Weight loss plateau - HELP!

Bump - I've been plateaued for 3 months :-( Can't wait to read any advice you get!

Sometimes I swear I am the QUEEN of hitting the plateau. I quit trying a year ago after hitting a plateau. It can really dereail you and take away your motivation to keep going. BUT, now here I sit on my weight loss and lifestyle change journey and all I think about is if I hadn't given up, I would be at my goal weight right now. That definitely keeps me going!
I have posted some tips on my page before about getting rid of the plateau. Change things up. Go eat a few hundred extra calories once a week. Don't go crazy and pick fatty foods, but pick healthy choices and mix it up so your body doesn't adjust to the same number of calories in every week.
Also, switch up your exercise routine. Our bodies are great at adapting. Same calories in & same calories out = one big adjustment and a big plateau. I have now beaten 2 plateus since restarting this journey. Once you get past the first one, the second one is much easier to get through. It is never not frustrating, but you know you can beat it, break through & keep going. Jillian Michaels posted something on her page before, which is where I stole the high calorie day from. If you want, e-mail me and I will cut & pase it from my blog!
Good luck! Don't give up. You CAN do it!

how's your water intake? i plateaued for about 12 weeks. a couple of weeks ago i upped my water to 12 servings (96 ounces) per day, and i think it did the trick. i lost 2 pounds the first week i increased my water, and tomorrow is my second weigh in, so we'll see how it goes. i'm pretty sure the plateau broke though, because when i 'peeked' earlier this week i was down another pound and a half. even if that number is not there for the official record tomorrow, just seeing that loss makes me feel pretty sure i'm on the move again.

for the 12 weeks i ping-ponged between 197 and 198.5. last weigh in i was at 196, and my 'peek' showed 195.2. and fyi, i exercise 5 days per week and typically eat back about half of my exercise calories. good luck! it will break eventually - stay the course!

Here's the info from the Jillian site that I posted in my blog. Hope this helps!

Q: I love that I have the information I need to lose 2 pounds a week; however, I would like to lose more than that. How can I lose 4 to 5 pounds a week? I have a total of 96 more pounds to lose.
A: To lose a pound, you must burn 3,500 calories. As I've said before, it's all about the math — how to burn more calories in the most effective way.

You can only do so much resistance training without damaging your muscles and impeding your results. Additionally, you can't starve the weight off: If you eat fewer than 1,200 calories a day, you will sabotage your optimal results. Therefore, cardio is weight loss extra credit. It allows you to burn additional calories without overtraining. This is one of the reasons some Biggest Loser players can still lose 20 pounds a week, even 7 weeks into the program.

Think about the math: If you are eating 1,500 calories a day — we assume your BMR without exercise is 1,600 (this is actually my BMR) — and you do two 1-hour cardio sessions that burn 500 calories each (one in the morning and one at night), the two sessions, along with your regular daily activity, will speed up your base metabolism to at least 2,000. As a result, you will have burned about 1,500 calories that day — that is, almost half a pound. At that rate you will be losing up to 3.5 pounds a week.

That said, you are bound to lose more weight during the first two weeks of any weight loss regimen because of the dramatic change in your diet and the loss of excess fluid. After that, it's all about crunching the numbers, and cardio is the key.


Q: How can I bust through a weight-loss plateau? I've been working really hard and have been having success; however, the scale hasn't budged for the past two and a half weeks.
A:
Let me just tell you this, a weight-loss plateau is an integral part of weight loss. DO NOT BE DISCOURAGED! It is your body's way of protecting you for survival purposes. The weight-loss plateau occurs because your body thinks there is a famine and has slowed your metabolism in order to conserve calories. This will happen periodically throughout your weight-loss odyssey.

That said, a plateau will usually break on its own after about three weeks, but here are several ways to help get your metabolism back on track quickly!

Exercise Tips

1. Variety: Often we fall into an exercise routine — meaning that we do the same workout regimen for weeks at a time. Think of it like this: if you do 10 push-ups after not working out for months, you will be sore, but if you do 10 push-ups a day for 10 days in a row, you will no longer be sore. This is because your body adapts to your exercise program, and as it adapts, the workout becomes less challenging — and, unfortunately, less effective.

The solution is variety. You have to mix up your exercise routine in order to consistently shock your system. Here are a few different ways to mix up your workout:

Alternate the weight — one week lift heavy, and the next week lift light.
Change the number of repetitions. This usually goes hand in hand with the amount of weight you are lifting: one week heavy weights, low reps; the next week light weights, high reps.
Change the exercise: One week do a chest press, the next week a chest fly, and the next week push-ups.
2. Intensity: The best way to speed up your metabolism is to boost the intensity of your training. By picking up the intensity, you'll burn more calories, challenge your body, and literally force your metabolism to burn a little brighter because of all the energy your body needs to complete your exercise regimen.

Food Tips

1. Eat more: Ninety percent of the time plateaus are caused by your body's survival mechanism of protecting against famine, which is triggered by calorie reduction. The best way to fix this quickly is to give your body a little more food so it feels secure. Varying your calorie intake is my best advice for keeping your body from plateauing: For the next three days vary your calorie intake between 1,800 and 2,400 calories. I know this may sound crazy, but trust me...I know what I'm doing. Then, after three days, drop back down to the calorie allowance that I have set for you through this program.



2. Reduce your sodium and DRINK LOTS OF WATER: Keep your sodium under 1,500 mg a day at most for as long as you can manage. You can achieve this in part by cutting all processed food out of your diet for two weeks.

I promise you that if you follow these tips to the letter, your plateau will be shattered by the end of week 2!

Don't lose hope or motivation. Plateauing seems to be a really common occurrance for people when losing weight. Change up your exercise routine a bit. Are you drinking enough water? That is a REAL key in weight loss. If you aren't drinking enough water, your body can't lose the weight. Sleep is also key in weight loss. You need 8 hours to allow your body to do what you want it to. You might think you can get by with less sleep, but your body really needs it, so if you haven't been getting 8 hours, try to start adding 15 minutes a day until you are there. You can do it!

Bump - I've been plateaued for 3 months :-( Can't wait to read any advice you get!

How many pounds a week are you trying to lose? Anything more that 1.5 with the amount of weight you have left is probably too high. Even 1.5/week might be too high.

Also, what sort of workouts are you doing? If it is mainly long duration cardio types, you will have to change that to resistance training and Interval training.

I heard from a trainer that simply cutting your carbs and sugar intake will confuse your body and kick off the weight loss again. You have to cut the sugar then a few weeks latter add more sugar and just keep your body guessing at what is going on.

Just keep going - even if your not dropping pounds right now - it will happen again soon. If you're doing it right, it will kick back in soon. Don't lose motivation... it's these kind of tests that make or break you. You'll have lots of up's and down's throughout this.
I had a major plateau too - but that was caused by me cutting my cals in half for a few weeks, because I was doing so well prior, i thought if i ate less i would lose even more... yeah that wasn't smart. Starvation mode! and when i did start doing it right again, big plateau.

Good luck

Have you tried filing for divorce from your scale? I still weighed myself, but I divorced the scale for a bit and cheated with my tape measure. I didn't do measurements when I started... but, I went ahead and did some measurements and then decided to see how it went. My scale & I are on good terms again, but sometimes taking measurements can affirm that you are in fact still on the right track and keep you going. Just a thought. I don't rely on either one anymore, but use both. My tape measure & I are on the outs right now anyway, but I am loving my scale. Just goes to show you, if you keep on going things will happen. Good luck & keep going!

Lots of great thoughts here!