Plateaus and Calorie in and Calorie Out

Squirrel698 · February 2016

So I'm trying to reconcile these two phenomena with each other. Last week I hit a plateau, after losing weight at a steady pace. I had recently increased my calories so I would lose weight at a slower rate but I didn't want it to stop. I was warned a plateau or even a gain might happen, but it was still disconcerting.

I came on here, and the overwhelming opinion seems to be, if you are not losing weight, then you are eating too much. That didn't make sense to me because while I was eating more, I wasn't eating that much more. I do carefully weigh most of my food. I eat some prepackaged salads and don't always measure those, I admit.

Today I dropped a bunch of weight all at once without changing a thing. So my question is, how does the work with CICO? If that's always the case, then why do people gain weight or go on plateaus without changing?

Personally, I wondered what the heck I was doing wrong and thought about going back to me 1250 a day even though that doesn't add up

I know other alternatives could be going on, sodium intake, the amount of exercise, metabolism hurt from too low calorie and so on.

Hopefully, I'm back on the right track now and eating a bit more, so I feel better.

MommyL2015 · February 2016

Because weight loss isn't linear and there are other things that can affect scale numbers other than fat. Give it more than a week and reassess.

RoxieDawn · February 2016

You said you dropped weight all at once right? What you potentially had was known as the phenomena called whoosh effect. http://www.bodyrecomposition.com/fat-loss/of-whooshes-and-squishy-fat.html/ There was another discussion just a day or so ago about this. I do experience these often but back to your questions...

Now if you are not loosing weight after say 4 weeks straight then logging (weighing of food accuracy) needs to be reassessed.

Take a look at this chart. It pretty much sums it all up in a simple flow chart. When followed to a tee it is pretty much 100% fail proof... And for it work you have to use the food scale for everything and stop using measuring cups and measuring spoons, if you do this.

hev481 · February 2016

"Last week I hit a plateau"

There we have it. A real plateau typically lasts longer than a week. Sometimes multiple weeks. The big drop it weight you experienced was likely a result of some fat loss, along with more than usual water loss, and the loss from perhaps a larger than usual BM, variations in water retention from sodium...etc etc.

If you like weighing every day, use an app like Happy Scale or a site like Trendweight to log your daily weights. They will account for everyday ups and downs and normal water loss etc. to give you a "moving average" weight of what your real weight loss looks like.

kimny72 · February 2016

There are other things that contribute to your scale weight other than fat. There are all kinds of processes going on in your body that use up stuff in your body or expel stuff into your body. Mostly water weight, which can easily cause a swing of 3, 5, even 8 or 10 lbs on the scale.

Also your day to day activities and exercise can burn more or less calories based on your energy level, hydration, room temp, and effort. So even if you control your "calories in" perfectly (which is doubtful no matter how careful you are), your "calories out" can fluctuate too and you wouldn't know. So even if you eat the same thing every day, take the same steps every day, and do the same workouts every week, your CI and CO are estimates and will be off some weeks more than others.

That's why one or two weeks isn't a plateau. Once a stall lasts for 4-5 weeks or so, you expect all those variables swings to even out, and at that point figure out where you are going wrong.

_Figgzie_ · February 2016

after losing weight at a steady pace you upped your calories and then you hit a plateau? Generally, plateau really means maintenance......... so what you are eating right now and however much exercise you are doing right now on a daily basis is what it takes to weigh where you have "plateau-ed". If you added back the calories because you felt like you needed to eat more you going to have to move more in order for the scale to continue downwards.

lyndefisher · February 2016

My husband has been logging in daily, not always hitting his calories for the day and had been stuck on a plateaus for the months now. Can't figure out what is going on!

_Figgzie_ · February 2016

lyndefisher wrote: »

My husband has been logging in daily, not always hitting his calories for the day and had been stuck on a plateaus for the months now. Can't figure out what is going on!

http://www.aworkoutroutine.com/why-cant-i-lose-weight/

cwolfman13 · February 2016

CICO just describes the process of weight management in terms of energy balance...it has nothing to do with the linearity or lack thereof with weight loss. You don't lose exactly X Lbs per week...it's not a linear function.

diannethegeek · February 2016

http://community.myfitnesspal.com/en/discussion/10084670/it-is-unlikely-that-you-will-lose-weight-consistently-i-e-weight-loss-is-not-linear

http://community.myfitnesspal.com/en/discussion/10196160/scale-stress-syndrome/p1

Maxematics · February 2016

MommyL2015 wrote: »

Because weight loss isn't linear and there are other things that can affect scale numbers other than fat. Give it more than a week and reassess.

This. Patience is key. If I considered one week or even a few days a plateau like most uninformed people do, I'd screw myself over and end up cutting my calories too low for no reason. I have huge losses after my TOM and it stays that way.

Plateaus and Calorie in and Calorie Out

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