Scared of the Plateau

If your married to your scale make sure to track your measurements. The tape measure doesnt lie. Keep working at it. Not a destination but a lifestyle change.

I feel the same way and am looking forward to the things people put on here

Make sure you eat enough calories - so your body doesn't think it's starving and stop you loosing. And mix up your work outs - our bodies are awesome at adapting to stuff so doing the same thing a few weeks in a row it will adapt and the benefits will decrease. Also accept the fact that sometimes you will loose fast and sometimes slower - the important thing is to not give up and keep going. I have been stuck on 57kgs the last two weeks, in the past that would have me thinking screw it and hitting the chocolate. But I know with perseverance it will keep moving down, and I also know that while the scales might not be reflecting it I am fitter, stronger and healthy this week then the last one. Take your measurements too - often they are a better reflection of changes in your body that are more than just weighing less! Good luck! x

It's very hard to completely avoid a plateau during your weight loss. However, all is not lost! If you hit a plateau, try eating *more* calories for a week to get your metabolism going again. Change your workout plan a little, too. Drink lots of water. (Well, do that when you're not plateauing too!)

Also, if you're worried about a plateau, definitely keep measurements of your body. Sometimes we plateau on the scale but we're still losing inches. Above all, DON'T GIVE UP! Even if the scale remains still, know that as long as you're making good decisions about your food and exercise most of the time, your body is still changing and reacting positively!

And every time I plateau, I drop a bunch of weight as soon as the plateau ends. So that's a nice payoff that makes the plateau frustration worth it.

I just came off a plateau. I went for almost 4 weeks and did not lose a pound. But i also realized I had lost my commitment to the program. I have since refreshed myself and following the program as if it was new to me and recommited myself. I step on the scale this morning and lost 3 pounds this week Yah ( I wont update until Sunday). Just when you reach your plateau(if you do) Make sure you are as commited to the program as you are now and dont give up. Plateau is just a tool the "fat gods" use to keep us fat. You can do it. If I can anyone can.

Plateaus are definitely scary and frustrating things. But like people said, pay attention to your measurements. I didn’t and had a few extremely upsetting months. I started in mid-March, lost my first 30 pound goal by my end of July vacation, like I’d wanted to. And I did that entirely on calorie tracking, no exercise. And I had consistent losses of 1-2 pounds every single week.

When I got back from my trip, I hit a serious plateau. I ate a lot during the trip, so I oddly think that metabolism “spike” a lot of people talk about helped me drop the few pounds I gained on the trip. But then after that, things got really slow and really annoying. I didn’t drop for a few weeks, then I dropped a little, then it came back, then nothing and I started getting really frustrated. Because I was still eating the same calories, had started allowing myself the occasional mild cheat day (I hadn’t allowed anything before my trip) and nothing was happening. So I did a ton of reading about plateaus and different methods for breaking through them. In the end, I decided that I didn’t want to get gimmicky, so I finally started working out.

Well, it’s been about five and half months since that plateau hit, I’ve “only” lost 12 pounds over that time period, compared to the 30 I lost in four and a half months last year. But I’ve gone down two additional pants sizes in that four months as well. The funny thing is that I was so married to the numbers on my scale that I hadn’t even really realized that I had been dropping the inches until people started commenting. So I went shopping and low and behold, two full pants sizes down! (I always wore a belt that I’d punched a ton of extra holes in already, and I just never paid attention to which one I cinched it to)

It really makes me wish I’d started taking measurements from the very beginning and kept up with them as well as I did everything else. Because I think a lot of the stress and frustration I felt during those months would have been lessened by seeing those measurement numbers dropping on a regular basis. But I never stopped and I never gave up, I just stayed steady, did my workouts and kept eating my alloted calories like I always did, even when I felt like it was all a waste of time sometimes when the scale wasn't moving.


Oh, and I also did the scale swap thing. Had only had a spring scale and was getting tired of having to make sure the dial was perfectly set to 0 each time and when the hubby joined MFP we went for a nicer, digital scale. That’s consistently 6 pounds heavier than the spring scale was. *facepalm* I know it didn’t change my actual weight loss, but it did add those 6 “extra” pounds to what I want to lose to real my goal weight, so that didn’t help the frustration at the time. lol

Now if I only could lose these last 8 pounds.