss rate went down to 2.5- 3lbs a week, I bumped the calories to 2000 to taper it back to nearer 2lbs a week, and in turn the latest revision in my intake was to bring that 2lbs a week to about 1.5lbs a week.

This has all worked well enough, with the deficit revisions resulting in the anticipated change in loss rate, even if the scale has tended to be more sporadic when it comes to losses, the more I lower my deficit. My TDEE tends to be somewhere around 2600, which with the 4 miles a day I walk each day, tends to result in a requirement of somewhere near enough 3000 calories a day for my body to fuel itself, with my intake of 2250 giving me a 750 daily deficit, and 1.5lbs a week loss.

I hope thats not too much information overload, but perhaps it provides a bit of context in terms of deficit, daily energy requirements and exercise

The above has pretty much been my baseline, and in my organic experimental way, I decided a carb re-feed 3/ 4 days ago might be fruitful after 8/ 9 weeks on low carb. Also for the last 4/ 5 days I've decided to try out a little 16/8 intermittent fasting, not changing the quantities I eat, just extending the window in which I normally eat of 10am- 8pm by 2 hours to 12pm- 8pm.

Anyway, I hope this has not been overly rambley

maidentl

I regularly plateau and then drop a lot at once. I shoot for a 750/day deficit and even though I go for weeks at a time without losing, the big losses average out to just about 1.5 pounds per week, right on target. I think I'm more like 1.4 right now, but I eat a little extra sometimes.

rosebette

I've been at a plateau for about 3 months. My deficit is small because I am short and older -- only around 300 calories a day -- so it's easy to screw up with either bad tracking, an inactive day, or a cheat day. Because I'm already at a net of 1200 I really can't go any lower in terms of deficit.

alyssareyans

I also regularly plateau and then drop 3-5 lbs suddenly. In total I've lost 55 lbs in the last 11 months. So I average about 1 lb per week. But considering I have thyroid issues and take meds daily for it, the weight loss is actually pretty good for me. My deficit is only about 300 per day. I eat 1300 calories per day at the moment so I can't really go lower.

The longest plateau I had was from Apr til first of June. Then I started running and lost quite a bit suddenly. That's also the time I joined MFP.

After joining MFP I also stopped calculating my successes based upon the number on the scale because I was obsessed with weighing myself. There were days when my net calorie count would be 800 which is not good either. I gave up the scale and started looking at other things to call a "success" like buying smaller clothes, going farther in my runs etc. Since I started doing this the weight loss has been really steady. I find when I get too focused on the scale I lose less. Now I weigh once a week and forget it.

icrushit

Perhaps a thread with some correlation - http://www.myfitnesspal.com/topics/show/797688-experience-with-the-whoosh?page=1

icrushit

Finally a little change in the scale this morning after a 9/ 10 day plateau. I must look into cortisol a little more, should that be the culprit behind the longer plateaus..

jemhh

Excellent.

I've been at 158.5 for 3 weekly weigh ins in a row. This week I've been down a half pound a day, so 155.5 this morning. We'll see where I am tomorrow, my official weigh in day.

icrushit

Excellent.

I've been at 158.5 for 3 weekly weigh ins in a row. This week I've been down a half pound a day, so 155.5 this morning. We'll see where I am tomorrow, my official weigh in day.

Ah great, its always nice to see a shift in the scales I'm not sure I could handle half pound losses though, as my manual, cheapy (but consistent) scales is only good to spot a loss of at least a pound, lol.