Weight loss plateaus are very frustrating. You put in all this work, then weigh yourself only to realize that the scales haven’t moved. I have been there as well when I was losing weight. I can recall how I was searching Google trying to understand what’s happening. Looking back my view on weight loss plateaus has changed quite a bit and I’m going to talk about my personal experience later in the article as well.
Let’s first start with a rough definition: A weight loss plateau is a period of more than two weeks where you haven’t lost any weight. Most people actually become nervous about this far too soon in order for it to qualify as a plateau.
I’d take a wild guess that more than half of people who think they are facing this issue haven’t even waited more than a week before searching for a solution. (I used to be in this group as well.)
If you think you might be part of this group, it comes down to becoming a bit more patient. We are conditioned to think that every week the scale has to move. Many people even expect to see a difference on a daily basis which is very counterproductive. There are a couple of reasons why you can’t expect your scales to show your progress every week and I will address them in this article.
With that said, let’s look at the reason why you might be facing a weight loss plateau.
Reasons For A Weight Loss Plateau
For the majority of people who really face a weight loss plateau, the reason will come down to eating too many calories. A weight loss plateau normally occurs when you are a few months into your diet. This is when you have lost significant amounts of weight already. It is easy to become a bit more lenient and eat an extra snack here and there. After all you got this figured out now.
The solution is to get back on track and eat how you ate in the very beginning when you were still losing weight consistently. The best way to keep track of this and to hold yourself accountable is by using a food diary.
Another reason why you might think you are in a weight loss plateau are natural fluctuations in your body weight. Especially carbohydrates can cause your body to hold more water. Say one week you ate less carbs and then the next week you ate significantly more carbs. This can easily cause your weight to fluctuate which doesn’t mean that it actually comes down to a difference in fat.
An issue that is related to this is the way you weigh yourself. There is no point in weighing yourself more often than once a week. It’s best to have a fixed day and time during the week when you weigh yourself. Choose your day and always weigh yourself immediately after waking up so your body is always in a similar condition.
Another reason why you could face a real weight loss plateau is that you went through along period of time where you ate very few calories. This is when your metabolism slows down, some people call it starvation mode. You need to understand that it is actually quite hard to put your body into starvation mode. This issue has been exaggerated way too much in the past. In order to get your metabolism to slow down that much you need to be eating significantly below your resting metabolic rate for a while. Your resting metabolic rate is what your body burns in the absence of any activity during the day.
My Personal Experience With Weight Loss Plateaus
To conclude this article I’d like to offer my personal experience with this issue during the period where I lost 44 pounds of fat. I have kept a food diary for more than 365 days now and have weighed myself every week. I think if you are serious about transforming your body you need to do the same.
Looking back, I now know that the only time where I really faced a weight loss plateau was when I was already very lean. Once you get really lean (around 10% body fat for men and around 20% body fat for women) it will become much harder to lose more weight. From a health perspective there is no reason to lose more fat anyway. This only comes down to aesthetic reasons and whether you like a challenge or not.
There were certainly periods were I did not consistently lose weight for more than four weeks. However, these were always periods were I had been eating more calories. So in these instances my food diary always explained why I didn’t lose any weight.
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