So you have been losing weight for a while now but suddenly your scale stops moving down even though you’re maintaining your exercise and diet routine. You’ve exercised patience for days and weeks hoping it would budge but nothing happened. You’ve probably even checked with other scales to verify your thoughts that your scale might be broken but all to no avail.
If any of these scenarios describe you, then it’s most likely that you’ve hit the dreaded weight loss plateau. But before you get frightened, you should know that a weight loss plateau is normal and everyone hits a couple of them in their weight loss journey (even this writer).
The big question now is how do you get past the plateau and continue your merry weight loss journey? Here we’ll answer that question and explain to you what a weight loss plateau is and why it occurs.
What is a weight-loss plateau?
Simply put, a weight loss plateau is a situation where your weight has stopped dropping even though you’re maintaining the same exercise and diet regimen that helped you lose weight in the past. In some cases, the weight even goes up rather than down leading to a defeating and frustrating feeling that can cause you to lose the motivation to keep working out and losing weight.
Why do we hit a weight-loss plateau?
When you initially start your weight loss journey, your body drops weight quickly by releasing its glycogen stores. As glycogen is made up of water, this results in a weight loss that is mostly water. But this effect is temporary as glycogen stores are easily replenished at the next meal.
However, as you continue to train and lose weight, you start losing fat along with some of your lean muscles. This in turn causes your metabolism to slow down due to several reasons.
- A lower body weight requires a lower energy requirement to function.
- Muscles burn 3 to 5 times more calories than fat, so as you lose your muscles your body loses its ability to burn more calories.
- Your body becomes more efficient at using energy in an attempt to preserve its energy (fat) stores.
After a while, your metabolism slows to the point where the amount of calories your body needs to function daily (exercise included) equals the amount of calories it receives from the food you eat. At this point your weight loss journey plateaus and comes to a halt.
How to overcome weight loss plateaus
While weight loss plateaus can be stubborn and difficult to get past, there are some strategies that can help you break through them and continue your weight loss journey.
- Reassess your training and nutrition: If you feel like you’ve hit a weight loss plateau, one of the first things you need to do is to reassess your current training and nutrition. Most times people hit false weight loss plateaus due to little deviations from their training and nutrition program. Check your exercise routine, step count for the day, activity level, and the food you eat each day. If all is okay and nothing has changed over the past few days and weeks then you might have truly hit a plateau.
But even at that point, don’t rely on the scale alone as a test of your weight loss progress. It’s possible that you’re losing fat but gaining muscle which is causing your weight to stay the same. As muscle is denser than fat, you might have gone down a few dress sizes but still weigh the same on the scale. Use a tape measure to check your waistline and compare it to earlier measurements.
Try on Jeans, shirts, and dresses you wore in the past to see how they currently fit you. There’s a pretty good chance that your body is just recomposing, replacing fat with muscle tissues. And if that’s the case then there’s absolutely nothing to be worried about.
- Change up your diet: It’s no secret that your diet is the key to a successful weight loss journey. If your weight loss progress has stalled, then it might help to reexamine your diet and change up a few things. For instance, you could cut back on the amount of carbs you have in your present diet and replace it with protein. This would help increase your metabolism as protein requires more energy for digestion than carbohydrates.
You can also lower your calories a little bit to create the much-needed deficit to kick-start your weight loss journey again. Also, reduce your alcohol intake to as little as possible as the occasional wine and beer contains empty calories that can add up to your daily total and stall your progress.
- Increase your activity levels: In addition to reducing your calories, you should also increase your activity levels. Apart from the 2 to 3 hours you spend at the gym, try to be more active throughout the rest of the day. Do more household chores like cleaning, gardening, yard work, and even grocery shopping.
These activities make up NEAT activities and contribute to about 30 percent of your daily energy expenditure. Plus the more activity you do, the more energy you expend and the greater the calorie deficit you create for your body. This translates to faster weight loss.
- Put in more cardio: Your cardio is just as important as other parts of your exercise regimen. Not only does it help improve your calorie deficit but it also helps increase your heart health, boosts mood, and improves your sleep. Try to perform at least 90 minutes of cardio 3 to 5 days a week to blast past that weight loss plateau.
Your cardio can include a mix of running, skipping, stair master, exercise bike, boxing, or any other sport that keeps your heart rate elevated for a long while. Oh and don’t neglect the occasional slow to medium-paced walks, these are also great for your heart and joints and help improve your general fitness. So try to get at least 10,000 steps each day.
- Manage stress: When you’re stressed, your body releases a hormone called cortisol as a response to the stress stimulus. Elevated levels of cortisol raise your blood sugar, increase your appetite, and can cause larger waistlines. Try to manage your stress levels by practicing activities like Yoga, deep breathing, meditation, and getting 6 to 8 hours of sleep daily. Even more important is to try to eliminate the activities causing the stress in the first place.
- Long-form fasting: Though not very popular among many fitness experts, this is one strategy that has helped me blast through so many weight loss plateaus. This involves going for long periods without food, usually 24 to 72 hours. During this time, the body first breaks down its glycogen stores before shifting to fat as its preferred source of energy.
You can drink water, coffee, tea, and electrolytes during the fast to prevent your body from getting dehydrated. If you’ve tried all the other strategies without success, this one is sure to get the job done.
Additional tip. Alternatively, you can increase your calories for a week along with your training to trick your body into increasing your metabolism before reducing only the calories back.
While a weight-loss plateau can be daunting to get past, it’s important to keep the motivation up and maintain consistency in your training and your diet. Remember, weight-loss plateaus are normal, and with a combination of one or more of the above strategies you’ll be able to get past them in no time.