Breaking a plateau

[RubyHunter4]

So, after a couple of months on Weight Watchers, my wife has found herself in a plateau that she was having a hard time breaking.

We shifted to a "water only" drinking plan this week, and it seems to be working thus far for us.

But it begs the question, when you would plateau, what would you do to break it and start losing weight again?

[Allan001]

Same thing you did.  Other changes to my diet sometimes would mean decreasing the amount of dressing on the salad or switching to plain fresh veggies.  Also I would make slow incremental increases in exercise.  I've had to make many changes to my diet over the last 3 years.

I never let the plateaus get me down, sometimes my weight loss plateau would last 2 months.

[Heybales]

Take a diet break and totally unstress the body.

A stressed body with increased cortisol can slowly gain 20 lbs of water weight.

At 1-2 lbs of fat loss a week potentially from an accurate diet - that could mean seeing 10-20 weeks, or 2-5 months of no scale loss.

May appear to be a plateau.

Of course if body is doing that, gotta figure out why it's so stressed too - usually because diet is too extreme.

Of course eating more then may seem backwards - but with that effect many people experience a whoosh effect pretty quick, as well as daily energy level going up and now burning more normal rate compared to diet suppressed rate.

Other thing is tightening up on the logging if the diet is reasonable and there is likely no water weight gain going on from stress.

With a lot to lose and big deficit a lot can be done wrong and still lose fat.

But when deficit correctly becomes smaller more accuracy is needed.

There are some good studies on diet breaks and refeeds.

[JuanFitbit]

Hi @RubyHunter4 ! Very interesting information you have shared! 

I agree with @Heybales . You body needs to regulate itself again, as diets causes a lot of stress for the body! I suggest you to have a diet break and try to make a bit of cardio. 

This will help your metabolism! With that it'll be easier for you to reach for your weight goals. 

I've read that mostly you get to this "plateau" when your body gets used to the diet you are doing so that it balances the income and outcome and keeps the weight! 

A small change might help you get over it.

Keep save and good luck!

[PineyJim]

Having lost almost 150 LBS and learning about Cortisol,  I agree with the above.   I hit plateus due to what we belive to be overtraining which can cause cortisol to splike.   Good sleep is also key.   

[Heybales]

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@PineyJim wrote:

Having lost almost 150 LBS and learning about Cortisol,  I agree with the above.   I hit plateus due to what we belive to be overtraining which can cause cortisol to splike.   Good sleep is also key.   

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That's a good point about overtraining.

People many times think that must be athlete training level and schedule.

But overtraining is merely not recovering from what is done. Throw in lack of sleep, and eating too little without enough nutrients - mere mortals can hit that all too easily when they go gung-ho each year on diet and exercise both to an extreme.