Do plateaus really exist?

With your medical issues, your inactivity and your medically-supervised food plan, I don't think anyone can really give you an answer.

None of us knows the "exact" number of CICO. Outside of a laboratory setting, it is all estimation. I've never hit a long plateau, I just change things up - either more exercise or less food.

I lost my 70 pounds nine years ago. I've tracked food on and off for all of that time and have kept the weight off (+/- 10-15 pounds). I find a digital food scale, logging food and weighing my body to be enough to keep the weight off.

I guess my concern would be that you not start to think that the only way to keep weight off (or to lose weight) is through a supervised plan and packaged food. It isn't that difficult to do on your own with real, homemade food. It takes me *maybe* five minutes extra a day to log my food.

When I first started trying to lose weight, I lost steadily for the first couple months. Then, I hit a plateau for about three months before I started losing again. That said, I can say with near absolute certainty that my plateau was caused by CI being equal to CO - I was basically at maintainence without intending to be.

For me, it wasn't a case of eating more than I thought I was. What happened was... my calories out decreased. Because I'd lost weight the same exercise didn't burn the same amount of calories as it had previously. Once I started being more accurate with what I was eating (and actually decreased my intake) and increased my exercise, I started losing again.

Maybe not plateaus, but fits and starts. In the beginning, when I had a lot of weight to lose, it came off steady. When I was reaching my ideal weight, however, I would sometimes go a month or six weeks before losing two or three pounds at once. Your body metabolism has no concept of linear time or schedule: it just will do what it wants to do when it wants to do it.

Yes, they are real and I've experienced a few. It is important to note that during a real plateau, the scale does change. It hovers around a base weight, but if your scale shows 212.6 lbs. every day for 6 months, then that isn't what you should be expecting during a plateau. From day to day and hour to hour, your weight might range from 208.4 to 216.3 for 6 months despite being in a deficit... THAT is what a real plateau looks like.

At the end of a plateau (and it isn't exactly something you can force to end on your own), you should expect to lose a significant amount of weight in a very short period of time. If you should have lost 8 lbs., you might unexpectedly lose 8 lbs. in a matter of 2-5 days time, and then your new scale "range" stays lower. I say "range" because even when people are actually losing weight rather than hovering around the same weight, there is still fluctuation from day to day and hour to hour.

Something else about a true plateau is that, while you are not experiencing sustained weight loss, you won't experience sustained weight gains. During my longest plateau, I changed up my diet about 2 months into the plateau. The change was to an IF diet with deep restrictions at times and no restrictions at other times. Because there were no restrictions at times and my appetite is enormous, I ended up with a total calorie surplus for 6 weeks during this time - enough that I should have been gaining 1 lb. per day at first. But I did not experience sustained gains either, because that is how a true plateau works. The scale range became much larger during this time (at one point, I gained 9 lbs. in 5 hrs.), but still hovered around the same base weight. Unfortunately, it did not end the plateau. It wasn't for more than 2 months after returning to a small daily deficit that I finally got the "whoosh" of a large unexplained weight loss in just a few days.

Most people losing weight never experience a true plateau. I don't know why I'm different and have experienced more than 1. I do know that I logged with impeccable precision and completion during plateaus... I still do when not in a plateau. That means I log absolutely everything with a single calorie and weigh it. If I chew a piece of sugarless gum that has 5 calories, I log it. I log my supplement pills, some of which have small amounts of calories. For anyone who thinks they are in a plateau, the first thing to do is look at logging to make sure every gram is accounted for properly and that exercise calories are based on valid data. Many people will find after doing this that they were not really in a plateau, they just needed to improve logging.

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luveydov wrote: »

This is more curiosity than anything. I am on a controlled, medically supervised diet. I eat packets of food for most meals and snacks. I supplement with vegetables, olive oil and one protein source per day. I have been a little loose on weighing and measuring here so I know I can clean that up. I am almost 60 so I am beyond menstrual cycles and hormone fluctuations. I have fibromyalgia and chronic fatigue syndrome so right now I am sedentary.

So far, I have lost almost 40 pounds on my program. I currently weigh 226 pounds. I weigh my self every morning, but weigh at my doctor's office weekly. For the last 3 weeks I have not lost any weight.

I am not disheartened and I am not planning to go off my plan. I will clean up my act as far as weighing and measuring my vegetables, eggs (my usual protein) and olive oil. I will also try to get a little exercise in. So I know what I should do to make sure my CI<CO is accurate.

But, I am curious. Do true plateaus exist where a person really is running on CI<CO and still not losing? Does anybody have experience of hitting one where they know for certain that CI is less than CO?

Everything I've read and experienced through 147 of weight loss is that so-called plateaus are calorie creep or inaccurate tracking. If your CI is less than CO your body has to lose weight. The time frame and fluctuation patterns vary, hormonal issues can affect CO, water weight is always there, etc. Patience is required. I've had a few weeks with no loss, sometimes even an increase on the scale, but the month to month trend for 2+ years is down. You have to make sure you have the right eating and exercise plan in place, you have to tweak it as you progress, but the most important thing is that you have to follow it even when the scale doesn't say what you want. I stick to my plan fastidiously through every stall because I see in my body that I'm losing, and the scales always prove me right in the end. That said, it takes an objective eye, measurements, and lots of experience to "see" the changes in your body even when the scales don't move. Some people are too wrapped up in body issues to be able see changes that are obvious to others. But as I approach maintenance after 2+ years of doing this, I can see changes every few days and KNOW that a loss is coming even when the scale is stuck for a week or more. Right now is one of those times.

Weigh ins at doctor offices are difficult because you are clothed and likely have eaten before you get there, so it's not as good a reflection of your true weight. If you happen to go on a day when you're already fluctuating up, the time of day at doc office will further skew the results. Follow the plan that has worked for you, tighten up your logging, and keep plugging away as you say you will! You've got this!