HEELPP!! I've finally hit it, my first plateau in my diet. I've been counting calories for the last 50 days, averaging about 1400 in August and 1350-1550 in September. I lost about 27 pounds so far, 16 last month, but for the last week I've been plateaued. I've never gotten far enough into a diet to hit a plateau before, how should I handle it? I've heard of some people upping their calories in order to restart teh metabolism....does this work?

Help, help! I'm stuck!

A week does not a plateau make.

A week is just a pause, a hitch ... it could be caused by your period, the weather, too much salt, anything.

You have to give it a few weeks before you can declare a plateau.

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oh, geez, I should have thought of that. I don't get too much water retention with my period because I'm on the pill, but that must be doing it a bit. Does everyone hit plateaus? When in your diet did you hit your first?

Hmm. My weight loss has never been steady because I've never been *super* strict.

I hit my first real plateau about Jan of this year - in fact I remember posting about it when I introduced myself and Mandalinn telling me that I wasn't at a plateau yet! Hahah ... I just remembered that.

That was at 178-ish. As you can see, I'm down about 20lbs from there and it's now the first of October.

Wow. That's kinda scary. But in all fairness, I took about 5 months off to "practice" maintaining because I knew I was burning out. It's during those 5 months that I developed a more laid back attitude about my weight loss and figured that I was gonig to learn to be comfortable in my life.

I've actually mostly started losing again in the last 2 months or so - I recommitted to losing instead of maintaining and I kicked up my exercise again.

So I only hve really hit one plateau, but it's been a helluva one.

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This is a good thread for me because I've been feeling 'stuck' in the last couple of weeks. So how long without weight loss do you weight before you declare a plateau? How do people deal with it? I don't think I'm there yet because the scale moved again today. I think I've just slowed waaaay down. I knew the 'fast' weight loss would end eventually, but it sure was fun while it lasted!

My weight loss has slowed down a lot in the last month, and the scale has bopped up and down in a three pound range. I don't mind losing at a slow rate, but it is hard to be certain I am making any progress since the daily fluctuations can mask weeks of weight loss. Earlier this week I was up 2.5 lbs from my last official weigh-in day. This morning I am up 1 lb from my last weigh-in (down 1.5 from that higher glitch).

For now, I am just going to stick to it. If I'm still in the same place a few months from now, at least I'll have had some "practice maintenance" and I will do what I need to adjust.

I think this has to be a bit of an individual thing, but for me, I'd say 3-ish weeks would have to go by before I declared a plateau. It would also have to be 3-ish weeks that I KNEW I was eating on plan and exercising regularly.

I honestly can't really call Mar-July a "plateau" for me, because I quit working at losing weight and worked on just maintaining. So I plateaued in Feb (after about 6 weeks of no weight loss), took a break Mar-July, and really kicked back into it in August. Now I'm losing again at the rate of about 1.4 lb a week.

Other people, who lose differently or who are dieting differently may have a different timeline or a different definition of plateau.

I know for me, I need to AVERAGE 1.5 lbs a week. That means I might lose 3 lbs one week and nothing the next. So I tend to take a more long term view of it.

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I started about 24-25 weeks ago. I had various times when I didn't lose for 5, 6, 7, 8 or even 9 days, but over all, I was averaging +/- 2 pounds per week. I lost from 197 to 158 pounds (39#) over my first 20 weeks. Then last month I had a plateau for 3 weeks.

It was frustrating at first. But like Photo said, it gave me a needed break from trying so hard, and my weight loss attitude relaxed, in a good way . I don't feel as much pressure (internal) anymore to meet some preconceived rate of loss. Not that I wouldn't like it to be faster again, but I realized that at the moment, it wasn't worth working that hard. Maybe soon it will be. But the point is it's OK not to be so hard on yourself if you don't want to be. As long as I'm still heading in the right direction, it's OK. Until it isn't, and then I can be stricter again if I choose.

The last time I lost weight I hit a major plateau, took every other day "off plan" for one meal, thus making my caloric intake much more erratic than it had been for so long. Soon after I started to lose again

I don't worry about stalls that last up to 4 weeks. As long as I know that I have stuck to my plan both exercise and eating.

After 4 weeks, I will try and shake something up. Typically I focus on intensity and frequency of my workouts. But I have changed my routines at times.

I have only had 2 real plateaus in the last 18months. One was 6 weeks and the other about 7 weeks. There are several threads around here where we have talked about different set points that our body likes. Not scientific but informally many of us have run into this. Most of my mini-stalls or plateaus seem to be at the points.

Plus I have this theory that the diet gods like to play with our minds. When ever I got to a major milestone - under 200 lbs or total 100lbs lost, I was almost sure to run into a stall. It was like the diet gods were testing me to make sure that I really wanted it.

Lori

Thanks everyone. Evidently posting about my weight loss stalling is like going to the doctors when you are in pain. As soon as you go to the doctors, it stops hurting. The scale started moving again today. It is nice to hear that other people have weight changes of a few pounds on a daily basis. I've never seen the scale bounce so much!

I'm not going to stress is to much. I am thrilled that I'm managing to stay on plan while I'm so busy. I was scared all my good habits would fly out the window when I got busy again.

I was thinking like taking your car to the mechanic ...

Not that that's happened to me recently or anything?

Noooooo.

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I started losing weight in January and in March I hit the dreaded plateau for the entire month. Near the end of March I started exercising which I suppose started me losing again. September I almost stopped losing again with only a 1.5 pound loss. I'm hoping when I weigh in on Saturday morning that I'm on the move again.