Today I'm so close to giving up! I am so totally and utterly frustrated that I don't know what to do.
I am stuck! Stuck! STUCK!!!!
I am stuck to 87 kg for the 3rd week in a row. It's so frustrating! I have cut down, almost everything. I stopped using light margarine, went from 3 cups of milk to 1 cup of milk, doubled my veggies, cut the carbohydrates... you name it, I've done it. I even added more exercising in my every day schedule. The damn scale won't badge. I even sacrificed my 2 drinks a week this week (I only drink 2 alcoholic drinks all week and I don't drink juices or soft drink every day - just water) but nothing happened. I just want to quit - it's no use!
Please has anyone been in this kind of a plateau before? Does it eventually stop? I need some kind of advice or feedback or I will go utterly mad!
1. Make sure you're including daily healthy oil in your diet (almonds, olives, olive oil,etc.)
2. Give yourself a day to eat whatever you want. (Within reason.) It keeps your body guessing.
Plateaus are terribly frustrating, but just stick with it! Are you keeping track of measurements? Most of the time, even if you're not dropping on the scale, you can still track inches off thighs, waist, chest, etc. That might be something to keep you motivated.
Ive been plateaued for 50 days. I actually have upped my calories this past week, and this week am going with intuitive eating (I'm writing things down, but not doing calorie computations). I have no idea whether it will make me lose weight, but it was starting to affect my mood and make me crazy, so I'm moving on.
Plateaus happen to the best of us, best advice DO NOT GIVE UP !!!!! Keep on keeping on, you will see the scales change, persevere and you will be successful. I have been there and know how frustrating it can be , best advice still is DO NOT GIVE UP !!!!
You have already lost 44kg!! that is amazing!! Keep exercising and making healthy choices and you will soon see results. Heck, even if you were to never lose another pound you are so far from when you started.
7 years ago I plateaued after a 50 pound weight loss and gave up. Well I gained that 50 pounds back PLUS another 30! I really regret that I gave up on myself.
I know it seems like forever, but three weeks really is a relatively short plateau. You feel like giving up because it doesn't feel normal, it feels like failure. But it is not failure, and it's important to remember that.
It's very natural and even logical to give up in the face of true faillure, but you're not failing. Of course it doesn't matter if you are or aren't failing, because if you feel like you're failing, you're still going to be tempted to give up.
So you have to see and understand and really believe that you're succeeding.
For some reason, "this time" I have struggled with more plateaus than I ever have in more than 35 years of dieting. Some of my plateaus have lasted six months or more (the longest was two years - at the beginning of my weight loss, although that I don't really count as a true plateau, because I had tremendous difficulty staying on plan for those two years).
Still, I can do "everything right" and still not lose for 3, 4, even 6 weeks. I don't know why my body does this (well I have some guesses), but I'm stuck with it.
It's helped me to shift my focus from losing to "not gaining," so I feel more succesful. And feeling successful helps keep my motivation high.
At your stage of weight loss, long plateaus are entirely normal. You may find that you now lose in "whooshes." Which we aren't taught to see as success.
For example imagine several people, all of the same starting weight, on the same food and exercise plan.
One loses 1 lb every week for six weeks (total loss 6 lbs).
Another loses nothing for five weeks, then loses 6 lbs in the 6th week.
The third loses 6 lbs the first week, and then loses nothing for the next five weeks.
The fourth loses 3 lbs week one and 3 lbs in week 6, but nothing weeks 2 through 5.
Which person is more successful? (Obviously they're all equally successful).
Which person is more likely to FEEL the most successful? Which are most likely to FEEL that they're failing.
The truth is they're all succeeding, and they're even all "normal," though the one we're probably most likely to THINK is the normal one, is actually not.
We tend to believe that the gradual, steady, incremental loser is the most normal, but they're actually probably the most rare. Most folks lose inconsistently and "whooshing" isn't unusual. And by "whoosing" I don't mean that everyone is going to see large losses in their whoosh. Rather that what they're doing today, tomorrow, this week may not be rewarded on the scale until a month from now.
It's like getting an irregular paycheck. It can feel random, but the fact is that when you do experience a loss, it may be the result of a month's hard work, not what you were doing yesterday or last week.
I'm not sure there's a way to FORCE your body into a weight-loss schedule you'll be happy with, but hopefully by realizing it's normal and not a sign of failure will help you feel less frustrated and demotivated.
You ARE succeeding extraordinarily. In fact, at this point in your weight loss, just "not gaining" is a tremendous acheivement worthy of protecting. And that's the biggest reason for not giving up - because when you give up at weight loss you don't just stop losing - you inevitably start gaining. So refusing to accept "not losing" means ACCEPTING regain.
That truth has kept me from giving up, because every time I'm tempted to say "I quit" because further weight loss feels impossible, I ask myself "are you really ready and willing to regain?"
Culturally, we have been often been led to believe (if not directly TAUGHT) that failing to lose is AS BAD as gaining. And if that actually were true, then of course it would make sense to give up as soon as weight loss seemed impossible. After all (as I would often tell myself in the despair of not losing) if I'm never going to get to my goal weight, I'm always going to be fat. And if I'm going to be fat anyway, I might as well at least get to eat whatever I want.
Faulty logic, but logic nonetheless. Socially we do make it true, because we do tend to believe that when it comes to weight loss only perfection, only goal weight matters. And if we're going to believe that, we're going to act it out. When ultimate weight loss seems impossible, we're going to give up because getting to eat what we want is the socially-appropriate consolation prize for being unable to lose weight.
We have to "unlearn" the social messages, and realize that every bite counts, every pound counts, and just maintaining a weight loss and "not gaining" is a tremendous acheivement worth protecting.
Even if you CAN'T lose another pound (I doubt it's true, but let's imagine for a minute that it is), the weight loss you have achieved is worth protecting. For that reason alone, you can't give up. Because giving up will take that acheivement from you.
The 43 kilos (if my math is right) is more valuable than the 8 kilos you have left to lose - even if you NEVER lose them. Your success is worth protecting, even if further progess is impossibe (though it's probably not impossible, it just feels that way right now).
I reallly think the most siginificant reason I'm succeeding this time, is because I do see "not gaining" as an incredible acheivement in-and-of itself. When I do think "I don't think I can lose any more," I tell myself "So what. The 105 lbs you've lost so far are worth maintaining, and if you're going to be putting all the work of maintaining in, you might as well try to lose "just one more," but always remember that the not-gaining is MORE important than the losing - because losing means nothing, if it's only regained later).
Seeing "not losing" as failure is easy. Seeing it as the success of "not gaining," is a little harder (until you realize how few people manage it. Then you feel pretty darned amazing for being so incredibly successful).
I've succeeded this time, because I KNOW I'm succeeding tremendously, even when "not losing." In the past, I would quit because I didn't see the success of not losing. I didn't even see the success of losing slowly. So I quit not because I WAS failing, but because I THOUGHT I was failing (and sadly of all, I was wrong. I quit when I was succeeding, because I didn't realize that I was doing better than average, not worse than everyone else, which is how I felt).
Hang in there, and SEE your success. Acknowledge it, and be proud of it. Celebrate the "not gaining" not just the losing.
Plateaus seem to happen to almost everyone eventually. Sometimes they last for a long time (I've been bouncing around the same "decade" for months). Sometimes people say they can "break through" them by upping their calorie intake for a week, following a specific calorie cycle, changing their fat/carb/protein intake ratio, or changing the types and amount of exercise they do. I've found that changing the types of food I eat or eating more calories than I normally do for a short period of time sometimes seems to help move things along. Sometimes people just have to wait them out. This is when it helps to learn to focus on the process of losing weight, not the "product" (weight lost).
You've lost over 43 kg - that's a great accomplishment! If it's too frustrating for you to focus on continuing losing weight right now, how about focusing on maintaining your current loss? Surely bringing your weight down from 131 kg to 87.8 kg has had some rewards? Will you be giving those up by "quitting," which usually results in a regain? If you find your diet and exercise routine to be too unrewarding to be worth maintaining without the positive buzz of lower scale numbers, this might be a good opportunity to experiment with the types of foods you eat and types/amounts of activity you participate in, in order to find a diet and exercise routine that are more pleasant and more sustainable for you. You'll have to eat well and be active to maintain your loss after you reach your goal, so why not make it as enjoyable as possible?
Hang in there. That scale will show a loss eventually.
I've discovered a little plateau busting trick that has busted me through my two really hard plateaus with a 2- 3 lb whoosh - eating vegan for 5-7 days, trying to avoid processed food. I usually eat my carbs at breakfast and have protein and veggies for lunch and dinner. If I eat vegan, I think it works sort of as a cleanse. I pack my meals with fruits and vegetables and lots of beans, and even whole wheat pasta and brown rice. As much as I feel like. All the fiber and the lack of heavy foods or processed foods seems to really help. It might just be water weight and food weight, but it usually gives me a boost of confidence to keep going.
I also like to focus on something else, like running longer or faster or doing more push ups. The fitness accomplishments keep me feeling positive.
I agree with what everyone else has said about plateaus, too. You've come this far, and NOT gaining it back and working hard still are two things to be very proud of! Good luck!
ive been slowlyyyy losing weight for the last 7 months...7 pounds down in SEVEN MONTHS...while it's not technically a plateau, it's frustrated me to NO END! lol...and i've been doing what kaplods said, making sure that i "dont gain" and continuing to tweak my diet and exercise
Hang in there...I haven't reached a plateau as infuriating as yours yet, but I also haven't accomplished NEARLY as much...44 kg is more than half of your current weight! YOU'VE LOST HALF A PERSON. Heck, if they were the size of some of my coworkers, you've lost a whole person! Do you really want to give up on that? If it's too much to not see the number go down, do like kaplods suggested (seriously...does she ever NOT give awesome advice?) and maintain. Maybe upping your calories to maintenance will even bump your body out of your current rut...like I said, I haven't gotten to a full-on, hair-tearing plateau yet, but reading through other people's posts more calories can actually help get you moving as long as it's done mindfully and you're not just throwing in thousands of binge calories.
in my experience, the way to beat a plateau is to change something completely. one way to actually ditch a plateau is actually to have a calorie spike. have a night out and eat without worrying. don't weigh yourself the next day (it'll make you super depressed because it's water weight) and then go back to the normal routine. it sounds crazy but it'll confuse your body which is so used to the limited amount of calories you're giving it, and after a few days, you'll start losing weight again. the danger with this though is that you might end up trying to make the "cheat day" last longer and that is a big NO-NO. but if you can control yourself, i say give it a try.
also, if you tend to exercise everyday, why not go a day or two without exercise and then start again? i swear to god, everytime i gave myself an exercise break in the past, i dropped a little bit.
basically, plateaus happen when things are the same for too long, so what you gotta do is CHANGE something.
I really want to thank you girls for cheering me on andKaplods:, I agree if we were on facebook I would have liked your advice.
I tend to be very careful ever since I started my trip to weight loss 3 years ago. I admit I am a bit of a nuttcase as I have failed so many times before and my biggest fear is that I will start regaining the weight if the plateau remains. I know that sounds unreasonable but somehow as time passes by I am scared that if I over-ear or indulge myself on fatty foods then I will gain it all. It's like a weird phobia. So to be honest I tend not to mess with my eating program unless it is a big occasion (on Easter and Christmas Day I tend to indulge on sweets like crazy).
To be honest I will not stop exercising because in the previous year it turned from something I dreaded to an activity that actually relaxes me. But I might try to add a 2000 calorie day once a month. Maybe it will work out. Wish me luck.
PS: OMG I did a bridge exercise today! I haven't done that since elementary school! I am so happy I take it back! I won't quit!
Last edited by preetyladyserenity; 07-24-2012 at 05:05 PM.
I second Kawaii's advice. Anytime I have been on a plateau, it helps to have a random calorie spike. Definitely don't weigh yourself the next day though, lol. You'll get past it, just keep at it!
I'm So Close To Giving Up!!!
So to be honest I tend not to mess with my eating program unless it is a big occasion (on Easter and Christmas Day I tend to indulge on sweets like crazy).
You'll get past it, just keep at it!
