[PleaseLuise]

After losing 70 pounds, I have hit a brick wall this week. It's like my body and psyche have said, "Enough". I am up four pounds, my food cravings are out of control, and am dreading exercise, which I usually love.

I understand that sometimes you need to step back and regroup, however, I am concerrned that a weekend of vegging turns into a month of complacency and moving backwards.

Anyone ever experience this kind of bump in the road?

Would love to hear your experiences and advise!

[kelly315]

When I hit my first "kind of plateau" (meaning I didn't lose much of anything for a month, but I still lost a couple of pounds), I really thought about giving up. I was really frustrated and ended up getting majorly stressed out. I even tried alli, and that didn't help. the only thing that saved me is the fact that my doctor gave me metformin, and now I'm losing again, but one of the things that stopped me from giving up quickly was someone telling me that if I did want to take a break from weight loss, then I'd have to maintain, which requires following most of the rules of weight loss. So I figured that if I was going to do the same things as dieting, I might as well keep going. So I did, and then got the metforming and started losing again.

If you want to take a break, make sure you make a plan for maintaining. Eat only the calories you need to maintain, or you'll gain all that weight back. If you can't exercise like you used to, then make sure that's reflected in what you eat.