New Study Reveals: Plateaus are NOT real...

lwagnitz

I don't know. I've been fluxing around the same weight for about 2 months now. I was eating 1200-1350 cals a day. I bumped it up to 1500, thinking that would help (people kept telling me to try eating more). It's been 2 weeks. I finally broke under 178 plateau, which was the lowest I would get, and flux back up to 181...and got to 176.8. I was excited and thought I finally broke through the plateau...I'm back up again, now. Before I was doing a lot more cardio and no strength (but did the first 2 levels of 30ds before my hip injury flared up). Now I'm doing heavy lifting (just started...2nd day) and doing much smaller amounts of cardio since I struggle to eat 1500 calories.


I'm confused on how this isn't a plateau.

Vini9

This is very intresting to me. Always looking for other info out there. I do really like the spread sheet idea. THX

smantha32

I don't know anything about scientific data, but when I stick to my calorie goals I always lose. ALWAYS.

When I go a few weeks without losing or I gain, it's because I've been slacking off. I know this though, and I don't try to call it a plateau.
When I'm not losing, I'm totally the one to blame.

edited for spelling.

yoovie

I have a one person 60 month record of data that would obliterate alot of what you said. and Im also a bit insulted. Actually a lot insulted.

Good thing this isnt science.

Un-insulted.

meerkat70

talk to me when you have lost more op. when i had more than a hundred still to go, losses were easy. now, plateaus happen. your time will likely come.

Cait_Sidhe

meh. :grumble:

jhanso86

Interesting...bump for later

peterdt

There are always exceptions to the rule as I have written. Can't please all the people all the time. I think what I propose would work for 95% of people and would be more valuable than a lot of the misinformation on this site.

Sorry that "one person" had such crappy results. I'm sure something was going on with their body. Something has to be going on. If you are taking in a lot less calories than you are burning but not losing weight over a long period of time something abnormal is going on. For my purposes though and for what I shared I don't care about abnormal. I care about the 99% that could benefit and don't have the very strange record that you mention.

I have a one person 60 month record of data that would obliterate alot of what you said. and Im also a bit insulted. Actually a lot insulted.

Good thing this isnt science.

Un-insulted.

peterdt

There are always exceptions to the rule as I have written. I think what I propose would work for 95% of people and would be more valuable than a lot of the misinformation on this site.

I'm sure something was going on with your body. Something has to be going on. If you are taking in a lot less calories than you are burning but not losing weight over 6 months something abnormal is going on. For my purposes though and for what I shared I don't care about abnormal. I care about the 99% that could benefit and don't have the very strange record that you mention.

I also made a spread sheet. It adds up your calories as you go, you have a daily goal every day. If you go over it will subtract calories from tomorrow. If you go under, it will add calories to tomorrow so you always hit your calorie goal over the long run





I disagree though, I was in a plateau for 6 months, yet i at pretty good for the most part

.About your numbers matching up, they didn't, you got lucky. For example, if i asked someone who doesn't know how to square a number in math, "what does ^ mean? Here is your example. 2^2 = 4" they might say ^ means to add the same number to itself.

peterdt

haha. thanks for your optimism. shesh.

talk to me when you have lost more op. when i had more than a hundred still to go, losses were easy. now, plateaus happen. your time will likely come.

peterdt

true that!

I don't know anything about scientific data, but when I stick to my calorie goals I always lose. ALWAYS.

When I go a few weeks without losing or I gain, it's because I've been slacking off. I know this though, and I don't try to call it a plateau.
When I'm not losing, I'm totally the one to blame.

edited for spelling.

peterdt

glad to hear it!

Agreed with all that you have to say. I recently had about a 10 day plateau, probably not a big deal, but made me frustrated. Dropped my daily goal from 1540 to 1200 (plus 400 cals for BF) and started to see the scale move much faster!! It is a bit of a numbers game. I often see little gains which are frustrating on days that I am SO good... but then later will lose a pound or more overnight. Just need patience. Really, if I am going to maintain my weight loss this whole work out and tracking calories thing is never going to end... so I might as well keep on keeping on:)

peterdt

that's good to hear. hopefully you can enter your old data to get some kind of baseline.

Good food for thought! I use a spreadsheet at work to motivate me on my performance numbers. I didn't think to do this in real life. Thank you ...

peterdt

agreed and thank you!

Excellent post and one that makes sense. When I first started to diet, I read and read, all that I could. I had to wade through some absolute nonsense.(stand on your head while waving your right arm. No! stand on your head waving your left arm three times, THEN wave your right arm, etc.) One of the first scientific articles that I read was about calorie equalibrium. The closer you get to your goal weight the slower the loss. A person can weigh 300 and if they will reduce their caloric intake to that of a 150 person, they will eventually, over time, weigh 150. It is that simple and that slow.

Exercise pushes beyond this point and is necessary to keep up a healthy body. A fit, healthy body burns more calories than one that is conserving calories, like sitting and doing nothing until bedtime. A sedentary body is the one that conserves calories, not the low cal, high exercise one. Tomorrow, do something extra. As small as opening your door, opening an envelope or walking to the street or as large as running 5 miles. It is all the same as far as the difference of your tomorrows. Do just a lttle extra every day. Everyone can do just a little more than they did yesterday. What you did yesterday is your new starting point for today.

peterdt

nice job!

I heart this post. While I haven't done the spreadsheet work, I shocked myself a couple of weeks ago. I was getting frustrated that my weight wasn't coming off and I would go what seemed like weeks without losing much if anything, but when I took my current weight and compared it to my starting weight, I was averaging 2 pounds per week loss.

peterdt

yes, a study on this would be awesome!

Honestly rolled my eyes when I read subject line. & it did work because I normally don't come into this topic unless I am looking for something specific. I think you are onto something tho. The only tried & true weightless that works & lasts is calories in vs calories out. You illustrated that very well & I appreciate your hard work & sharing it. I would like to see your spreadsheet. Would be cool for a study to be done on this. Maybe email mfp ppl and see if they can help u with that.

peterdt

Not trying to sell you anything. Rather than be cynical why not do a little work, record your numbers and see what they tell you.

Why does this at least begin to read like one of those junk infomercials?

peterdt

ummmm..... I'm getting a ton of requests for my spreadsheet. Anyone have an easy way I can just "share" a usable spreadsheet that anyone can plug in their own numbers on the web? I'm more of a business guy, not a techie.

zaph0d

ummmm..... I'm getting a ton of requests for my spreadsheet. Anyone have an easy way I can just "share" a usable spreadsheet that anyone can plug in their own numbers on the web? I'm more of a business guy, not a techie.

google docs

Shock_Wave

^^^DUDE even a pu$$y can do a simple body weight pull up and he does it manly over hand style and not underhand and this is an internet opinion and fact because I have picture proof.. :laugh:

peterdt

enter your numbers in a spreadsheet. you might be surprised to see what they "say" to you.

I don't know. I've been fluxing around the same weight for about 2 months now. I was eating 1200-1350 cals a day. I bumped it up to 1500, thinking that would help (people kept telling me to try eating more). It's been 2 weeks. I finally broke under 178 plateau, which was the lowest I would get, and flux back up to 181...and got to 176.8. I was excited and thought I finally broke through the plateau...I'm back up again, now. Before I was doing a lot more cardio and no strength (but did the first 2 levels of 30ds before my hip injury flared up). Now I'm doing heavy lifting (just started...2nd day) and doing much smaller amounts of cardio since I struggle to eat 1500 calories.


I'm confused on how this isn't a plateau.

peterdt

haha. nice sense of humor.

with your 'attitude" you could use this quote I think:
"Your goals, minus your doubts, equal your reality."
Ralph Marston

^^^DUDE even a pu$$y can do a simple body weight pull up and its opinion and fact because I have picture proof.. :laugh:

peterdt

enter the numbers in a spreadsheet. you might be surprised.

I did the SAME things that allowed me to lose 8lbs the month before during the month of September. I only lost 2lbs all month. I didn't change my eating or exercise going into October and I lost 7lbs that month.

SurfyFriend

From my 2 months of experience on MFP, I agree.

tinyjaz

Thanks for sharing

meerkat70

haha. thanks for your optimism. shesh.

talk to me when you have lost more op. when i had more than a hundred still to go, losses were easy. now, plateaus happen. your time will likely come.

Oh I'm sorry. Did my personal anecdote somehow offend your absolutely scientific reasoning?

NeverGivesUp

I for one am not a numbers person at all and take a more creative approach to weight loss. It works for me. I think we all must find what works for us and something we can stick with for life. I actually put my scale away because my relationship with it was very, very unhealthy and it made me lose motivation too often than not. I am a very goal oriented person so I choose goals I can stick to that won't make me crazy. It is great you are able and willing to do so much number work. It would drive me nuts and make me very obsessive. " For life" is my motto now. No more things that are temporary fixes, only things I can carry on for life. I am impressed by your commitment to science and how it all works!! Good for you!!

peterdt

yeah, I would love to see the result of a large group of people faithfully entering data on spreadsheets. Actually, it must have been done, probably a hundred times over with all the weight loss studies that have been done. I guess that's why they say logging your data is one of the keys to weight loss.

BUT having the numbers in front of you in spreadsheet format can be an eye opener, and I think it is possible to help reveal flaws in how you "thought" you were doing. So while not certainly not scientific if all the member here went to the trouble of doing what I suggest I can guarantee you that overall results would be much better since it is much easier to see how you are really doing at a glance. The reports here in MFP suck badly and member would certainly benefit from a better presentation of what they have done in the past.

have you done it? entered your data in a spreadsheet to see if there was something you were missing?

so... instead of just picking apart an idea... why not think of the possibilities in a "new" idea?

but I wonder... how the heck do you have time to do 4000+ posts? that is a freakin lot of posts! good for you! you must be of great value to the community here.

haha. thanks for your optimism. shesh.

talk to me when you have lost more op. when i had more than a hundred still to go, losses were easy. now, plateaus happen. your time will likely come.

Oh I'm sorry. Did my personal anecdote somehow offend your absolutely scientific reasoning?

peterdt

I disagree though, I was in a plateau for 6 months, yet i at pretty good for the most part

.About your numbers matching up, they didn't, you got lucky. For example, if i asked someone who doesn't know how to square a number in math, "what does ^ mean? Here is your example. 2^2 = 4" they might say ^ means to add the same number to itself.

There are always exceptions to the rule as I have written. I think what I propose would work for 95% of people and would be more valuable than a lot of the misinformation on this site.

I'm sure something was going on with your body. Something has to be going on. If you are taking in a lot less calories than you are burning but not losing weight over 6 months something abnormal is going on. For my purposes though and for what I shared I don't care about abnormal. I care about the 99% that could benefit and don't have the very strange record that you mention.

Please comment on the bottom of a post, not the top. People read a post from top to bottom. in reply to your post. That's the thing, I stalled out at 1,300 calories for a month, i said screw it and got off that. I stalled out at 3,000 for about 6 months. That's the point I am making, you never really know if you're over or under. IF you're truly eating under maintenance calories and not losing weight it's probably due to dieters edema. This is when people hold on to water. They can hold on to a lot of water, even up to 20lbs or more. Not going to repeat myself, i went in to more detail about this on my blog if you're interested.
http://physiquelore.com/weight-loss-plateaus-edema/

Okay, the bottom then.

Read you blog. I gotta tell you I think there are so many opinions on weight loss out there. Sure, some people will have what happen what you pointed out. Repeating myself again... there will be exceptions.

But what I am saying is posting to a spreadsheet could be another valuable added tool for 95% of the people here. Plateaus are real for sure. But I think just a much of the time there is a physical reason there are also :"mental" reasons. People have heard about plateaus and just assume they are on one. BUT if they look at their numbers, most of the time they will realize that they were just using that as an excuse.

puddlesiam

bump