Plateau

I just passed my plateau after about 3 weeks. The things I did differently was to focus more on cardio and less on weight training. I was lifting weights 5 times a week. When I was trying to get passed my plateau I only did weight training for 3 days a week and increased my cardio by 10-15 mins each day. It finally worked! I lost 2 lbs on the scale after a 3 week plateau. Other things you can do is vary your workout time of day, the machines you use, or change your eating habits. What I mean by eating habits is if you having been focusing on chicken or fish, maybe try a lean cut of steak or something different. I hope this helps. Hang in there I know plateaus suck!!

I've hit a few plateaus over the period of my weight loss. The first couple really got me down but you learn to accept them.

As someone has already mentioned, measure yourself every few weeks too. I was dropping sizes even though my weight was either hanging or very slowly decreasing for 2-3 weeks in a row.

Also, are you weighing yourself at the same time of day each week?

Are you eating enough calories?

Could it be TOM? I've had a rough week because of that.

Hi! You absolutely can break through your plateau, especially if your current intake is 50%+ carbs, as I suspect it might be? (say, 55% Carb / 10% Fat / 35% Protein)? If this is the case, then I suspect it has a lot more to do with nutrition than we might realize, and lot less to do with calorie counting or numbers of reps in the gym.

To cut to the chase, I would focus on ramping up the amount of complex, fibrous carbohydrate (ie. leafy greens like kale, mustard greens, swiss chard, collard greens, etc.) and pretty much getting rid of all fattening carbs: most over-sugared fruits, pasta, flour, most wheat and even most "whole" grain (basically anything in the isles of the grocery store, aka "fake food", and especially the "cereal" isle). Also lose all liquid calories: most juices, all sports drinks, alcohol and sodas especially; the only thing you need to drink is water, and natural full-fat milks whenever appropriate. Then in replacement, I would increase macro nutrient uptake starting with healthy oils (extra virgin olive, red palm, coconut, etc.), nuts, seeds, and fats and proteins from organic/local/free-range eggs, beef, chicken, pork and both lean and fatty fish. Then add in as much quality butter as you prefer, peanut, almond, dairy, etc. Through this process, you will pretty much hold protein constant by percentage, perhaps decreasing it slightly. Special things to make sure of are getting enough nutrients, such as potassium (white beans, avocado, etc. and I'd avoid bananas due to the sugar/carbs, but your call there).

The above process will help your body gradually move from a carb/sugar burner and fat-storer (mostly bad), to a fat-storer and fat-burner outright (mostly good). But please keep in mind, several things will happen that I am sure you might not be used to, and perhaps might be alarmed at. First off, if your intake before was 55/10/35 carb/fat/protein, as I inferred, you're improved intake will start to exchange the carb/fat balance until you end up as low as 10% carb and anywhere from 50-80% fat, while protein may dip a bit to 20-30%. Just know that there is a ton of backstory (around 2 million years of human metabolic evolution) that says this is ok. In fact, it says its favorable. And second, your caloric intake will go up, probably violating MFP's calorie-counting approach to weight loss. Fear not there, either, for I bet that every generation of healthier, fitter human who ate the level of whole foods I describe above and never even knew what a calorie was up until our great-grandparents would tell you it's probably ok, too. ;-) All in all, what you will be doing is basically increasing the SANE-ness of your intake (see SlimIsSimple.org for a vid on what that means if interested).

For exercise, I would exchange most time on the treadmill to time doing low-resistance weight training, a few days a week, no more than 30 minutes needed per time really, focusing especially on controlled, lowering motions of free weights, in order to induce maximum isolated muscle trauma and supercharge the fat-burning process once your workout is done (when the actual fat burn/muscle repair occurs).

All that said, I have a feeling you will not only break your plateau, but demolish it! If you give it a try, please keep us posted on how you do!