I've hit a plateau....

Change your workout routine. Add more cardio--that's what I've been told.

Great article, Grimm. Back in March I did the HGC diet and lost 30 lbs in 30 days....and then put on 32 lbs in 45 days (I could actually hear myself getting fat again.) This article explains it perfectly, combined with going back to my old eating habits.

I'm consuming 1200 calories and eating back my exercise calories. My macros are 40c/40p/20f and I try to keep it within 3-4% on a weekly basis.

Lately, my excercise has been a little light due to some tendenitis in my knee. I'm going to start pushing it again this week.

I think we are both in the same boat and just need to reset our metabolism. Good luck and let me know when the scale starts to move for you.

Our bodies are creatures of habit and it takes 28 days for your body to get used to a gym routine. You need to create muscle confusion in order to boost your calorie burn and rev up your metabolism. It is totally normal for your body to feel comfortable at a specific weight and resist change. So that is why it is important to switch up your workouts and keep your body guessing. Also try to change up your eating plan (I'm only assuming you eat the same things weekly). Did you ever look at carb cycling? Google it and see if it would be something you would want to try. That is a great way to shock your system into change. Good luck, and no worries, you will get to your goal if you continue to stay focused, sounds like you are doing a great job already!

Oh and also, make sure to be taking measurements and body fat - I didn't lose any weight for weeks, only to find out my measurements didn't change but I lost 2% body fat. So you want the muscle to replace the fat.

Bump

Hi Grinn,

Your body loses weight in chunks, not linear. I have found that you can do everything right and your weight loss seems to plateau but you are patient and keep exercising and eating at a deficit (however slight) you will lose it, it will suddenly "whoosh". There are so many variables for the scale though: water retention, digestion, allergies, sodium, carbs, water intake, DOMS, inflammation, the list goes on. People mistakenly think they lose or gain weight when they eat more or less because of these fluctuations

The scale is a trend tool. The scale is good but put it away and only check once a week and only use it as a trend tool, the same with other metrics. Take front, side, and back progress pictures at least once a month. You will see differences that the metrics won't tell you and it's that little bit of NSV that will keep you going until the next victory.

IF the trend starts going up, only you can decide calories, base it on how you feel and what the scale trend is doing, not what anyone here tells you to do. You can always gradually notch your calories up or down by 100 and see how you do. It takes some experimentation to find what works for YOU. What worked for the next person may not work for you just because it did for them. For the most part, if you have fat reserves eating more to lose weight is just plain silly, think about it.

If you have a lot of body fat reserves you would be surprised at how little you can eat (unless you have emotional eating issues or disorders). The leaner you get the less your body has to draw from and then you have to taper up your calories. There is no such thing as starvation mode for women over 12% body fat or men over 6% body fat. I am a living breathing example of that. I went from obese to now under 12% BF and I've maintained for one year and built muscle the whole time. You don't BUILD muscle in starvation mode, so I proved everyone wrong.

According to "The Reverse Taper Diet " :

The Theory of Fat Availability:
•There is a set amount of fat that can be released from a fat cell.
•The more fat you have, the more fat can be used as a fuel when dieting.
•The less fat you have, the less fat can be used as a fuel when dieting.
•Towards the end of a transformation, when body fat is extremely low you
may not have enough fat to handle a large caloric deficit anymore.

At the extreme low end, when your body fat cannot ‘keep up’ with the energy deficit
you've imposed on your body, the energy MUST come from SOMEWHERE. This is
when you are at risk of losing lean body mass during dieting (commonly referred to
as ‘starvation mode’). This happens at extremely low levels of body fat, under 6% in
men and 12% in women [Friedl K.E. J Appl Phsiol, 1994].

Oddly enough, it seems as though some obese people have an unbelievable amount of fat available as a fuel, but a lower ability to burn that fat, whereas as they get leaner, they have less and less fat available as a fuel, but a greater and greater ability to burn the fat they do have. So at extreme levels of leanness, it is the fat availability that limits a persons ability to lose fat.