How did you break your plateau?

How tall are you, how long have you been dieting?

eating at maintenance (or higher if you'd like) regularly - 1 to 4x a month - is actually ideal when in a caloric deficit for an extended period of time. I've yet to do it, although the times I've eaten closer to my maintenance I've definitely seen improvements in fat loss.

Also, you might just be at a good size right now, and might need to just work on body composition more so than weight. So either eating at a smaller deficit while lifting weights and eating lots of protein, or eating at maintenance while lifting weights and eating lots of protein. That way you can focus on dropping fat to help you reach your compositional goals.

FWIW, apparently a healthy weight for me would be just under 140lbs. I was unhappy with my body composition at 145lbs! The max healthy weigh based on BMI for me is apparently 159. My goal is 160, and assuming that gets me to my desired 18% body fat (although at that point I might decide to get closer to 16-17%), afterwards I plan on bulking up and might end up heavier than 160lbs.

I never really felt that I had plateaued at any time I've tried losing weight. THe general trend was always down, I still lost inches, etc. The only time I "plateau" now is if I eat lots of salt and don't bother drinking enough water to help keep me hydrated and to help me lose the water being retained... like right now! But nbd. As long as the deficit is less than 20%, as long as I am fairly consistent with my activity levels or at least make sure to be eating an appropriate deficit based on changed activity levels, I don't really stall.

I hit one when I was at 164lbs and I remember one day I ate a lot of calorie dense food and went about 4000 calories over my net. Then the weight started falling off again.

I can't get below 155.4lbs as of the last 5 weeks (my mini goal is 154lbs which puts me in a healthy weight range.. so close ugh). I started zigzagging my calories yesterday and changed my exercise times and routines. Also switched up when I do strength training and cardio.

Curious to know how you broke yours!

Normal weekly workouts + Ate @TDEE for 6 weeks. When I started eating at a deficit again[TDEE less 20% workout days & 30% on rest days], lost inches first and lbs later.

Any reason for the 6 week maintenance eating? I was going to do an every other weekend TDEE eating/refeed... maybe I should consider eating at maintenance this coming week starting today since I keep putting off my TDEE day (mostly due to there being a few times where I've been unable to calculate my intake, so I guess I figured it'd be better to wait a bit longer in case I ate near maintenance or above).

No specific science based approach. I just thought that 6 weeks was long enough for my body to 'think' that I was eating at a 'new normal' amount, before 'shocking' it again@deficit eating. Granted, earlier on, I did try it your way and that worked too.

Thanks for sharing! I think I'm gonna try eating at maintenance for a week, and then do a weekly or every-other-week refeed/maintenance day starting in September so I can schedule it out more easily. Yay more food!!