When did you hit your first plateau?

I think I hit my first one after losing about 30lbs. To break mine I've just stuck with whatever I was doing before. Most people find that changing things up helps, but I was was always too lazy to do that and just stuck with the same diet & exercise routine and after a few weeks the weight always started coming off again.

I was lucky and never did!

I've never hit a plateau but I have had periods where I have inadvertently eaten at maintenance levels

As soon as I've realised, I've reassessed my intake to eat at a deficit, and my weight has begun to drop again.

I've never hit a plateau but I have had periods where I have inadvertently eaten at maintenance levels

As soon as I've realised, I've reassessed my intake to eat at a deficit, and my weight has begun to drop again.

^^^^ This! I thought I had hit a plateau before... but come to realize I was just eating more than I had been... as soon as I reeled in my eating, I started losing again.

I am on one right now, after 26lbs lost, seems I am stalled for a few weeks. It is kind of frustrating, but I am just sticking to it. I figure it has to work eventually as the first 26 was relatively easy. I knew there would be tough times so I am powering through it with out much change.

I haven't had any "serious" plateaus, IMO, since joining MFP last March.

A couple of situations I'd call mini-plateaus though...

I'd been on the site for about 2 1/2 months, lost nearly 20 lb, and was at an MFP recommended ~1480 or 1500 calories per day. I started a new job with really short lunch breaks and got in the habit of just having a kids Clif bar and/or some veggies for lunch. I was eating 1100-1300 calories daily and I totally stopped losing weight for 3 weeks. Like no drop...not even 0.2 lb. When I went back to my MFP recommended daily cals, I immediately went back to losing 1.5 per week.

Around Christmas (9 months on MFP and 50+ pound loss so far), I had some stressful situations in my life and along with the holidays I was eating a LOT of candy like truffles and fudge, and very little other food. Again my weight stalled. I didn't gain, but I did not lose for over 2 weeks including the one week of every month that I typically see my biggest loss (right before TOM). Although I generally don't worry that much about sugar in my macros, that made me more aware of hitting my more important macros like protein, fiber, etc, and not "starving" in order to eat ALL OF THE CANDY and stay under my calories.

I did have a year plus plateau prior to joining. I'd weighed 260-270 for a decade and suddenly gained a lot and shot up to my highest weight (307) and eating a bit better and walking MILES almost every night, I lost 35+ lb. But then when I got back to 270 it seemed that no matter what I did (not counting calories) I just stayed there. For WELL over a year. Because of that experience I do believe that most of us (some of us?) have a certain weight that our body sticks with and requires real change to get past.

I figure consistency is the key. I stay consistent meaning that if I'm over one day I don't try to compensate for it, I just stick to my goal. I haven't had a Plateau. Slowing down when closer to goal is normal so don't sweat it. Interestingly enough, a couple months ago I reduced my goal from 2500 to 2300 per day, and that slowed me down for several weeks, then I upped it to 2400 and my losses picked up like crazy.

Plateaus in the gym are another story, I have hit those and found the best way to overcome them is to simply push through.

Rigger

I hit my first weight plateau about six-months in. But to be serious I didn't have much of a plan and after hitting the plateau, my weight crept back up. Once I got serious about it, I hit the second plateau about 9 months later.

The second plateau was a weight plateau, not a size plateau. Even though I weighed the same or nearly so (at 187-190 pounds) for a year, I dropped four inches off my chest, four inches from my waist, four inches from my hips, two inches from my neck and a couple off my thighs and my arms. (Gave me some "flappy skin" that has taken a while to "tighten up." Sometimes it just isn't about the weight, its about the stuff underneath the skin and how that changes with time).

What I did to get beyond the "second" plateau: I stepped up the intensity of my cardio by 10% (I was doing 20,000 steps per day and I went to 22,000. I was walking up 15 flights of stairs per day according to my Fitbit and I stepped up to 25). It was a step change not a gradual increase. I also made a no-nonsense effort to be accurate about what I was eating (including buying a food scale). That took me down from around 190 pounds to 165 pounds. It took me 11 months to reach the 165 pounds. I considered that maintnenance. I stayed in that range for 8 months until I started running and training for a marathon and I put back a few pounds as I increased my mileage to more than 20 miles per week (the slow weight gain came once I was being able to run more than 12 miles in a single run).

Once I started running (last year) my weight stabilized and stays at a very constant range of 169-171 pounds. Even after the longest training runs of 26 miles or more, the weight doesn't vary by much.

Note:175 pounds was my second target after reaching the BMI "normal" target of 179 pounds. My body shape now is still changing slightly as I continue my running training though not as much as the year of plateau.

My current running level can be described as maintaining a status of "marathon ready" though I could run any other shorter race just on a whim.

I had trouble getting below 200 {which was really 205 I found out when I bought some good scales} I spent most of a month right around the same weight. It was around the holidays, and I'm in the hospitality business, so I eat with my customers a lot. Back then I wasn't on MFP {I joined less than a month ago} and only counted calories two days a week. I've lost over 45 pounds since September, and the first 30 were very easy. Since then it's been slower, but I'm still losing about 2 pounds a week. I've increased my workouts, and started counting all my calories since I'm logging on everyday.

I hit mine after April of last year. I lost 50lbs, and ended up losing motivation for some reason. I managed to only gain about 5-10lbs, and lose them over and over again, then gain them back, etc.

I ended up doubling down on eating right, logging, and exercising, and I'm nearly at 50lbs lost again. I got serious again about a month ago now, and it is working well.