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What's the best way to break through a plateau????

Depends on what's causing the plateau. Plateaus aren't all created equally.

Often times plateaus are caused by miscalculated energy intake/expenditure assumptions. In these cases, the assumed deficit is actually closer to maintenance. In these cases, it's about educating people about the importance of being serious with tracking/weighing until they gain enough insight to graduate from that level of rigidity with their tracking.

Other times plateaus are caused by a lack of a systems based approach. People pick a calorie intake and expect it to work regardless. It doesn't work like this. Your body can't be summed up by a simple math equation. These simple calculations get us in the ballpark, but from there we have to adjust until we find that caloric sweet spot where the long term rate of weight loss falls in line with what's reasonable.

Related to the above, a particular calorie level that works now won't work forever. A large component of caloric needs is determined by our size/weight. As we get smaller/lighter, our bodies cost fewer calories to move around. Plus there's less tissue to support (fat is metabolically active, believe it or not). So as we lose, we need to trend calorie intake downward.

Another major source of plateaus is a lack of patience. I see it time and time again where people assume they're plateaued since they haven't lost in a couple of weeks. That's not a plateau. That's just weight being weight. Weight loss isn't a linear process... it zigs and it zags over time. A constant calorie intake will lead to losses some weeks and gains others. That's the nature of the beast when relying on scale weight as the primary metric for measuring success. Scale weight weighs a number of variables that can be rising while fat is falling.

Speaking of which, I see it quite regularly in my business where people hire me who've never really lifted weights intensely and progressively. When they start, even in the face of a calorie deficit, it's commonplace to add some muscle. Fat going down and muscle going up tends to trick people into believing they're in a plateau. They're not. The answer? Be patient and eventually the fat loss will be unmasked.

I could go on with other factors, such as water weight fluctuations in response to not drinking enough, menstrual cycle, etc fooling people into thinking they're in a deficit.

But likely what you're asking is, "Assuming none of these things are at play, and I'm truly in a deficit... what should I do?"

It's really doing to depend on the individual circumstances, but by and large a diet break is in order. You can't expect to diet forever. The body is an complex adaptive system that's rooted in survival. Since dieting is a low level form of starvation, the body is going to do it's best to minimize the energy gap you're pushing through your deficit.

All sorts of variables are at play "under the hood" that fuel this adaptive process - things like Leptin, insulin, cortisol, ghrelin, peptide YY, aldosterone, thyroid, etc. Some of these things shift to influence energy expenditure (metabolic rate), some of them shift to make us hungrier, some of the shifts cause inflammation and water storage, etc, etc.

At a certain point, losing more weight becomes very challenging and at this point it's a good idea to give your body a break. You can only beat it up so much before it starts fighting back. And it's different for everyone... some people's "defense systems" seem to be more sensitive than others.

What I'll typically do though is promote a period of time where calories/carb intake are elevated and recovery is promoted. From there, once sufficient time has been devoted to a break, we'll start easing our way back into a deficit.