Why do people plateau?
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Rayman79
Posts: 2,009 Member
I thought this was an interesting article/study on the causes of weight loss plateaus.
In summary, they look at lack of dietary adherence vs other factors such as metabolic adaptation and reduction in Energy Expenditure (eg NEAT) as causes for plateaus.
The cliffs: it seems that a lack of adherence (either intentional or otherwise) is the most likely cause for stalls in weight loss, and that metabolic adaptation doesn't really play a role. I guess we can thank the Minnesota Starvation experiment for that assertion anyway.
https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/2570111/Am J Clin Nutr-2014-Thomas-ajcn.113.079822.pdf
An interesting conclusion proposed is that we offer a more conservative forecast of weight loss for clients under the assumption that they will not stick to their plan or track accurately and will be less likely to fail if they have the occasional slip-up and still progress as planned. Lowering initial expectations of the rate of progress may then cause a greater level of adherence over time anyway (my extrapolation there
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In summary, they look at lack of dietary adherence vs other factors such as metabolic adaptation and reduction in Energy Expenditure (eg NEAT) as causes for plateaus.
The cliffs: it seems that a lack of adherence (either intentional or otherwise) is the most likely cause for stalls in weight loss, and that metabolic adaptation doesn't really play a role. I guess we can thank the Minnesota Starvation experiment for that assertion anyway.
https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/2570111/Am J Clin Nutr-2014-Thomas-ajcn.113.079822.pdf
An interesting conclusion proposed is that we offer a more conservative forecast of weight loss for clients under the assumption that they will not stick to their plan or track accurately and will be less likely to fail if they have the occasional slip-up and still progress as planned. Lowering initial expectations of the rate of progress may then cause a greater level of adherence over time anyway (my extrapolation there
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bump0
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Interesting.0
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Thanks for posting. I need to read the whole thing, but in principal, I expect that adherence is the case in many many cases (assuming that you also adjust for changes in activity and weight of course).0
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Thanks0
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bumping for later0
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I thought plateaus were mythical creatures and it's really just maintenance. I still think that. But, I'm open to new ideas. How could it be anything else?
The BMR Gnomes come and lower your BMR while you're asleep.0 -
I thought plateaus were mythical creatures and it's really just maintenance. I still think that. But, I'm open to new ideas. How could it be anything else?
The BMR Gnomes come and lower your BMR while you're asleep.
Sometimes they team up with insulin fairies for a nasty one-two punch!0 -
I have experienced Lyle MacDonalds 'woosh' effect at least twice. The idea is that fat cells empty and temporarily replace with water, then suddenly let go, so you'd be plateauing, eating perfect numbers, not losing, then at about week 6 (for me), an almost overnight jump down to the planned weight. Personally, this was irrespective of TOM, carb, sodium or workout water weight. It was very odd, and the first time, caused me to over cut and underestimate my tdee by quite a lot. I kept records of everything.
The second time I cut, I expected the woosh plateau and again, the same thing.
It may be all in the mind, but there are others that have experienced this too. Maybe the body is resistant to fat loss and holds on to something just in case it's a temporary famine. For women this would make total sense. Particularly if there has been a lot of previous 'famines' in a persons life, like my horrible history of under and then over eating.
http://www.bodyrecomposition.com/fat-loss/of-whooshes-and-squishy-fat.html0
