3 month stall - thinking of trying a reset

Doberdawn
Doberdawn Posts: 733 Member
in Health and Weight Loss
OK, no scientific cites or whatever, but from my personal experience, I have to say that weight loss is not simply a matter of eating a net calorie deficit. I am & have been on a deficit. But since around mid-November, I have gained, lost, regained, & re-lost the same few pounds with no real progress. I have finally maybe kept off 3 pounds & 1 pound a month is NOT okay with me for a rate of loss. I have yet to make it out of this 10 pound category even though I only had 7 pounds to go back then. I'm beginning to get discouraged for the first time. I've tried adjusting my goals to add more calories or less. It sucks. Maybe I'll try the bodyrecomposition.com guy's suggestion & eat maintenance level calories for 2 weeks & see if that reboots my system. Has anyone tried that? Did it work? Here's a link to the article of what I'm thinking of trying:
http://www.bodyrecomposition.com/fat-loss/the-full-diet-break.html

Replies

  • monicalosesweight
    monicalosesweight Posts: 1,173 Member
    Interesting. My body seems to be getting super confused ever since I added weight lifting. I wonder if going to maintenance calories for two weeks would help. I hadn't read about that one. Hmm.
  • lik_11
    lik_11 Posts: 433 Member
    I started weight training in September, and saw my weight go up... sort of fell off the 3x/week strength training around Christmas, and have only been going 1x/week. Regardless- I have not lost any weight in 4 months... the beginning of this week, I upped my cals to see if that helps.

    Try it out for several weeks- like you said this is not a linear process. Sometimes you gotta play and mix it up.

    Good luck to you (and hopefully, me too!)!!
  • froggy77064
    froggy77064 Posts: 49 Member
    i haven't ran into this issue yet, but was thinking the other day about giving my body a break for a couple of months and just try to maintain my weight. just to see how my body would react.
  • jesz124
    jesz124 Posts: 1,004 Member
    I started weight training in September, and saw my weight go up... sort of fell off the 3x/week strength training around Christmas, and have only been going 1x/week. Regardless- I have not lost any weight in 4 months... the beginning of this week, I upped my cals to see if that helps.

    Try it out for several weeks- like you said this is not a linear process. Sometimes you gotta play and mix it up.

    Good luck to you (and hopefully, me too!)!!

    Weight training isn't really condusive to reducing your scale weight. Your kinda trying to force your body in two different ways if you want to lose whilst building muscle. I really think focus should be taken off the scale when you are lifting. Building muscle will make you look hot and help reduce body fat levels if your eating at a small deficit. Just take progress pics, sod the scale!! :bigsmile:
  • mmapags
    mmapags Posts: 8,934 Member
    I started weight training in September, and saw my weight go up... sort of fell off the 3x/week strength training around Christmas, and have only been going 1x/week. Regardless- I have not lost any weight in 4 months... the beginning of this week, I upped my cals to see if that helps.

    Try it out for several weeks- like you said this is not a linear process. Sometimes you gotta play and mix it up.

    Good luck to you (and hopefully, me too!)!!

    Weight training isn't really condusive to reducing your scale weight. Your kinda trying to force your body in two different ways if you want to lose whilst building muscle. I really think focus should be taken off the scale when you are lifting. Building muscle will make you look hot and help reduce body fat levels if your eating at a small deficit. Just take progress pics, sod the scale!! :bigsmile:

    Well you can't really "build muscle" (hypertrophy) and lose at the same time. The exceptions being newbie gains of a pound or 2 or if you are obese or overfat or an athelete returning to training after a layoff. Being in defict precludes building muslce as there is not the energy or raw materials to build it. What is generally happening water and glycogen retention for repair after lifting sessions. If you take a break from lifting for a week or 2 the fluid will normalize and you will drop some "weight".

    One of the reasons weight loss slows when lifting is that you are keeping lean body mass so your fat loss in coming almost exclusively from fat. You are developing and acitvating existing muscle tissue that was dormant or atrophied also. There are some protocols like Leangains that utilize IF and a small deficit and claim the abiltiy to gain muscle tissue but the evidence of that is questionable and it is a lengthy process with sloooooow progress if any at all.

    Best thing to do is make the scale only one of the tools you use to measure. Take body measurements and check those monthly. They'll tell a tale that the scale won't nessesarily.

    Also, I think a reset or full diet break should be done every 3 to 4 months. The hormones that effect hunger and satiety adapt and it's helpful to reset them to normal. Here is a great article on that:
    http://www.bodyrecomposition.com/fat-loss/the-full-diet-break.html
  • prokomds
    prokomds Posts: 318 Member
    Have you measured yourself? It is possible that you've lost inches, even if you haven't seen the scale change. As you get smaller, the scale is a worse and worse measure of your progress :)

    If, though, you really have been stagnant for that long, I think taking a break from having a calorie deficit isn't a bad idea. You don't say how much you're eating, so it could be possible that you're undereating. Or you could be underestimating how much food you're eating, or overestimating your exercise. There are a lot of possibilities, obviously

    But really, if you've basically maintained your weight for the past months, what's eating at your TDEE and maintaining for a little longer? You've obviously stuck with this journey for a long time (congrats on your weight lost, by the way!), a few more weeks won't hurt

    One last thing to consider. Did you lose weight at a faster pace than expected early in your journey? Weight loss tends to average out over time, but comes and goes in spurts... If you lost faster earlier, you could lose none for awhile and still have it average out over time. It could be that you just need to keep at it. Best of luck!
  • kcallas88
    kcallas88 Posts: 192
    I had about a two month stall and decided to eat a little more freely and am currently taking a week break from strenuous working out. I did some cardio two days ago and I'll probably do yoga today but I'm not going to begin working out every day until next Monday. Personally I find it can help to just chill and not stress over the stall. I eat sensibly and am just trying to enjoy my week off :)
  • Doberdawn
    Doberdawn Posts: 733 Member
    I was on 1200 calories a day for over 6 months & lost close to 60 pounds. I usually exercise 3 to 6 days a week & ate back most exercise calories determined by Polar HRM. Exercise then was walking, hiking & cardio. Weight loss slowed significantly then and I tried to start mixing it up. I added strength training intermixed with cardio. Lost some inches, not a lot, but some. Weight loss still at snail's pace (1 pound month). Tried to cycle calories high & low during a week to still result in net deficit average. Then I tried eating more calories to be at lose 1 pound a week (1550/day). Still stalled I tried 1.5 pounds a week (1290/day). I remain stalled and have fluctuated within the same 6 to 8 pounds, going up and down (today I'm down 7 pounds from 6 months ago, yesterday it was down 6 pounds, for a couple days last week, I was down the 8 pounds, but one day last week, I was only down 4 pounds - so you see what I mean by I dance all around but stay on this same last few pounds & it has been this way for months). For the past month or 6 weeks, I.have seen no change in inches either. So it is a full stall.

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