Lowering cals to beat plateau - is it safe?

malliemajorz · August 2020

Hello everyone. I am currently at a plateau in my weight loss journey, I have been stuck at 171 for about three weeks now. I’ve lost 38 pounds so far since May, my starting weight being 209. All of the research I’ve done says that in order to break my plateau, I need to lower my calories even more. Keep in mind that I’m currently in a 1,200 deficit. I’ve always heard that its unsafe to consume any less than that. Is it safe to cut even 100-200 calories from my deficit now, or is there another way? I’m sure there’s another way but I’m wanting to make sure this is safe if it’s my only option. Thank you!

L1zardQueen · August 2020

How long have you been stuck? https://community.myfitnesspal.com/en/discussion/10179969/weight-loss-flow-chart-2-0/p1

heybales · August 2020

Plateau is 6 weeks.

Have you had a diet break purposely - eating more to maintenance level, during that time of loss?
Probably not, doesn't seem like much time.

How much do you have to lose to healthy weight from 171?

38 lbs lost since May, so just the weeks of June and July basically, or including May actually?

Either way - that is some extreme weight loss, even if you count off 3 lbs 1st week for water weight.
35 lbs in 12 weeks say - 3 lb weekly basically. Extreme.

How much deficit are you attempting to take?

How much exercise you doing?
And are you correctly eating more when you do more - or just making the extreme deficit even bigger?

I'm leading up to it sounds like some massive stress on your body due to your weight loss rate.
That adds water weight from increased cortisol.

Stressed body not good to continue with - it will adapt in negative ways that will not make this easier going forward.
You may be experiencing that now already.

Yes, you could keep eating less and less and eventually you'll overpower the body's response to the stress and start losing again. Some fat, some muscle mass as you've undoubtedly done already.

And then if you ever reach goal weight - you'll be back here again in the future doing it again like the majority of dieters do time after time.

I was going to go after accuracy of food logging - but your results obviously prove you have that down well enough, if not the wrong direction.

dawnkirkwood18 · August 2020

I am 5’7” and had almost the same starting weight as you at the end of January (210) - averaged 1200-1400 calories a day plus exercise calories until I hit a 6 week plateau at 175ish in May-June. I didn’t start losing again until about a week after I bumped to 1500-1600 calories a day - at which point it started again and I am averaging about 1 -1.5 per week. That is just my experience.

Lowering cals to beat plateau - is it safe?

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