How to get over a plateau?
Fivefootninebaddie
Posts: 11 Member
I’m pretty lean because I recently lost 56 pounds but I want to lose more. I’m 5’9 and 138, my goal is to get to 135 or maybe 130. I haven’t lost anything in months and I’m working out fairly hard and eating well. I just rly want to lose the last 5-10 lbs so I can be ready for summer. Any tips?
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Replies
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Do you use a food scale for everything, weighing and logging it all, no skipping, cheating, or forgetting? If not, start there.
You’re down to the last few pounds. You are going to have to be very accurate on your calorie intake as there isn’t as much wiggle room as there used to be.
Second question- do you lift weights at all? If you’re that light (I’m 5’9 too, and 138 would look underweight on me) and don’t look like you want to look, it may be a matter of adding muscle, not losing weight at this point.5 -
Change your routine. Eat foods you've never eaten before. Do exercises you've never done before. Break the monotony. Get you body off of "cruise control".
This advice was given to me by the trainers at my gym. As a result, I broke a 9 month plateau in 3 weeks.3 -
Fivefootninebaddie wrote: »I’m pretty lean because I recently lost 56 pounds but I want to lose more. I’m 5’9 and 138, my goal is to get to 135 or maybe 130. I haven’t lost anything in months and I’m working out fairly hard and eating well. I just rly want to lose the last 5-10 lbs so I can be ready for summer. Any tips?
given your stats you might want to look into recomp instead of losing more scale weight.10 -
quiksylver296 wrote: »Do you use a food scale for everything, weighing and logging it all, no skipping, cheating, or forgetting? If not, start there.
You’re down to the last few pounds. You are going to have to be very accurate on your calorie intake as there isn’t as much wiggle room as there used to be.
Second question- do you lift weights at all? If you’re that light (I’m 5’9 too, and 138 would look underweight on me) and don’t look like you want to look, it may be a matter of adding muscle, not losing weight at this point.
I haven’t been tracking calories because I have a history of an ed and tracking triggers that part of my brain. Just estimating has worked for me to lose the weight so far. I do a lot of cardio so i can switch to more HIIT and maybe I’ll do weights too!2 -
Fivefootninebaddie wrote: »quiksylver296 wrote: »Do you use a food scale for everything, weighing and logging it all, no skipping, cheating, or forgetting? If not, start there.
You’re down to the last few pounds. You are going to have to be very accurate on your calorie intake as there isn’t as much wiggle room as there used to be.
Second question- do you lift weights at all? If you’re that light (I’m 5’9 too, and 138 would look underweight on me) and don’t look like you want to look, it may be a matter of adding muscle, not losing weight at this point.
I haven’t been tracking calories because I have a history of an ed and tracking triggers that part of my brain. Just estimating has worked for me to lose the weight so far. I do a lot of cardio so i can switch to more HIIT and maybe I’ll do weights too!
It's totally understandable if you can't get more detail oriented with calories. Unfortunately that makes focusing on a couple of lbs far more difficult.
As you said, you are already lean, so you really can't expect to lose more than 1-2 lbs of fat per month. And that small amount can easily hide behind water weight fluctuations for weeks at a time.
Feel free to not answer this question here if you're not comfortable, but it's an important one for you to know - why do you want to lose 3-8 more lbs?
If you are looking for a small aesthetic difference in the mirror, as others have mentioned you may get more bang for your buck putting on your patient pants, eating to maintain your weight, and focusing on getting fit/building muscle.
If you just have a goal weight in your head that you feel like you should hit, it might help to just give yourself a break. Focus on maintaining while continuing to improve your diet/fitness/sleep/posture etc and tell yourself you can return to trying to hit your goal later in the year if you still want. Sometimes the pressure we put on ourselves is counter productive
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Fivefootninebaddie wrote: »quiksylver296 wrote: »Do you use a food scale for everything, weighing and logging it all, no skipping, cheating, or forgetting? If not, start there.
You’re down to the last few pounds. You are going to have to be very accurate on your calorie intake as there isn’t as much wiggle room as there used to be.
Second question- do you lift weights at all? If you’re that light (I’m 5’9 too, and 138 would look underweight on me) and don’t look like you want to look, it may be a matter of adding muscle, not losing weight at this point.
I haven’t been tracking calories because I have a history of an ed and tracking triggers that part of my brain. Just estimating has worked for me to lose the weight so far. I do a lot of cardio so i can switch to more HIIT and maybe I’ll do weights too!
HIIT (as in close to maximal effort cardio intervals) is done for specific fitness reasons, in small doses and it's not actually a high calorie burner if that's what you are thinking - the recovery periods drag down the average burn to a rough equivalent of quite moderate intensity cardio.
With the downsides duration is very limited and it builds a huge amount of fatigue.4 -
Fivefootninebaddie wrote: »quiksylver296 wrote: »Do you use a food scale for everything, weighing and logging it all, no skipping, cheating, or forgetting? If not, start there.
You’re down to the last few pounds. You are going to have to be very accurate on your calorie intake as there isn’t as much wiggle room as there used to be.
Second question- do you lift weights at all? If you’re that light (I’m 5’9 too, and 138 would look underweight on me) and don’t look like you want to look, it may be a matter of adding muscle, not losing weight at this point.
I haven’t been tracking calories because I have a history of an ed and tracking triggers that part of my brain. Just estimating has worked for me to lose the weight so far. I do a lot of cardio so i can switch to more HIIT and maybe I’ll do weights too!
HIIT (as in close to maximal effort cardio intervals) is done for specific fitness reasons, in small doses and it's not actually a high calorie burner if that's what you are thinking - the recovery periods drag down the average burn to a rough equivalent of quite moderate intensity cardio.
With the downsides duration is very limited and it builds a huge amount of fatigue.
Ok good to know!1 -
I am a similar height and weight and started a similar thread recently - I had completely plateau'd for almost two months. I had a lot of very helpful responses - maybe do a search?
In my case i tightened up my logging, changed a few of my walks for runs and on the advice of that thread increased my calories (from 1200 to 1580 currently). My weight has started to move again, but I know that this last stretch will be slow going. It took 9 months to lose 41lb and I'm expecting the last 10-15 to take the same amount of time.
As others have said I think the key is to change things up as our bodies get used to what we do.3 -
Analog_Kid wrote: »Change your routine. Eat foods you've never eaten before. Do exercises you've never done before. Break the monotony. Get you body off of "cruise control".
This advice was given to me by the trainers at my gym. As a result, I broke a 9 month plateau in 3 weeks.
This is exactly what helped me!
Bumped up my workout with a big variety of different exercises and stopped eating protein bars, instead only natural foods.1 -
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There is some good advice in here, but honestly my advice is probably just patience. I think things like switching it up can help some, but I also think part of what they do is just distract you while your body does its thing. I was in a 3 month plateau, and then suddenly without changing a thing my body started dropping weight again, for a bit at a faster rate than it had before the plateau. I wish I could figure out what caused that so I can keep it happening! Obviously individuals vary, but this was just my experience.
And, just because my weight didn't change doesn't mean other things weren't. I have a pair of goal pants and at the start of the plateau were "well, I can finally button them" to "I can button them and comfortably sit" by the end of it. And, it's also when I started noticing more muscle development in my legs. Even if the scale wasn't moving, my body was still making changes in response to my diet and exercise. It's why my dietitian has me focus on my non-scale goals.7 -
Biggiwig69 wrote: »Analog_Kid wrote: »Change your routine. Eat foods you've never eaten before. Do exercises you've never done before. Break the monotony. Get you body off of "cruise control".
This advice was given to me by the trainers at my gym. As a result, I broke a 9 month plateau in 3 weeks.
This is exactly what helped me!
Bumped up my workout with a big variety of different exercises and stopped eating protein bars, instead only natural foods.
You chose the only comment that has no scientific bearing.
Switching things up does nothing for weight loss, eating 'natural foods' also does nothing for weight loss. Instead, look at long-term trends and track and weigh accurately. Make sure your calorie deficit fits your current stats.8 -
Biggiwig69 wrote: »Analog_Kid wrote: »Change your routine. Eat foods you've never eaten before. Do exercises you've never done before. Break the monotony. Get you body off of "cruise control".
This advice was given to me by the trainers at my gym. As a result, I broke a 9 month plateau in 3 weeks.
This is exactly what helped me!
Bumped up my workout with a big variety of different exercises and stopped eating protein bars, instead only natural foods.
You chose the only comment that has no scientific bearing.
Switching things up does nothing for weight loss, eating 'natural foods' also does nothing for weight loss. Instead, look at long-term trends and track and weigh accurately. Make sure your calorie deficit fits your current stats.
exactly.
you are either tracking food better, or are burning more. Regardless, it has nothing to do with changing foods or switching things up.1 -
Low weight already.
Not tracking calories.
History of eating disorder.
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Ok here’s an update: I haven’t been weighing myself as a much lately. I have just been focusing on recomp and building muscle. This actually made me lose more weight somehow, I’m 135 now!5
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