Weight Loss

Weight loss plateus are probably one of the most annoying things that can happen when one is trying to lose weight. Here are 5 effective strategies to make use of to help break or prevent weight loss plateus. These are not in any particular order of importance.

1. Eat enough - While you obviously need to be in a calorie deficit to lose weight, eating below your BMR or maintaining a very large deficit for prolonged periods can have a variety of negative effects on your weight loss. First of all, hormones directly related to metabolism and calorie balance will decrease. Lower levels of thyroid hormones directly decrease your metabolism, while low leptin (a hormone release by fatty tissue) levels will increase your appetite and cause your body to use calories in a far more efficient manner. This may be beneficial for someone who is starving to death, but efficiency is a bad thing for persons looking to lose weight.

2. Consider your current weight - As you lose weight, your body's calorie needs decrease. This can be attributed to two factors. First of all, your metabolism will slow slightly simply because you have less tissue to maintain. Secondly, you will burn less calories through activity because you are carrying less 'excess baggage' with you at all times. If someone drops from 300 lbs to 275 lbs eating 2500 calories per day they may well need to drop to 2200-2300 to drop to 250, and so on.

3. Vary your calories on a day-to-day basis - The human body is extremely effective at adapting to changes in its environment. As calorie intake decreases the body will adapt to use the decreased calorie levels more efficiently. One way to help prevent this potential problem is to vary your calorie intake. This works to 'keep the body guessing' and thus helps prevent plateus. This method goes by many names, including zig-zagging, carb cycling, calorie cycling, up-day-down day, and others. This keeps various hormone levels in a constant state of flux and makes it very difficult for the body to adapt to a calorie deficit.

If you are aiming for a 1 lb weight loss per week, simply ensure your weekly deficit is 3500. Some days you may eat as little as 100-200 calories below maintenance while other you may eat 700-800 below. This also allows you more leway with your diet on some days.

4. Have a refeed - This is somewhat related to #3. A refeed is simply a period of 1-2 days where you eat at maintenance, or 200-300 calories above. This allows you a break from calorie restriction and works to upregulate fat-burning hormones, helping you continue to lose weight afterwards.

The increased calories should come almost entirely from carbohydrates as these have the greatest effect on leptin and thyroid production. Fats and proteins have very little if any effect on said hormones.

Expect to gain 1-5 pounds after a refeed. This is almost entirely water and should not be a concern. You will lose it very quickly (and then some) once you get back to your regular intake.

5. Improve the quality of the foods you eat - Most people will reach a point in their weight loss where they will find it difficult to lose weight, even in a deficit, if the quality of their diet is poor.

This means staying away from refined carbs, sugar, saturated and trans fats, salt, etc. For the most part, any food that comes in a package should be avoided (there are exceptions to this rule, just not very many). Just because a 100-calorie bag of crackers only contains 100 calories does not change the fact it is a junk food product.

In my experience women will have difficulty getting below 20-25% bodyfat without cleaning up their diet. Men usually bottom out at 12-15% without improvements in food quality.

6. Consider macronutrient ratios - The term macronutrient ratios refers to the amount of carbohydrates, protein, and fat in your diet.

I have seen many cases on Calorie Count of persons plateuing due to a poor macronutrient mix. A lack of protein or healthy fats is common, and carbs are often excessive.

I recommend 40-50% of calories comes from carbohydrates. Those of you that are particularly active (long cardio sessions on a frequent basis, active job such as construction work) will obviously have higher calorie intakes and can have up to 60% carbs. However, for anyone that is not extremely active, carbs should not dominate your diet.

Protein should make up 25-40% of your dietary calories. If you are completely sedentary your needs are roughly .5 grams per day per pound of weight. Those of you that are active need 1 gram per pound. If you are very active or weight train on a regular basis, 1.5 grams per pound is recommended.

I am saying this particularly for the women on CC, because in all honesty I have never met a female that eats too much protein, and most eat far too little. 

Fats should make up the rest of your diet, or between 15-35% of calories. Saturated fats should be limited to 10% or less of calories, and trans fats should be completely avoided. I would like to make it clear 15% is truly any absolute minimum as essential fatty acid defiencies can occur below this level.

I hope this will be of some help to those of you having difficulty with plateus.

I will be posting a similar topic soon relating to exercise strategies to help break plateus.

I'm wondering, do you think that varying your workouts does the same thing as zigzagging calories?  For example, on monday, tuesday and thursday, I have 2 practices, wednesday and friday I only have 1 each day, and saturday is 1, but a very long one. (Sunday = no practice)

I've been eating between 1800-1900 calories, with a few days in there where I am really hungry, so I ate one day at around 2300 and some other day at about 2050.  Averaged out, this is about 2000 calories each day.

Anyway, I was wondering, is it good to stick to the same amount of calories, even if your burned calories flucuate?

Original Post by tyrdrop:

I'm wondering, do you think that varying your workouts does the same thing as zigzagging calories?  For example, on monday, tuesday and thursday, I have 2 practices, wednesday and friday I only have 1 each day, and saturday is 1, but a very long one. (Sunday = no practice)

I've been eating between 1800-1900 calories, with a few days in there where I am really hungry, so I ate one day at around 2300 and some other day at about 2050.  Averaged out, this is about 2000 calories each day.

Anyway, I was wondering, is it good to stick to the same amount of calories, even if your burned calories flucuate?

 If your activity levels vary wildly, then you will achieve the same effect as calorie cycling without actually changing your calorie intake.

How often should you do a refeed? I am about 9 weeks in, and have not hit a plateau yet.

I'm not really at a plateau yet either, but I eat at maintenance once a week. I don't think that's really a refeed, mostly because I don't gain any weight, but I'm pretty sure I'd go insane without it! haha.  I'll have to pay attention more and see if I lose more weight early in the week than at the end of the week. That should be interesting.

I am 18 weeks in, I maintain a daily defecit of around 700 cals, and rarely eat maintenance. The ONE day I went over maintenance it was due to alcohol consumption and I am not sure if that counts as carbs or what?

Anyway I have had consistent weight loss but live in FEAR of the dreaded Plateau. I know it will come eventually - this week I lost nothing and am wondering if it's here. Thanks for the tips about how to manage it when it comes.

And I am wondering....is it best to maintain my current deficit until the Plateau comes, or should i be zig-zagging to avoid it happening in future? I am nervous about eating at maintenance or higher on a regular basis (like once a week or something)....I have a very "clean" diet with plenty of lean protein (I am Protein Girl!) and feel it's a good balance of macronutrients...so I am reluctant to mess with it.

So, I think this weekend counted as a "refeed" as I ate around maintenance and gained 1.5 pounds :-/ How often are you supposed to do this? As in, I am planning pretty consistently to eat at maintenance on sunday and not workout.  While this is different than the two-day break I took this weekend because of memorial day, I was just wondering...

I'm interested to see how my weight changes throughout the week.