On a pretty serious weight plateau- is this duration normal?

TomMartinArt
TomMartinArt Posts: 5 Member
edited November 15 in Health and Weight Loss
Hiya- I've been jogging since the summer, doing MFP on the 2 lbs a week setting since September, I've lost 30 lbs, I'm doing great, and I've hit a plateau. I understand that that's normal. This, however, has been going on for 43 days. I just checked- I first hit this weight 43 days ago.

I joined a gym last week and have been doing an hour of cardio every day. I was sure that'd help me break through and start losing again, but here we are.

Is this not an unusual duration for a plateau, or is there something I could be doing wrong? The only thing I can think of that I seem to be messing up is my sodium intake (see below), but I don't know how much that could be contributing.

I'm not losing momentum, I'm still really motivated, but I have to admit that this has been really discouraging.

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Replies

  • not_a_runner
    not_a_runner Posts: 1,343 Member
    Sodium is not going to have a long term impact on your weight.
    Looks like you hit a new low weight around 1/27. Overall it looks like your weight has been trending down.
    Since your sodium has been much higher than usual the past few days, you might be holding a little extra water weight from that, but it's just temporary. Eating more than usual can also make the scale go up temporarily, but again this isn't true weight gain. If you are concerned about plateauing you could try to tighten up your logging, looks like there are a few days where there are incomplete days.
    May I ask how you managed to have your sodium so high 3 days in a row though?? 10k? wowza.
  • TomMartinArt
    TomMartinArt Posts: 5 Member
    edited February 2017
    I don't even know, honestly. I have a favorite recipe that involves some salt and beef base, but that does seem excessive. Plus I've been having it pretty regularly over the past two months.

    Surely the visit to Red Robin the other day didn't help.
  • Spliner1969
    Spliner1969 Posts: 3,233 Member
    Pfft. 10k is easy with fast food. I hit 6k if I don't watch it, and that's even without fast food. But I'd have to agree, your weight right now looks to be due to sodium intake. Drink lots of water for the next 2-3 days and keep your intake below say 3k in sodium and you'll probably drop off 3-4 lbs.

    As far as plateaus in general, yes they can easily last a month, but make sure you are adjusting your calorie goals as you lose weight. I never trusted MFP to do it for me, every time I went down 5 lbs I would re-run the wizard manually, and check other sites like iifym, make a decision on which I was going to use and manually update my goals. The less you weigh, the less calories you need on a daily basis.
  • JeromeBarry1
    JeromeBarry1 Posts: 10,179 Member
    Your weight chart does not look like a plateau to me. You've had some consecutive high sodium days recently. This is the most likely suspect in the weight gain reported over the past 5 days. How has your water intake been? If you can drink 96 oz of water, or about 3 l today, and stay within your calorie target, you'll see a substantial whoosh loss tomorrow.
  • NicoleVT83
    NicoleVT83 Posts: 67 Member
    I hear you on that frustration! Leading up to thanksgiving I was down 2-3 pounds then back up and back down. Then I took it easy during holiday season and gained 10 pounds. After New Years I motivated back into routine and was able to drop 10 pounds but went right back to up and then down again
  • snickerscharlie
    snickerscharlie Posts: 8,578 Member
    OP: How much more weight are you looking to lose?
  • medic2038
    medic2038 Posts: 434 Member
    As a general rule "water follows salt".
    From your graph it looks like overall you're going down, you just happen to be on an upswing (water can cause the fluctuations to be quite substantial).
  • TomMartinArt
    TomMartinArt Posts: 5 Member
    Hmm. I drink a good amount of water, but haven't been on my own *kitten* about it. I'll start downing tons of water and see what happens. I'd love to drop out of this zone.
    snickerscharlie wrote: »
    OP: How much more weight are you looking to lose?

    About sixty. Probably eighty, if I can get to sixty.
  • cwolfman13
    cwolfman13 Posts: 41,865 Member
    What I'm seeing is a general slow trend downwards with a new low weight on 1/27...then a bump which I believe could very well be attributable to you starting a gym routine a week ago which can cause you to retain water...pretty high sodium levels as well which will cause more water retention...

    But, draw a trend line from where you start the 43 days through 1/27...there is a clear descending trend line.
  • annacole94
    annacole94 Posts: 994 Member
    If you're a daily weigher, using an app or spreadsheet that shows a trendline is helpful. I use Google Fit, and I like that it smooths out the fluctuations. Happy Scale (apple) or Libra (android) also get mentioned. You're definitely down overall through the last month, just not as much as you'd like.
  • vingogly
    vingogly Posts: 1,785 Member
    It's not the exact same weight. As others have pointed out, it's trending downward. The rate appears to be slower than the 40+ days before it. You have a LOT of days with very high sodium; that doesn't help.
  • Tacklewasher
    Tacklewasher Posts: 7,122 Member
    TomMartinArt wrote: »
    Surely the visit to Red Robin the other day didn't help.

    Have you seen the nutritional info for that place? Could not believe the number of calories in some of their stuff.

    One thing I have to ask, have you reset your goals to go along with your weight loss? You need to update every 5-10 pounds to get a new calorie limit based on current weight. If you haven't done that, you may be eating a bit more than you should (but not at maintenance).

    But I agree with what others have said. Water to reduce the impact of sodium and keep going. It sucks but I'm not sure it is anything to worry about.
  • red99ryder
    red99ryder Posts: 399 Member
    Kind of in same boat since Christmas .. alI I know to do is keep eating my numbers and wait .. like one guy said on here he just writes January off for weight loss lol

    Good luck
  • lulalacroix
    lulalacroix Posts: 1,082 Member
    Looks like a downward trend to me.
  • mitch16
    mitch16 Posts: 2,113 Member
    As others have said, it still looks like a downward trend. Some other things to consider: you have lost some weight already--did you recalculate your caloric needs periodically? (A smaller body needs less calories.) Also, on your Net Calories Consumed graph you have days where your net calories are considerably less than average--what's happening on those days? Are you really eating that little, or do you have "cheat" days that you're not logging? If the latter is true that could be sabotaging your weightloss.
  • TomMartinArt
    TomMartinArt Posts: 5 Member
    MFP adjusted the calories recently. I'm assuming that's all I need.

    On the days when I have a really low net calorie count, that's a day wherein I exercised, racked up a ton of burned calories, and didn't eat those calories back. I never cheat the food log, I know that'd only be screwing me.
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