What do you do when your weight loss plateau's

[JackieQ]

Needing any advice on how to get through weight loss plateau's. I am seriously stuck in losing weight. I'm talking stuck for months now! It's awful!

 

During grad school I put on lots of weight. I hate myself for it. But, it's true. I was stressed about school and my mom passed away and a three year relationship broke up and, well, you get the picture.

 

Anyway, have taken off 65 pounds so far in very slow way. But, it's at a point where it's just not budging. It gets so depressing and frustrating. I just want to scream. I want my old body back. the one I felt semi-attractive in! ARGH~!

[Pocky]

Originally posted by JackieQ

Needing any advice on how to get through weight loss plateau's. I am seriously stuck in losing weight. I'm talking stuck for months now! It's awful!

 

I cry. Then I get a piece of chocolate and vow I'll get back on my diet tomorrow. It's completely and utterly melodramatic and my husband hates it. And this is just over six pounds...

 

On a side note (or maybe serious note), I'm assuming you exercise. I read, back in the day when I was taking nutrition/exercise courses in college, that you have to switch your exercise routine every three months otherwise the rate at which you burn calories will drop. Something to the effect that doing the same motions over a long period of time without making any changes to duration or resistance allows the body to find a way to use the least amount of energy to complete the task.

[Suz76]

Switch your exercise and every fourth day have a splurge day where you increase your calories by 300.

 

I'm a trainer, this is what I suggest to my clients at a point such as yours.

[JackieQ]

Thanks guys, I've heard the thing about changing your diet or exercise to give your metabolism a boost. Will try.

 

Unfortunately, I think the reality is that I also need to just plain eat less. I lost the first 65 pounds by eating less not by going on strict diet (my thought was that I wouldn't feel like I was starving all the time and also my metabolism wouldn't slow to nonexistant). I'm at the point now where I need to cut back some more.

 

Frustration!

[gridiron]

First of all, few people can lose that much weight and even fewer keep it off for a prolonged period of time. I'm sure you felt really great after losing all the weight. You should feel just as good having maintained it for months now, as that is the MOST difficult part for most people after a prolonged diet. I don't know what you are eating right now, but I would venture to guess it is absolutely ok. Just do what Suz76 said and see how it works out. Your body adapts to your habits. So even someone eating very very few calories a day will eventually plateau. You just have to tell your body that you are going to need it to work harder to burn calories on occasion, by increasing, not decreasing your food intake. And varying your exercise routine, intensity, or doing interval training, without even increasing the time, can also help. So I say congrats for maintaining your weight loss thus far and good luck with getting those few more pounds you want shed.

[HokeyReligions]

Pocky's not so far off the mark. I've lost weight and hit those plataues also. To 'jump start' my weight loss again I took one day where I ate more fatty foods, including sweets, and did not exercise. The next day I didn't eat the junk, but I also didn't exercise. The next day I might notice a slight (if any) weight gain and I got right back on the diet/exercise track and it seemed to work for me---I'd start losing weight again. The key thing is to GET BACK ON THE DIET ROUTINE! If you are at all weak and one slip off the wagon becomes a huge drop, don't do it!

[JackieQ]

I did get back to WW this week. I'm probably the most long-term member there. But, it is what works for me and it's sensible. I also talked with a guy at work (I know, not what I expected to do either but he's a really good friend and what he said helped). He basically said that I've done good so far and shouldn't try to be as thin as when I was 20 and that most people are not incredibly thin so why should I be totally different. I knew this but it was said in such a way that it put things in perspective somewhat. I still get so frustrated. This has been such a long term problem for me that I just have worn out trying. How do you create motivation from nothing. If I could wake up tomorrow and flip that switch I would be OK. The want to do it is there but I get lost in the will to do it.

 

 

Sigh...thanks for listening. I think this week I'm going to go back to writing everything down for the week. That helps get on track.

[gridiron]

Originally posted by JackieQ

This has been such a long term problem for me that I just have worn out trying. How do you create motivation from nothing. If I could wake up tomorrow and flip that switch I would be OK. The want to do it is there but I get lost in the will to do it.

Sometimes we get lost in the details of immediate results and measurements and obsess over losing X pounds in X weeks. To do this, we muster up enough willpower to set definite goals, count calories, keep a journal, and micromanage our diet.

 

While this does seem to help some people, it really created an unhealthy obsession in me where I was either ON a diet or OFF. While I could sustain my willpower to reach the goal I wanted while I was ON, as soon as I was OFF, though I would be happy, I was so exhausted from the effort it required. The effort also lead me to ingrain an equation of Eating Healthy=Ton of work/willpower and Eating Unhealthy=Ton of fun/no effort required. The resulting graph of my weight were like some mountain ranges - steeply up, steeply down, and over again.

 

Micromanaging a diet can be like micromanaging a company. You come up with an encyclopedic SOP. You berate your employees when they are late one day or slip up on one or two of the rules. You tell them the rules are there for a reason, but never explain the vision of the company. They perform extremely well for several months, but as soon as profits level off for a little bit, you are in there chewing their butts off again. What's going to happen is that the employees will all look for the first chance to either break the rules without getting caught or just quit.

 

Most of the diet literature encourages micromanaging, which I will concede does help some people, especially in the early stages. In your case though, it does not sound like you are that far from your goal and you have been doing great, I think you need to widen the camera lens a little bit and zoom out. I think we would all be a lot healthier if we concentrated on achieving a healthy lifestyle not to lose weight, but improve your heart health and to live longer, for yourself, your family, and other loved ones and friends, and on a much looser timeline than X pounds in X weeks. Just keep the big picture in mind as your motivation instead of some darn numbers on a scale that you check every day.