???How did I end my plateau, you ask???

pauljsolie
pauljsolie Posts: 1,024 Member
edited September 2024 in Health and Weight Loss
OK, I want as much feedback on this as possible. Theories, assumptions, actual experience is all welcome. I have been on a stubborn plateau for about 3 weeks now. I haven't changed my diet, eating times, exercise (maybe alittle bit more) and water consumption has all been stable. I just have bounced up/down about a half pound for at least 3 weeks now. Yesterday after mowing the lawn, for some unknown reason, I decided to put a packet of Emergen C raspberry in my Crystal light lemonade. It was good and I felt kind of evergized by it. I did this 2 more times throughout the day. This morning (Saturday) I got on the scale and I was down just under 2.5 pounds from Thursday morning. Do you think the Emergen C had anything to do with this or was it just time? How cool would it be to find a solution to plateaus like that? Let me know, I want to hear yeas and nays on this.

Replies

  • TAMMY_76
    TAMMY_76 Posts: 199
    look into calorie cycling (zig zagging)
  • lemanda
    lemanda Posts: 116 Member
    Could have just been time, or maybe you need to drink more water. Who knows!
  • Lindz2323
    Lindz2323 Posts: 261 Member
    that is interesting! hmmm =) glad it worked for you if thats what helped! Good luck to you =)
  • chauncyrenayCHANGED
    chauncyrenayCHANGED Posts: 788 Member
    That's crazy! Emergen-C has nutrients, so maybe your body was craving the vitamin aspect of things. If that's the case, supplements is your answer - not necessarily Emergen-C. I'm interested in what others have to say. Anyway, congrats on the breaking the plateau! Woop!
  • chevy88grl
    chevy88grl Posts: 3,937 Member
    I don't know - but I know in my own exprience weird things can trigger a break in a plateau. For example, I was taking green tea pills for awhile and wasn't losing weight. Stopped taking them and poof! 3lbs came off. So, you just never know. I don't see how Emergen C COULD cause it - but you never know!

    Let me tell you this much - I accidentally went over my calories for a few days and a few days later saw a loss on the scale. Upp'ed my calories for a week and lost 5lbs. I know they say as we get leaner we should need LESS calories, but I disagree with this. As you build muscle, you should need MORE calories since muscle burns more calories. As of right now, I am eating between 2200-2500 a day and maintaining at 144lbs.
  • pauljsolie
    pauljsolie Posts: 1,024 Member
    I do take supplements and drink half my weight in ounces per day. I don't know for sure but I'll take it. :smile:
  • findingfit23
    findingfit23 Posts: 845 Member
    I wonder if you did some extra sweating mowing the law and got things going? Maybe you need to up your daily water a bit?
  • Cytherea
    Cytherea Posts: 515 Member
    Post hoc ergo propter hoc.

    Just because it happened after you had the emergen-c, doesn't mean that it CAUSED it.

    You've been on a plateau for a while now. Maybe it was just time for the plateau to be broken and you lost some weight all at once.

    Maybe you did drink more water and that helped, or it was the little bit of increased exercise, or something else entirely. Maybe there is no good reason at all, just that given enough time and determination, the plateau WILL be broken.

    Whatever it was, I'm glad that you managed to break through it though! :smile:
  • pauljsolie
    pauljsolie Posts: 1,024 Member
    Post hoc ergo propter hoc.

    Just because it happened after you had the emergen-c, doesn't mean that it CAUSED it.

    You've been on a plateau for a while now. Maybe it was just time for the plateau to be broken and you lost some weight all at once.

    Maybe you did drink more water and that helped, or it was the little bit of increased exercise, or something else entirely. Maybe there is no good reason at all, just that given enough time and determination, the plateau WILL be broken.

    Whatever it was, I'm glad that you managed to break through it though! :smile:
    Yeah, you're probably right. I was so excited to see the drop, I guess I can stop thinking about buying Emergen C stock. :frown:
  • FitRodr
    FitRodr Posts: 353 Member
    I get sooo discouraged when I'm STUCK! I'm not sure there's a magic remedy to breaking the plateau but I'll watch this feed to find out. I do think that sometimes our bodies just need to settle and adjust to weight loss.

    Congrats - A win is a win!
  • pauljsolie
    pauljsolie Posts: 1,024 Member
    Thanks FitRodr and thanks for the friend add and nice comment.
  • jenthestrawberry
    jenthestrawberry Posts: 93 Member
    So I "plateaued" for the first time the last few weeks. Not seeing a change in weight at first, then slowly putting back on the 2 lbs that I'd most recently lost. I started examining my diet, and excercise, and HRM constantly. For a while I thought it was over-counting exercise calories, but even upping the intensity of my workouts didn't matter.

    Then i realised something. The one thing I haven't been doing is putting an emergen-c electro mix into my water. When you're athletic, or exercising and sweating you sweat equal amounts of water and electrolytes (mostly sodium but also magnesium, potassium, etc..), when you drink only water after the workout this can lead to a state of hypotonic dehydration. Meaning, your body has enough water, but the water/electrolyte levels aren't right.. And I sweat, a lot. According to the wikipedia article on dehydration "In hypotonic dehydration, intravascular water shifts to the extravascular space, exaggerating intravascular volume depletion for a given amount of total body water loss."

    Simplified, when your blood has too few electrolytes, or too few of a single electrolyte, the water is removed from the blood into the other cells of your body causing "bloating".

    So, as soon as I figured it out, I went and added an electro mix to my water bottle and drank it over the course of the evening. I was up to the bathroom multiple times in the evening and the next day I was back down the two extra lbs. The next two days, I lost an additional 4 lbs for a total of 6 lbs of retained water lost in 3 days.

    Depending on the "flavour" of emergen-c, it may also contain various vitamins as well as calcium, magnesium, potassium, and sodium. Perhaps you hadn't really plateaued, in that you had already lost the fat, and you were just retaining water and the emergen-c helped eliminate it.
  • pauljsolie
    pauljsolie Posts: 1,024 Member
    Thanks jen, that makes alot of sense. I have increased the intensity of my exercise so that may have been what was happening. I am back to losing 2 pounds per week. Thanks again and good luck on your journey.
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