[freefall]

Lost 90 lbs in 8 months and for the past 9 days... nothing. I guess this is a plateau - so frustrating! Have been OP with eating, exercise - even better than usual... Anyone else had anything like this happen??

[Sakurai]

I had a few plateaus along the way. Mine were at 245, 220, and a huge one at around 184-190. I'm in that phase right now, for the second time *cry* and it's hard to get over the hump. T_T

It becomes a little harder to lose weight the closer to ideal weight that you get. For one thing, smaller body requires less energy to maintain, so you need fewer calories.
Second thing is that when you exercise, you burn fewer calories since your body is smaller.
The third thing is that your body becomes more efficient, since it thinks it's not getting a normal amount of food, and burns fewer calories each day. It's not a huge amount of difference, but a reality that's part of losing weight. It basically goes away in the long run, from what I understand.

What I did is a couple of days of hardcore pushing myself with longer exercise and a few less calories, then went back to regular schedule. It helped me to see a little drop, and I stepped up my routine a little bit in terms of staying faithful.

I take a book with me to the elliptical. I stay longer that way

Plateaus happen, though, and pass. GL!

[caramelkitty]

Ahh plateaus! How I hate them so!

I usually just wait them out, take it easy on the workout for a couple days and just maintain my weight with the food.

Then when I start up my workouts again, the weight just flies off

Hope this one passes, hey, you dropped 90lb!!!!!!! Sit back and be proud of that one for a bit hehe

[Bellamack]

Congrats on your loss! 9 days is not even close to a plateau, it is just a slowdown, readjustment. Many define a plateau of over 2 weeks to 1 month at the same weight. Switch it up a little, try eating 100 more calories for a couple of days or take a day off from exercise, sometimes thats all it takes, kind of crazy! Again, Congratulations you are doing FANTASTIC

[fattymcfatty]

Yeah. My sticking points on the journey:
Getting out of the 230's. This took awhile
Getting past 214. Part of my problem with this was Holiday self-derailment
Breaking under 210.
Onderland: I camped out at 202-203 for several weeks before my weight went down.
Getting into the low 190's. Finally made it there, when I had entered the 190's in March. I saw 189 on the scale for the first time Saturday, but I have since bumped back up (I'm a daily weigher).

These things happen. I just stick to the plan, make sure my eating is as clean as possible, maybe change up my workout regime, and/or keep my carb/fat/protein ratio as even as I can.

I've noticed as my weightloss is slower, each pound is getting a lot more noticeable, and my body has reshaped itself and I actually look a lot different and the clothes look better when I was at 194 a couple weeks ago vs late April when I weighed the same. I started running, and that I believe has made some changes and awoken muscles I didn't realize I had! Hope this helps.

[jitterfish]

You might find your body is going into a cycle where you might not lose weight for a couple weeks and then over night it seems you drop it. My sister is like that, she loses one week and then maintains for two and then loses again.

Just keep on track, as long as you know you are doing good the scale gods will eventually smile on you.

[kaplods]

I would agree that anything shorter than 3 weeks shouldn't be considered a plateau - just a normal fluctuation.

It's not only normal to have no loss weeks, gain weeks are the norm also (even for folks who haven't went off plan). My TOPS group has a contest every month that showed us all how common gains were. We have an apple tree contest, in which everyone's name is printed on an apple that is pinned to a paper tree. If you gain or miss a meeting, your apple falls off the tree, and at the end of the month, the folks with their apple still on the tree, splits $10 (often it all goes to one person, and rarely are there more than 3 winners - out of more than 25 members, 20 of which almost never miss a meeting).

It's not a lazy group, either. Our group won a state award for having one of the highest and most consistent rates of weight loss in the state for 2010.

Gains and no-loss weeks are really common. You see some folks lose nothing all month and then lose 6 lbs. Others (like me) gain during TOM no matter how strict our diet.

Charting our weight, or recording it on a calendar can help you see your personal pattern. You may find that your slow periods are actually predictable.

[freefall]

Thanks all!
This morning the scale was down a couple of pounds, so hopefully my staying OP and waiting this out worked (if it pops back up tomorrow, I'll feel differently!)
Thanks for the advice/encouragement/information/experience...
I guess I have to get used to that there will be cycles of loss and not and even possibly gain and it won't always correlate to what I am doing. Maybe that's what I react to more than anything - taking control of my weight issues has felt like exactly that - control. And staying OP and exercising and not losing weight feels like a scary loss of control over my body...