The dreaded weight loss plateau

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vacherin
vacherin Posts: 192
in Health and Weight Loss
Hi everyone

It seems that the weight loss plateau happens to pretty much everyone, as they edge nearer and nearer to their goal weight. I have read many different suggestions for busting through it, but I just wondered what had worked for people here?

Things I've read include:
- Changing the exercise you do
- Changing your diet (e.g. cutting carbs)
- Just carrying on as usual and eventually your body gets past it
- Eating more
- Having a junk food blow-out to kick-start the metabolism (yes, really)

(Interestingly, "eating less" has never figured on the list of things to try.)

I'd love to hear from you all about what has worked for you! Or, if you have tried any of the above and they have turned out to be rubbish, I'd like to hear about that too!

Many thanks

V x
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Replies

  • Abi_bug04
    Abi_bug04 Posts: 220
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    My first weight loss plateau happened after losing 10 lbs very quickly (in 1.5-2 weeks), and I got stuck at that weight (and even gained a few pounds) for about 1.5 months. It was very frustrating, because I was eating enough calories, as well as exercising every day, so I decided to try and cut out complex carbohydrates (things such as grains in particular) and after one week of doing that, I started to lose around 2 lbs a week again, which is a healthy weekly goal.

    Different things work for different people, and in my experience, cutting carbs was a good fit for me. Calorie Cyclying is also a good one, and other things such as cutting out sodium, and cutting out artificial sugars have shown some results too. I would recommend trying one at a time, though, and seeing which one works best for you.

    That being said, none of these solutions should be permanent, but you should give them a try to break out of a plateau, and then incorporate them back in to your diet.

    Good Luck!
  • hooah_mj
    hooah_mj Posts: 1,004 Member
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    what usu works for me:

    rest day

    up my protein/fiber

    up my weights

    and yeap, a complete blow-out meal :p
  • bulbadoof
    bulbadoof Posts: 1,058 Member
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    Every so often something comes up and I end up taking a few days off in the name of living a normal life. Birthdays, holidays, vacations, etc., I just don't bother counting calories during those times. I'm coming up on having lost 150 lbs total and I don't think I've ever hit a plateau.
  • spiregrain
    spiregrain Posts: 254 Member
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    I am having the same problem. I have no advice, but I just wanted to express my slightly demoralized solidarity.
  • crisanderson27
    crisanderson27 Posts: 5,343 Member
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    I was eating 2400cal/day, roughly...and had been on a plateau since roughly March (until about 3wks ago). 188-192lbs. Up. Down. Up. Down. I work 8-10hrs a day outside in construction, lift 3x a week. I figured myself as moderately active, which gave me a TDEE of 2700-2800cal/day.

    Then I bought a fitbit. It told me (and everyone swears it's conservative), that I was burning between 3300-3800 a DAY on weekdays, 2000-2500 on weekends. There are also a lot of aspects of my work that the fitbit doesn't count, lifting, carrying, etc.

    I upped my calories to 3000/day give or take, and have lost 10lbs in 3wks. I'm watching bodyfat melt off as well, and have lowered my belt size by about 4 notches in that time, though my waist measurement has only dropped about an inch (my waist is going to be the LAST place my weight comes off...I know this from past experience).

    Aside from all that. Upping your calories to at MINIMUM maintenance for a WEEK OR TWO (not a day or two), after dieting for a few months...is good for your body regardless...and very often will promote weight loss on its own.
  • Yanicka1
    Yanicka1 Posts: 4,564 Member
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    The only thing that worked for me is eating at maintenance for a few weeks. Everything else failed
  • Sarauk2sf
    Sarauk2sf Posts: 28,072 Member
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    Aside from all that. Upping your calories to at MINIMUM maintenance for a WEEK OR TWO (not a day or two), after dieting for a few months...is good for your body regardless...and very often will promote weight loss on its own.

    ^^this
  • Italiano7
    Italiano7 Posts: 382 Member
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    When I hit a plateau I do have a cheat day and that will sometimes boost my metabolism and the weight starts coming off again.
  • nel0311
    nel0311 Posts: 248
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    I was at a plateau for a year, and then i gained really fast out of no where. I have recently stopped eating meat, (pretty much everything but fish) and lost 10 pounds in a month. I am in month two and so far so good i feel great, but now i am hovering right over the same weight i plateaued so far, hoping to break it.....we shall see!
  • quiksandy
    quiksandy Posts: 246 Member
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    Seriously, I'm perplexed by the plateau phenomenon because it never happened to me. I set out to lose weight, followed MFP calories to lose 1 1/2 pounds a week...and I did until I reached my goal weight.

    Then one thing I do wonder though is if people forget to adjust their Heart Rate Monitors after losing some weight. You need to change your profile settings within your HRM (mine is a Polar FT4) as you lose or else it's not really accurately measuring your calories burned. Because, as you lose weight, you start to burn less and less doing the same workout. I think it's something that gets easily overlooked.
  • CoderGal
    CoderGal Posts: 6,800 Member
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    Aside from all that. Upping your calories to at MINIMUM maintenance for a WEEK OR TWO (not a day or two), after dieting for a few months...is good for your body regardless...and very often will promote weight loss on its own.

    ^^this
    ^This
  • Sarauk2sf
    Sarauk2sf Posts: 28,072 Member
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    Seriously, I'm perplexed by the plateau phenomenon because it never happened to me. I set out to lose weight, followed MFP calories to lose 1 1/2 pounds a week...and I did until I reached my goal weight.

    Then one thing I do wonder though is if people forget to adjust their Heart Rate Monitors after losing some weight. You need to change your profile settings within your HRM (mine is a Polar FT4) as you lose or else it's not really accurately measuring your calories burned. Because, as you lose weight, you start to burn less and less doing the same workout. I think it's something that gets easily overlooked.

    While it is recommended that you take a diet break every few months as dieting and exercise can cause stress on you body and throw hormones out of whack, the above is also a good idea to check. As people lose weight and as they get fitter, they are expending less energy to do the same thing.
  • emancipateurself
    emancipateurself Posts: 174 Member
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    My body likes to hit plateaus every 10-15 pounds lost.....There is nothing I can do to stop this...I know it will happen, it has taken me 3 months to lose 5 pounds.....This is just the way it is.
    You need to find out what works for you and also KNOW that a REAL plateau is 6-8 weeks, none of this two week crap people complain about they don't know what's hit em lol
  • srathfelder
    srathfelder Posts: 28
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    I haven't hit this type of plateau but I would suggest you take a look at your food journaling -- are you being honest with yourself? Is that really 1 Tbsp of cream in your coffee? Is that really 3 oz of chicken? Did I eat 12 tortilla chips or 20? Did I walk at a 4 mph pace or was it more like 3 mph? Are you getting enough water? We can under/over estimate very easily and not even realize it. It all adds up and the only person we are really cheating is ourselves.

    I try and make sure at least one (hopefully two) of my workout sessions per week are at least one hour of fast paced walking or cycling. They say that a full hour of aerobic exercise revs up your metabolism for about 15 hours afterwards. I really just walk, ride my bike and do some weights at home, I have a son with muscular dystrophy and epilepsy so I get out when I can.

    Susan :smile:
  • Perfectdiamonds1
    Perfectdiamonds1 Posts: 347 Member
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    Then one thing I do wonder though is if people forget to adjust their Heart Rate Monitors after losing some weight. You need to change your profile settings within your HRM (mine is a Polar FT4) as you lose or else it's not really accurately measuring your calories burned. Because, as you lose weight, you start to burn less and less doing the same workout. I think it's something that gets easily overlooked.

    I know I did not not think about that. I have a Polar FT4 also. I'll reset it now. Thanks for sharing
  • TheOfficialEpic
    TheOfficialEpic Posts: 406
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    Metabolism isn't static. Maintenance isn't static. All things equal it takes more calories to maintain a heavier person. What may have been a deficit before, might be your maintenance 6 months from now. That is most likely the reason you plateaued(so long as you didn't do anything drastic to sabotage your metabolism). Add in a lil more activity or so long as your calories are still decently high, pull 200 addtional from each day. Maybe even still, give yourself a few days at maintenance or even a little above and THEN go back to dieting. Most people who plateau fall into one or two camps: 1) a sabotaged metabolism from yoyo dieting or going TOO low too soon, or they just simply experience a little metabolic slowdown which is inevitable to the most part in dieting, and just need to bump the calories down a bit and or increase their weekly activity a bit. Hope this helps.

    Fredo
    NSCF Certified Personal Trainer
    AAAI Certified Personal Fitness Trainer
    ISMA Certified Nutritional Consultant
  • LunaPhaedra
    LunaPhaedra Posts: 71 Member
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    After losing my first 5lbs (on schedule with my plan) I pretty much stopped losing weight at all. Even when I started working 60/week (which involves lots of walking/lifting/etc) my weight wouldn't budge and I kinda gave up on tracking for the summer (still am, sadly). However, back in May we threw my dad a huge party of 100+ people (including a feast of persian [rice] dishes fit for 200 xD), and the extra food pretty much became my staple for two full weeks, and in that time I lost 4lbs! Now, let's be honest, i was essentially eating [delicious!] oily rice drenched in sauce at every meal. To carb phobes that wouldn't make much sense at all. Although personally i think it had nothing to do with what i was eating, but what KIND of food it was. before I was eating cold cut meat sandwiches and granola bars and the like, which are full of preservatives and such, while all the leftovers from the party were homecooked meals. So I think it might have had more to do with eating junkish foods than anything else that made me break that plateau.
  • jsygurl
    jsygurl Posts: 28 Member
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    Different things have worked for all these people, but there is something that they all did - by plan or by accident - they all had a fairly major change in their eating.
  • vacherin
    vacherin Posts: 192
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    Thanks so much for the replies, everyone - it's been very interesting to see what has worked for everyone. The most interesting piece of info was about what exactly constitutes a plateau - I haven't had a weight loss for 2 weeks but I don't think that counts!

    When I first started out on my weight loss quest, the biggest eye-opener for me was finding out that the magnificently virtuous things that I did, DIDN'T actually afford me the calories to be as bad as I wanted. I was a big drinker and gave this up completely on 1 Jan 2012 ... which meant the weight would just drop off effortlessly, right? And it wouldn't matter if I had the odd bar of chocolate or sugary dessert, seeing as I wasn't having any booze, right? Sadly it wasn't as simple as that. Ditto with exercise - seeing as I'm not drinking, and I've just been for a 20min jog around the park, that means I should be able to eat that chocolate and still lose weight, yes? Erm ... no!
  • Sarauk2sf
    Sarauk2sf Posts: 28,072 Member
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    Thanks so much for the replies, everyone - it's been very interesting to see what has worked for everyone. The most interesting piece of info was about what exactly constitutes a plateau - I haven't had a weight loss for 2 weeks but I don't think that counts!

    When I first started out on my weight loss quest, the biggest eye-opener for me was finding out that the magnificently virtuous things that I did, DIDN'T actually afford me the calories to be as bad as I wanted. I was a big drinker and gave this up completely on 1 Jan 2012 ... which meant the weight would just drop off effortlessly, right? And it wouldn't matter if I had the odd bar of chocolate or sugary dessert, seeing as I wasn't having any booze, right? Sadly it wasn't as simple as that. Ditto with exercise - seeing as I'm not drinking, and I've just been for a 20min jog around the park, that means I should be able to eat that chocolate and still lose weight, yes? Erm ... no!

    You will get a few differences in answers as to how long no weight loss needs to be before it constitutes a plateau (4 - 8 weeks is what I usually see). From my perspective, you need to give it about 6 week, especially as a female as we are more susceptible to water weight and hormonal imbalances that can mess with seeing what I consider 'real' weigh loss.

    You make good points above - which basically boils down to miscalculating calories out calories in. We need to reassess a lot of things as we progress. For example, the calories out - are we expending what we think we are or does our lighter weight or fitness levels mean that those workouts are not burning as much as we thought. The calories in - it's easy to become complacent after a while and to start eyeballing rather than measuring/weighing our food or forgetting to log everything.

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