You are making awesome changes in your body when suddenly your
progress grinds to a screeching halt.
No matter what you do, nothing is working. Maybe it’s been a week,
or two, or even a few months, but your weight is not budging.
Why can’t you lose
any more weight? What are some solutions to break through your stubborn weight loss plateau?
This article will
delve into the dynamics of a weight loss plateau and offer you solutions to overcome
it.
Weight Loss Plateau Vs. Fat Loss Plateau
A weight loss plateau is a period of time during which your body
weight remains at the same level. So if your weight doesn’t change for 2 weeks,
does that mean your results have stalled?
Absolutely not!
The word “weight loss” does not differentiate between changes in
fat, muscle, and water.
When you get on the scale and the reading goes down 1lb, the hope
is that 1lb represents pure fat – not muscle, or water.
If you are weighing yourself every day, or multiple times per day,
you probably notice your weight can fluctuate substantially by 3-5lb. Most of
this weight fluctuation is due to changes in water retention.
The unpredictability
of water retention is one reason to weigh yourself only once per week with Monday
Morning Weigh, unless you find weigh ins every morning keeps you more
accountable. Weighing yourself multiple
times per day, or at different times each day is the fastest way to kill your
confidence and mess with your head.
A weight loss plateau and more specifically a fat loss
plateau should be defined as no change in body weight for 3 weeks. The first
week may be because of water retention, along with the second week, but the
third week indicates that maybe your body is not changing as you have hoped
despite your best efforts.
Weight Loss Plateau Facts To Keep In Mind
Before delving into some solutions to help you break your weight
loss plateau, here are some important facts that you should know:
1) Weight Loss Plateaus are VERY
common
If you do not
experience a weight loss plateau as you approach your ideal body weight,
consider yourself very, very lucky.
Weight
loss plateaus are to be expected as you are losing weight.
Our bodies are
resistant to change. A large chunk of people who reach their ideal weight have experienced as many as 2-3
plateaus lasting several weeks. Remember that if changing our bodies was easy,
then everyone would be walking around with a six-pack.
you become.
2) Losing Weight Becomes Harder The Closer You Get To Your Ideal Weight
Not only does the pace of weight loss slow down, but your body
will work harder to hold on to your fat stores the leaner you become. We are
left with a sobering fact – the ability to lose more fat decreases and it
becomes even harder to do so. The most common plateaus I see for guys is first
around 20-22% body fat, then around 12% body fat (for those guys looking to
break into single digits).
3 Steps To Break Your Weight Loss Plateau
Now that you understand the difference between weight loss
plateaus and fat loss plateaus along with the basic dynamics of weight loss,
here are some tips to follow to help break through the toughest plateau.
Weight Loss Plateau Step #1:
Re-evaluate Your Calorie Intake
As you lose weight, not only does it become harder to lose, but
your metabolism decreases. Now don’t go searching for those “how to boost your
metabolism” articles – your metabolism is supposed to decrease as you lose
weight.
For example - if you continue the same workout regimen at 200lb as you did when you weighed 230lb, your metabolism will be roughly 15% lower at 200lb vs.
230lb.
Why you ask?
You have less body mass, which means your body does not require as much energy to support a smaller frame.
That’s why every
10-15lb you lose (if you have a lot of weight to lose), you can reevaluate your
calorie intake to ensure you are eating less calories than you are burning.
For
more, check out How many calories should you eat to lose weight?
Weight Loss Plateau Step #2: Control
the “Calorie Creep”
The calorie creep can come from mindless eating, eating out at
restaurants that serve huge portions, or simply condiments like dressings,
spreads, and sauces. Maybe you don’t realize that small 100 calorie bag of
“healthy” chips is really 400 calories because there are 4 servings in each
bag. Alcohol also goes on the calorie creep list.
The best place to
start is to track your food intake if you are not already doing so. There are
many great reasons to keep a food journal, so tracking your nutrition
intake (even for a few days) is possibly the smartest and most important step
you take to improve your nutrition.
Weight Loss Plateau Step #3: Progress
Your Body, Don’t Confuse it
While nutrition is likely the culprit for the stall in your
weight, making sure you are progressing the intensity of your workouts can only
help improve your results.
There is a lot of hype about “muscle confusion” because of a
certain exercise program that has sold over 20 million copies through infomercials.
In the extreme case, choosing a different workout every time you hit the gym is
not confusing your body as much as you think, but it’s definitely curtailing
your results. If you want to maintain the results you have, changing things up
is awesome, but not if you want to maximize your results in a muscle building,
or fat loss program.
Continuity in your
exercise program is more important than switching things up all the time.
Without continuity, you will not be able to track improvements and make the workouts
harder, which is the goal. In my Programs, even though I switch up the workouts every
couple of weeks, I keep several of the exercises and the structure of the
workouts the same so that you can track changes in your strength and fitness
levels.
What happens if you still can’t break
your weight loss plateau?
The chances are very likely if you follow the preceding 3 steps,
you will be able to break your plateau. Again, 90% of the time it’s a matter of
not balancing calorie intake with calorie burn. But for those in the 10%
category, here are some issues/solutions to consider:
1) Starvation Mode – The opposite of the calorie creep is not eating enough
calories to help sustain your body. While your metabolism will not drop if you
skip a meal, or even a few, it will drop with chronic calorie deprivation. If
you are a 180lb guy eating less than 1,000 calories per day for let’s say 3
weeks, you can bet your bank account your metabolism will take a nose dive.
Some studies have shown metabolism can drop by as much as 40-50%. There are a
host of other negative issues with extreme starvation diets (lack of proper
nutrients being one of them).
If you are chronically in starvation mode,
it’s advisable to up your calorie intake.
2) Calorie Cycling – If you are in
starvation mode, or have just been dieting for more than a month, or two, your
metabolism can and will likely slow down above and beyond the range if you were
eating more calories. There is no scientific evidence supporting calorie
cycling as a superior way to lose fat, but I must mention it given the large
number of respected experts who support it. Furthermore, science is not exactly
ahead of the curve. Alternating low calorie with high calorie days MAY prevent
this starvation response from occurring (i.e. 3 days low, 1 day high).
3) Hormones – There is a vocal
contingent of nutrition experts who describe a stall in fat loss not as a
calorie in/out issue, but as a “defect in fat metabolism”. The total amount of
calories burned and how those calories are burned (fat loss vs. muscle loss)
can be affected by hormonal imbalances.
What’s the solution?
Unfortunately, a
simple answer is not possible, other than to seek medical assistance and test
your hormone levels such as adrenal, testosterone etc.
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