I just broke out of a 5 week plateau! Here's how!

Hi all.

I'm posting this on the "Motivation" board, because I was starting to lose my motivation when I hit this hard plateau, less than 10 lbs from my goal weight. I hope that this might help some others who become discouraged when they hit a plateau.

Since I started my weight loss regimen in November 2010 it had been smooth sailing for me - losing about 13 lbs/month at the beginning, then as I got closer to my goal, the weight got harder to lose, but still between 8 and 10 lbs per month, pretty consistently... then, as I approached that last 10 lbs, thud... the scale stopped moving.

I wasn't doing anything differently - still consuming about 1200 cals/day, exercising at about 600-700 cals/day, 4 to 6 times/week... but nothing was moving the scale. As a matter of fact, about 3 weeks ago I GAINED about 5 lbs, suddenly. (turned out to be water weight, from a particularly salty meal... )

I tried amping up the exercise - nothing. I tried lowering the cals too - still, nothing.

Then, I started reading posts here about various issues such as "eating back exercise cals". The evidence is pretty convincing, even though it sounds counter-intuitive. I decided to give it a try... I have been so strict with myself about calorie restriction that I felt kinda "afraid" to consume all those extra calories... I had to repeatedly tell myself that it was OK...

Well, after about a week... nothing. I was actually relieved that "nothing" happened, instead of gaining weight.

I had been using the elliptical machine exclusively (aside from playing racquetball several times a week). This had been reliably helping me lose the weight - at least I was pretty sure that it was. But again, I read here that mixing up your exercise routine might give your metabolism the jolt it needed to break out of a plateau... so I tried the treadmill (much harder than I thought) and the rowing machine. I also lowered my calorie burn from 600-700 per session to 250 on each machine - treadmill and rowing, for a total of 500.

At about the same time, I started to up my water intake. I was really bad about this previously. I likely consumed only about 16 oz per day before this increase. I upped it to between 64 and 96 oz per day. I found that I like crystal light "on the go" packets. It makes the water go down much easier, and it's very inexpensive. (I found that I prefer half the suggested dose - in other words, one packet for 32 oz)

Well, I don't know for sure if it was the additional calories, the mixing up of the exercises or the added water, but my hunch is that it was the water increase that finally broke me out of the plateau. I've been drinking the increased amount for about 10 days or so. I've lost 4 lbs in just the last few days, and now I'm 1.5 lbs away from my goal.

Perhaps in reality, the cause is the additional exercise I now get from running to the bathroom about a million times a day.