Week 3 did I got a plateau?

Here is a great thread about fluctuations. It's pretty normal...

https://community.myfitnesspal.com/en/discussion/10084670/it-is-unlikely-that-you-will-lose-weight-consistently-i-e-weight-loss-is-not-linear/p1

I lost some weight a few years back and learned fluctuations and plateaus are real and frustrating. My longest plateau was three weeks and then suddenly tons of weight shed within a few days. And the largest fluctuation was eight or nine pounds over the course of a few days. Always averaged out with the largest contributing factor being salt intake, stress, or lack of water (dehydration).

nicolewalter16 wrote: »

It's the beginning of week 3 and so far I have lost weight (only about 8 lbs tho) I want to lose a total of 50 lbs. But yesterday I cou yes everything, definitely was in a calorie deficit of 700+ calories and still GAINED weight.

Why am I doing this if it won't work?

What they all said above about fluctuations (especially those links!).

As an aside, 8 pounds in 3 weeks is not slow. It's actually pretty fast . . . especially if 50 pounds is the total amount you have to lose. (That's about how much I lost here back in 2015.)

Sometimes, I think that reality TV shows (Biggest Loser is the classic example) and tabloid headlines ("Lose 20 Pounds in a Month with XYZ Diet!!!") have led people to have unrealistic ideas about weight loss rates.

Any meaningful amount of weight loss - and I'd consider 50 pounds meaningful - is a at least a multi-week to multi-month project. (It took me a bit under a year, faster at first, intentionally slower later.) To be successful, it needs to be sustainable for those weeks/months. Further, since we're not off at a camp with coaches and dietitians and stuff, it needs to be sustainable that long while leaving us enough time and energy to carry on with normal life.

I lost weight too fast for a while (not so much by trying, as that MFP underestimates my calorie needs, which is rare). I felt great, not hungry . . . for a while. Then I hit a wall, got weak and fatigued. It took several weeks to recover. Since I'm retired and don't have a family depending on me, that had less impact for me than it would in a lot of cases. That's without even getting into the health risks and things like hair loss, that can happen from too-fast weight loss.

Quite a few people here (me included), think that most of us are better served by targeting one-half to one percent (max) of current weight as a weekly loss rate, and perhaps less than that as one gets below 25-50 pounds total left to lose. That implies that 2 pounds a week might be safe if over 200 pounds (but other factors matter, too). Faster loss than 0.5-1% is mainly for morbidly obese people, ideally under close medical supervision for nutritional issues.

Personally, I liked thinking of weight loss as weight-maintenance practice: A time to experiment, and figure out habits that would be sustainable, easily and happily, in order to stay at a healthy weight long term (which I'm now in year 5+ of doing, after 30+ previous years of obesity, BTW). During weight loss, there's that sensible moderate calorie deficit as a cushion to absorb any missteps along the way. At goal weight, maintaining weight is just a matter of adding back those few calories. There are other ways to go about it, but I think that treating weight loss entirely as a white-knuckle extreme project with an end date . . . well, that's a bad plan, for most people, IMO.

There's more than one way for a weight loss plan to not work. One - as you imply - is simply not losing weight (like others, I think you *are* losing fat still, just having water retention make that fat loss play peek-a-boo on the bodyeweight scale for a while).

The other way for a plan not to work is being too difficult to stick with. That can take a couple of forms: One is being so restricted that periodic overeating happens, and wipes out progress, or a fair chunk of it. The other is being difficult enough that the slightest perturbation in daily life throws one off plan, and one quits entirely, or for an extended period.

Losing weight patiently and consistently at a sensibly moderate pace, over a gradual time period, can sometimes be a faster route than trying to hit a fast weekly weight loss rate, because of those potentials.

You know yourself better than I do, but think it over. What will work best for you? Have you dieted in the past? How did you do it? Did you reach goal weight? Did you keep the weight off? Make a personalized plan accordingly.

For sure, for someone with 50 pounds to lose, losing 2.6 pounds a week is not slow, it's very fast, aggressive.

Wishing you much success, sincerely!