break from diet to boost weight loss?

[Missnearlyvintage]

Hi everyone,
As in the title I'm struggling to get past a weight plateau at the moment, and have looked at a couple of articles online about the benefits of maintaining a weight for a week or two, then going back down to a reduced calorie diet. Has anyone had success with this?
I've been stuck for two weeks on around the same weight after pretty consistent losses for 2 months.
I am religiously calorie counting 1200 calories a day, and working out with dance workouts or HIIT on youtube 2 to 3 times a week along with a couple of miles walking a day most days.
I'm still about a stone away from my ideal weight so it's not that I've reached my ideal weight.
I was doing 16:8 and 5:2 for a time before starting calorie counting and found that in the first 3 weeks I'd lose more then it'd tail off, then I lost more again when I switched to calorie counting.
I'm being very careful and logging all food and watching portion sizes so it's not that I'm over-eating. I'm drinking plenty of water as well.
Thanks everyone. I just want to supercharge this to get the weight off and start enjoying my new body!

In case anyone is interested at any point... I upped my calories to between 1500 and 1800 a day for about a week, and got under my plateau weight.

Now I'm having 1200 - 1500 calories per day rather than a strict 1200 and am finding that I am continuing to lose at an acceptable rate.

My body always reaches a point of plateauing when I stick to 1200-1450 for more than a week or two (so frustrating)! When this happens, I tend to allow myself to be less strict on weekends- so I don't count calories, still eat mainly healthy meals but allow myself some nice treats e.g. Will go out for dinner or get a takeaway one night. Then once it hits Monday I drop down to 1000 calories for two days, then back up to 1200 and so on until Saturday.

This new method is working really well for me, in the past month Ive managed to consistently lose 3lbs a week (I'm also exercising daily, even on my less strict days). Most dietitians reccomend having one treat meal a week, as it releases a certain hormone which tricks your body out of starvation mode and raises your metabolism slightly. Its also really good for preventing burn out and keeping your spirits high. I think as long as you are able to snap straight back into calorie counting and maintain momentum after having a few days off, it's a really effective method

You'll always plateau if you keep eating the same number of calories. It's the deficit between what intake and output that makes you lose. As you get lighter, your body needs fewer calories to function, so in order to keep your deficit the same, you need to eat less.

Thanks for the replies

Lifeaback - Like you have, I've now incorporated days with more calorie allowance and it has really stepped up my weight loss, so I'm a happy bunny!

Utterly - You would think that the basic science of this would work out, but as I've lost weight my basal metabolic rate has not changed that much, and certainly not to a point where the 1200 calories would've maintained my weight on paper. I'm eat MORE calories per week now and I'm losing more, so I'm not convinced it's just calories in vs calories out. I have no idea what's going on, but while it's working well I'm going to keep going with it!