Up a pound. Down a pound. But never breaking through that level.
Still doing all the things that were working last week. Suddenly, the weight loss stops.
What's going on?
I'm no doctor but here's what I read.
Most likely my hormones have adjusted my metabolism. +Hormones +Metabolism
After 4 weeks of daily calorie deficit, my lizard brain said, "whoa, hold on, we may be in a famine here, let's conserve energy". +CalorieDeficit +LizardBrain
It's part of what makes the basic equation (calories in=calories out) such bullshit. There's a lot more to it than that.
So what am I going to do about it?
Most low-carb diets recommend a "cheat day" to reset the hormones. This gets the lizard brain out of "oh shit" mode. +LowCarb +CheatDay
I'm not following a low-carb diet right now. Would this work with a daily intermittent fasting as well? +DailyIntermittentFasting
I tried it on Friday. Didn't quite eat my maintenance calorie load but I went over my normal 1000-calorie daily deficit. Made sure to eat lots of crap too. Double Quarter Pounder. Fries. Heath Bar. Red Vines. Soda. Movie Popcorn.
Hard to believe I didn't go over my maintenance calories right? I'm pretty fat. My plateau is at 201 after starting at 213. I've got a daily calorie maintenance allowance of 2600-calories.
So what happened? I had a cheat day on Friday. I was pretty hungry most of the day Saturday.
When I woke this morning, Sunday, I broke through my plateau, 200 even.
I LOVE CHEAT DAYS!
Another recommendation was to switch focus. Stop weight loss mode. Start muscle build mode.
The author of this advice said the plateau should come around the 6 month or 10% of body weight mark. This wasn't true for me. I plateaued at week 5 and 5% of body weight.
I'll switch to muscle building eventually. I do a little every day now. Wasn't ready to make the switch to full-time yet. I'm still a fat jiggly slob in the mirror. If the cheat day doesn't work next week maybe I'll consider it.
RESOURCES
How to Break a Weight Loss Plateau by Monica Reinagel, MS, LD/N, CNS
A New Look at Weight Loss Plateaus edited by Rachel Berman
