Breaking A Plateau!! Pointers please

I don't have any pointers but I want to offer you encouragement. You have done a GREAT job!!! Keep it up!

As far as your exercising goes , don't fall into the trap of doing the same routine over and over , be sure to mix things up on a regular basis , whether it's intervals or a different workout altogether. Your body adjust quickly so keep it working and confused ..... Just stay positive and motivated , you will beat the plateau !!!

SW: 210 lbs
CW:167.2 lbs
Height: 5 '4''

Lowest I have gotten is 164.6 lbs. I would start by saying that in my head I think after reaching this weight and receiving compliments from coworkers, friends I thought oh I am fine now. But honestly I have 30 more pounds to lose and I feel pretty bad about overlooking my hard work and letting my eating habits take control of me. Past 4 months I have been in the 166-170 lbs range having very bad eating days and few clean eating days.

I do exercise 4-5 times a week. I am a vegetarian so my diet consists mainly of carbs and I do realize I should try incorporating more protein in my diet.

I would love to listen to your tips of how you have broken plateaus, fought eating habits and work out better.

Also feel free to add me

I am looking to make more pals to encourage and empower one another to achieve our individual goals and provide motivation and a few chuckles during difficult times.

Thank you in advance!

It's NOT a plateau if you're not consistent. A plateau is no weight movement while being consistent for more than 6 weeks. So if you break that consistency, it's NOT a plateau. Getting and staying consistent would be the first suggestion. If in a month you're stuck, then come back and ask for a solution to help.

A.C.E. Certified Personal/Group FitnessTrainer
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Been in fitness for 30 years and have studied kinesiology and nutrition

I mysteriously just broke a four month plateau. The only thing that I think contributed is more consistent tracking, so your admission that you have had some bad eating days might be the culprit. I wasn't able to exercise much this week, so I was pretty meticulous about tracking and staying in my range because I was afraid to gain. Possibly, I had been sloppy tracking and eating back exercise calories because I figured I had burned them off. Also, I am close to my goal weight. Plateaus when you are closer to your goal weight are very typical of the weight loss process.

If you're simply not inadvertently eating more than you think you are, the plateau is most likely water retention, a common enough phenomena when dieting aggressively or for prolonged periods. I believe the reason is hormonal, where a persistent caloric deficit can run down certain hormones in the body, and cause the body to ramp up certain others, which can result in your body retaining more water than expected.

If this is the case, a dietary break of 10 days or so, maybe even two weeks is often recommended, to help reset many of those things back to normal parameters, and give you a platform to drop the pounds again when you resume your diet. You would eat at maintenance calories during this break, so as to avoid and fat regain.

The other option is to have occasional days where you refeed, eating at maintenance calories usually, for the same purpose of replenishing and restoring your bodies hormonal balance to more normal levels. I do these from time to time, in the form of carb refeeds, as I'm doing low carb, and eating primarily carbs (and glucose mainly) and minimal fat every so often helps break a plateau where there's been no shift in bodyweight for 7/ 8/ 9 days (1.5lb per week loss rate, thus I would expect to see a shift of some sort in that time). This is obviously a very specific type of refeed, but imagine general occasional refeeds are equally effective if you're eating in another fashion (ie not low carb).

If you're consistent in your methods, and know what you're doing is right, the above can be great at breaking plateaus, and my understanding of such plateaus was enhanced by reading around the area of cortisol and the 'whoosh' phenomena that some observe. Cutting calories further in this situation is the wrong option, as you are doing everything right, and just need to get your body back on track.

Of course, if your methods are inconsistent, and you are not so confident in what you're doing is right, it may very well be you're not in a caloric deficit, and you need to re-examine the fundamentals of your weight loss plan. Just be careful to discern which of the two it is, as you can see the solutions for each are different, and counterproductive if you administer the incorrect medicine

Lots of water, stick to your eating plan, exercise and most of all, PATIENCE.:drinker:

Be kind to yourself. You've accomplished a lot, and the most important thing is maintenance. Don't worry so much about "eating clean" or "bad eating". Track carefully for a week or two (even without trying to change anything!), but just so you know your average daily intake/output. Once you see the pattern that works for you, try to figure out where you can cut (or add activity). If you can cut 100 calories a day (think of it more like 700/week - maybe that's two desserts?), that's 12 lbs in a year.

i'm a vegetarian, and i have lots of protein in my diet - non-fat greek yogurt, egg beaters, protein powder and various soy items (including tasty burgers and "chicken". i also rarely eat back more than half my exercise calories, as they always seem to be exaggerated by every app, calculator and HRM i've tried.

keep up the good work!

I'm going to throw this out there as something to consider, if you're sticking to the same exercises, especially if it is strictly cardio, try something new. Incorporate some lifting into the routine.