The dreaded plateau

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My WL has been slowing down for a while now. I did lose 2lbs more recently but I notice 0.5lb has gone back on straight away so it might have been a scales fluke.

MFP tells me to eat 1500 calories a day to lose 1lb a week and I generally stick to this 6-7 days a week. If I do deviate a little I will try recoup it the next day or exercise more. I do not eat back my exercise calories

I am 5’5,
start weight 100kg
currently 81.5kg
Interim goal - 70kg
? final goal - 65kg

I am not as active as I could be I am time poor. Office desk job long hours, long drive

-I try to get steps in when I can
-gym twice a week - mixed weights and cardio
-Les Mills body balance once a week
-at home I try to do something during the week like squats, step ups (on a step), walking, stretches.. whatever I can do for 30 mins indoors
-try to swim once a week but often do not get time
-increase my NEET by moving around frequently. I get up every hour from my desk I also don’t sit down long in evenings I keep moving.

Dont eat simple carbs like bread or pasta. I do eat some rice. I try to eat protein and try not to eat too much sugar.

I’m not sure if my daily calories are correct? What kind of level of active am I?

I tried eating more, 1800 and this did not move my weight at all so dropped back down to 1500. Should I try less? I am starving if I do!

How consistently are you hitting your target calories? And how accurately are you logging your food ie are you weighing and measuring everything and logging absolutely everything?

You may need to drop your calories a bit as you lose weight but maybe try tightening everything up first?

Steps are hard if you work a long hours office job, I am the same, and I have to work hard to get in as much movement as I can because it really does help fat loss, far more than exercise.

I also meant to add, sometimes my weight loss stalls for 10 days then suddenly drops. You have to make sure you are hitting all of your daily goals and then just wait it out for a bit.

@everycowandagain thank you! I am hitting my goals every day consistently for 4 weeks solid now - after a slide of 2 months where I wasn’t really tracking properly, I was maintaining but not losing. Week 2 I dropped 2lbs only to gain 0.5lbs back and then got stuck again. The constant movement is now a big thing for me.

I actually measured myself using a tape this morning and I have dropped inches so that’s something. Also I was working out earlier and my legs are visibly stronger and leaner than they were before so is it possible I am building muscle now I have started eating more protein (over 100g a day) and weights?

If you are seeing more visible muscle definition and your measurements are dropping then it sounds like you are doing the right things! Scale weight doesn't equate to body fat levels, fat is just one component of your weight and it is affected by so many things. A heavy gym session/lack of sleep/salty food etc can all affect it. I lift heavy 5xweek and I know my weight will sometimes spike even in a calorie deficit because of a heavy squat session. So long as I know I am hitting my calories and macros and getting my daily movement then I will get my head down and keep putting the work in.

As you get closer to your goal weight and especially if you are training hard, scale weight is less important. Measurements, progress photos and how you feel are also very important for tracking progress because scale weight may not accurately show what you are achieving. You have done brilliantly on your weight loss so far, but you might find it helpful to incorporate gym based performance goals or other wellness goals as well because it's about so much more than just what you weight.

Also, how often do you weight? If you weight weekly for example and you catch a spike, it will skew your view of your progress. Counterintuitively I find that I focus less on it if I weight daily because it becomes just data, and you can really see the 2-4 week trend.

If I were you I wouldn't cut calories at this point, you are doing the right things and just need to keep plugging away at it! Resist the temptation to slash your calories, it's the boring consistency that gets long term results.

I agree with the PP - how often are you weighing yourself? It needs to be daily to see real trends. At your weight you definitely don't need to drop calories any more than that

Thanks so much this is so useful. I was getting so hung up and demoralised looking at daily scales weigh ins 🫢 so decided to focus on fitness instead as a distraction. I have been in a very slow kind of plateau for quite some time now so I had to make some changes. I get up like a kid on Xmas every day run to the scales and then feel sad.

But what I noticed is that my legs are really solid to touch, I can feel the muscles closer to the surface than I could before.

It's helpful to detach yourself from your weight each morning - tell yourself that it doesn't matter where it is vs yesterday. Log it, move on. Treat it as one small piece of data in your overall progress tracking. Look at the 2 week trend, not the 1 day trend!!

I am around 60kg and, even in a deficit, I can spike up to 1.5kg, fluctuations are normal.

Keep at it!

Ok thanks, so 2 month trend is 4lbs 6oz
1 month trend is 1lb 6oz

so there is a trend it’s just so.. slow!

6 months ago I was losing 10lbs a month.

Which isn’t sustainable.. but I would be hoping to lose at least 0.5lbs a week, and I am not so I wondered what was really going on here

I also now have no bloating. I have a little tummy pooch but my waist is 32.5cm now which is really close to the healthy size of 31.5inches and I will be out of the danger zone for heart health.
I did the waist to hip ratio thing and that is also in a good zone of 0.8.
I still have 10kg at least to lose though and at this rate it’s going to take me forever!

I guarantee you that the body you want weighs more than you think it does!!

What calories have you been doing for the past month? And what's your average daily steps, do you know?

And do you set macro targets for your protein etc?

Just an observation, in the past month based on your lower measurements and the weight you did lose, you probably did drop 0.5lb of fat a week but other things in your body composition moved as well (because weight loss is not equal to fat loss). You are probably doing better than you think!

But I know what it's like to get impatient with speed of progress, I did a 12 week fat loss phase recently and gradually dropped my calories over the weeks because I wanted to get to a certain point. It depends how uncomfortable you want to get, and what your tolerance is. I knew I had a fixed end date so I did push it very hard for the final few weeks although I could only sustain the lowest calories for a few weeks.

@everycowandagain I think it is because I was very overweight and now I am getting closer to a normal weight I just need to adjust my ideas of where I need to be. I am 5ft 5.

Visually I am actually not hating what I have now, it’s such a vast improvement from before. I am quite focused on health. I was 100kg I am now 81kg but I ought to be closer to 70. The BMI chart doesn’t seem very realistic - 60kg or so with my big legs/hips probably isn’t going to happen. I would settle at a toned 70kg and be happier! I want to reduce health risks too. I don’t have an end goal date, I hit the other small goals I had but this time I set myself to lose 7lbs in 6 weeks (work Xmas do) and I am not going to make it now, it’s next weekend!

Visually now the areas I want to tackle are my saggy bum and tummy.

I am eating 30% carbs 30% fat 40% protein and this is where I have seen muscle improvement

daily steps are appalling, honestly I am desk bound or stuck in my car so much despite walking around every hour. This is why I try to constantly move around in small ways. I did not get home from work/gym till 9pm last night and just sat and ate scrambled eggs and went to bed!

Ah, I am in the big legs/hips club too! Unfortunately I grew up in the 90's when everyone wanted to be waif-like. If I had been young now my big bum would have been so on trend

As far as the low steps, you can only do what you can do if you are desk based/long drive. It sounds like you are doing what you can with added exercise though.

Your macros sound sensible. You could try 1700 or 1650 calories for a month and see what happens?

Focusing on overall health is so important, I think we sometimes get hung up on the idea of a goal weight and there are so many other health or fitness based goals too. I am working (very slowly) towards my first chin up, it's taking aaaaages but I am enjoying seeing progress while I continue the slog towards being able to do just one!!

I started off on low carb and lost 3 1/2 stone but the last 1/2 stone was very slow then I plateaued. I spoke to nurse and dietician at my surgery and they said switch from low carb to low fat. I've started losing again. Now lost 4 stone.

@everycowandagain same! I am same age as Kim Kardashian but way less in fashion than her 😂
I spent all my youth being miserable. My ‘friend’ used to tell me I had a flat bum that was super wide and what I needed was a bigger sticky out, but narrower bum 😑. I do not have much of a protruding bum I am ALL hips.

Now my poor bum is saggy as I have lost weight so needs some TLC. Then I had a hysterectomy and gained a lovely new pouch that I didn’t have before!

But feeling strong and full of energy does make up for my saggy ass 😂

Keep going sounds like you are doing really well thanks for you support I appreciate it

Ah yes, same here, wide hips and a flat ass! I got into powerlifting and the heavy squats have done wonders for my bum, which is now much rounder.

I also decided that because I cannot make my wide hips smaller I would make my shoulders wider. So I do lots of back/chest/shoulders work in the gym and it has really made me look less pear shaped and more 'athletic'.

Good luck and let me know how it goes. Glad it helps - kicking it around can be really useful I think, to get ideas and perspectives.

And great job so far, make sure you give yourself credit for what you have achieved already!!

I’m still in my plateau 😑😂😂😂
focus now just on having a nicer bum. Going to stop weighing myself

I know I keep saying this but I am so close to giving up today. I keep getting migraines and all I want to do is bloody eat. Despite being very strict, it looked like I was finally trending downward but no, I am back to the same weight I am stuck on all month.

Argh that's frustrating! Maybe you need a break for a bit, for your sanity! You could try maintenance calories for a few weeks?

You might initially go up in weight a bit just because of increased food volume but it won't be fat gain if you are getting the calories right?

I must be getting something wrong. I wonder if higher protein diet is causing migraines?

I am going to eat more carbs again I think and just watch my calories and try to chill out. I’m the same weight not gaining but the scales are doing this every day for a month as a sample:

81.7kg
81.2kg
81kg
81.6kg
81.7kg
81.4kg
81.3kg
81.7kg
82kg
81.7kg
81.5kg
82kg
81.5kg
81.3kg
81.7kg

so it’s not any kind of trend in either direction! 😑

Just my musings to myself
today… 80.9kg 😂🤯

let’s see if this really is the right trend

also not sure if I got it right or wrong last time but seems like more off my waist and thighs on the tape measure

my thighs are taking on a rugby player appearance 😂 perhaps I am over doing them and not my glutes as much.

Oh interesting! The test will be to see what happens over the next week or so. It really does sound like you are making good progress though. It's about readjusting how you measure progress I think.

Re the rugby player thighs, same for me. Even when I am not training in a way that is targeting muscle growth on my legs.... it happens anyway! I work hard on upper body to balance myself out but can't escape the quad gain. My coach jokes that some of us only have to watch someone else squatting for our legs to get bigger

On the migraines, you could adjust for slightly more carbs and see how you feel? Everyone is different in terms of protein/carbs balance and what feels best for them.

Thanks! Yes I am bringing back some carbs to see if this helps. I’m training alone but really feel a PT would help coach me, I could then try different lifts and move to free weights at some point. I’m going to carry on and see how things go for now, got into a good routine. I don’t go OTT with the cardio anymore but I have so much more stamina on the rowing machine now, it’s gone from something I hate doing to pushing my own limits and feeling it in my abs

There was a thread in the Weights Room topic where someone was asking about PTs/ online programs, it had some good suggestions:

www.mumsnet.com/talk/the_weights_room/4943190-caroline-girvan-or-gym-or-pt

I have a PT, my training has evolved into quite a powerlifting style program but that's half the fun of regular exercise, seeing where it takes you and what you feel like trying. I have done marathons/group fitness classes/all kinds of other things and they can all be good at different times in different ways.

Keep up the good work!