Longest Plateau?

How long was your longest plateau?....When you already almost gave up and than bammmm!Would love to get some encouraging since I am doing all I can and NOTHING.

Hi There,

My longest plateau was a horrible 2 months.  I mean, I would fluctuate by around 5 pounds, but just when it seemed like I was finally losing, it would come back again.  I have lost 80 pounds so far and I think I was just below my body's natural "set point".  Many people on this site gave me the advice of giving my body time to readjust to my new size.  The worst mistake you can make is to starve yourself.  In fact, I actually started eating higher fat foods, although no carbs (think roast chicken) and that's what finally got me losing again!

Mine was also about 2 months. It was very frusturating, because I wanted to lose another 20. The problem was that I was not eating enough calories/burning too many. My metabolism slowed down, so nothing was happening. Since then I have increased my calorie intake, and 7 lbs flew off.

Ditto damsell300 & loveshine- about two months. And I'm on my 2nd two-monther at the minute. I think I'm eating too little too though, but am trying to get my head around upping my cals to see if I can break it....

It seemed like I couldn't get past 213 for the longest time. I'd go down a couple pounds and feel like I had beaten it only to see rear its ugly head again. Finally I started to wonder if maybe my body had settled into what it wanted and that was that. Then I broke through and got hung up at 207. Same thing. Seemed like 2 or more months went by before I finally got away from it. Its frustrating but keep up the good work. It'll happen. As long as you are honest with yourself about what you're doing.

I'm journalizing my battles in my blog. I invite everyone to visit and if you like, pass the link along to others. The address is in my profile page.

My doctor (nutritionist) told us that if count calories faithfully the plateau can not be longer then 1-2 weeks... If it gets frustrated he suggested to get on the "mono-diet".. 7 days - for each day chose just one type of food out of the list : chicken, eggs, vegetable, fruit, buttermilk or yogurt, fish, grain... And count calories anyway... HELPS! Well... I used to be on 1000 calories diet at that point.. Or.. to have one crazy day - eat as much as you want.. and next day follow strictly your amount of calories..

Note:  I copied/pasted this post that I wrote for a similar thread...this is not dejavu.

I've been playing with the same 7 pounds since the first week of April-almost 4 months.  I started varying things up over a month ago.  I started with my water intake.  Then my calorie deficits, I decreased the deficits (ate more calories).  That helped with a pound.  Now I am varying up my exercising...amount and type.  If I'm still having problems I plan on targeting my nutritonal values.  If after that I'm still having problems I may zigzag.

My point is lots of things can keep the scale stalled.  Take a good look at what you are doing (food and activities) and see where you can make a change.  Not necessarily for the better or worse, just a change for change's sake.

Btw, I can't give up because I've come too far.  This IS my longest plateau but it will not derail me.

My longest plateau was 6 months long.

From January 1st to the end of June this year I did not lose a pound. Not a single freaking ounce. Sometimes, I would eat enough that I knew my weight would go up just so I could see the scale come back down, but for the longest time, my weight would not budge from 140. And I am a short girl, 5'2''-5'3'', so it's hardly a low weight.

What happened to me was I had shed twenty pounds on an 1100-1200 calorie diet from October to January. I really did very little exercise then, basically stationary biking at a really easy pace for about 40 minutes five days a week. I barely ever sweat or even raised my heart rate while doing it. 

I was very happy with the way I was eating, I had transformed from a girl who only ate junk and crap to someone whose favorite food was apples and enjoyed an spinach and red pepper salad with balsamic vinegar every night with her dinner. I had iron self control, I would pack my own food to bring to friends houses and parties and even though I was taking a culinary class based solely on baked goods, I never ate one bite. All was well.

In January, I decided that I wanted to get some more exercise in my routine to speed up my process. So my parents bought me 20 sessions with a personal trainer who really helped me out. Although my body changed in fat composition and I lost inches, my weight refused to change. And it was absolutely not largely muscle gain. 

I suppose I wasn't eating enough, but I did not know that. No one ever talks about that in weight loss outside of the internet and when I visited my doctor when the diet first started, she said it should be okay so long as I went no lower. It didn't even occur to me exercise factored into that.

The first few weeks my trainer convinced me that I would lose the wright I just needed to be patient and let my body catch up with its new training schedule. There was a point last year when I was eating 1200 calories (food scale measured), running 5K every morning (improving the time each time by a few seconds) doing another hour of cardio each afternoon and circuit training with her on top of this four days a week. Needless to say, I was incredibly frustrated.

I was obsessed, hardly thought of anything else. I almost developed binge eating disorder, and I still struggle with it. These forums gave me the idea to eat a few hundred more calories, and we eventually went to a nutrionist who gave us a more balanced plan for 1500 calories a day. After of course, the actual doctor told me that I should just lower my calories to lose weight. Grrr.

Anyway, I eventually did and although it took a while, the weight has started to go down and my life isn't so grim. As of today, I weigh 134 pounds, exercise for no more than an hour each day and eat a comfortable 1500-1600 each day.

Sorry for the monster post, but that was such a hard time in my life, and I really feel for people in the midst of plateaus, no matter how long or short it may be. Everyone is different but you need to understand and believe that this too shall pass. Change what you need to keep what you don't, but realize that this is not permanent. I wish I had believed that more while I was going through it.

I'm about to wrap up 4 months.  I lost 8 lbs. in March, but not a single oz. since then.  No inches either.  I work out 6 days per week, zig-zag my calories between 1600-1900, yada-yada-yada, and nothing. 

In all fairness though, I have put on a lot of muscle since I started working out with a personal trainer two days per week in January.  When I'm lifting, I am cut and I love it.  My shoulders have no fat on them, my chest is strong and the muscles tight, and my legs and rear-end are muscular and cut.  I'm even seeing a marked reduction in the fat on my stomach (spare tire).  Even I, my own worst critic, cannot deny the changes.

I decided, before I drove myself nuts, that the scale is not my friend, and I'm only going to go by how my clothes fit.  Incidentally, I have lost another pants size (again, no scale weight or inches lost).  That sort of throws me for a loop.  How do you lose a pants size without at least losing inches?

Anyway, the plateau is frustrating, but I am seeing results.  Just not the results I had hoped to see on the scale.

Hang in there and don't give up.  One day you'll look in the mirror and find yourself pleasantly surprised at the changes in your body.

hello surviveors!

I want to thank for all the insipiring stories.I am extremely happy to see that what I am going through is not all that special,meaning that it can happen and end at the same time.I am doing my very best but when I see no change... it makes me ache.Almost 5 weeks.I have started to exercise 6 weeks ago,so basically I did not lose anything ever since I am working this hard.It is hard...I am sometimes 2times per day in the gym,people think I am out of my mind.Others have a 1 time per week abonament and they sleep good at night that they are exercising.... and me?I am there 5-6times per week sometimes both in the morning and evening and I am exhausted and there is no change in my body....however I also enjoy it...it is not just pure weight loss related.It gives me a great vibe.I really hope to get over this and see what I am working so hard for.

oh god...my plateu was so freakin dumb. I was finding how much I needed to maintain which I do all the time at http://www.freedieting.com/tools/weight_loss_ tools.htm

(sorry that thing is just something that really helped me so much I think itll be really usefull for the people here)

ok so anyways, I was calculating how much I needed to lose weight and it said 1600. This seemed a bit high though, but I shrugged it off because I've been following what that site said and it was almost always nearly exact. Anyways I was eating 1200 a day at the time and was looking just to increase it because I finally got down to 144. So I started eating 1600 calories a day. And I would almost ALWAYS never lost an ounce. So I decided to go check out and I finally realized that I had the settings on "male". .__. Which really messes you up if your not :P I was eating 100 calories less than I needed to maintain, which really doesn't get you that far in 2 months. but after that I started eating 1400 and I'm still doing that and I lost 5 pounds since then. and yeah, it was basically 2 months ago. X] I'm such a tart with stuff like that.

I don't remember exactly, but it was several months.  And, unfortunately, I did give up and ended up gaining back half of what I had lost.  I am now back and trying to lose that as well as the rest of what I had wanted to lose the first time.  For some reason, I just could not break 171.  I stayed there for the longest time.  Now, I can't seem to break 181.  I fluctuate between 181 and 186.  But, can't seem to break 181 for anything.