“Plateau” when losing weight, or why I’m on a diet and don’t lose weight

When you start to lose weight, the body first of all leaves excess fluid. Then the extra pounds start to leave. The first fat you lose is the most recent fat you gain. It will take more time and your attention to your diet to get to the old fat deposits. 

During the first period of the diet, your body has time to adapt to the new caloric content of your diet. For example, your metabolic rate is 1700. That is, to maintain life, you have enough 1700 calories per day. At this caloric level you will not lose weight, and you will not get fat, as all you eat will be spent. If you have been eating at 3000 calories for a long time, all the extra eaten will turn into fat and be deposited on the body. The diet begins, the body takes some of the energy from the fat depots. But at some point the body gets used to the new circumstances, your body adjusts, your metabolism adjusts, the old fats stop being consumed. And no new ones appear. In addition, you after the first lost kilograms, the body no longer needs more energy, which previously went to digest all the food eaten. 

When the body has already adjusted to the new metabolism and has not yet reached the old fat deposits, there comes a plateau. This is the period (a week or two, a month) when the excess weight stops to go away. At this point, it is very easy to lose motivation and go back to your old eating habits. 

To prevent this from happening, remember your goal. It is bad if your goal was to lose weight by a certain date, and then you planned to eat the same way. It’s good if your goal is to change your diet. If that’s the case, keep eating in a new way, get used to a new regimen and habits. If your goal was poorly articulated, articulate your desires more accurately, change your goal. 

To do this, understand why you need to lose weight. Bad and unworkable motivation is to lose weight for your husband, boyfriend, lose weight, eat you are ashamed of your appearance. There is no point in losing weight for a vacation, as your pounds will immediately return after the end of the diet. 

Listen to yourself – what will life give you in a slim body? If you want to be beautiful, think about what you need it for. If so you plan to establish a personal life, then remember how many of your acquaintances fat women have successfully married. Perhaps to love yourself and be confident in yourself, you do not need to lose excess weight. The desire to lose weight should be all yours, but losing weight should not be a goal to achieve other goals. It won’t work. Or it will work, but you will gain back the extra weight as soon as the other goal is achieved. 

How to help your body and survive a plateau

Suppose it’s been three months since you changed your eating habits. That’s enough time for the new habits to take hold. Count how many things you have already changed in your diet and lifestyle. For example, you have eliminated confectionery, cakes and desserts, do not eat mayonnaise, sauces, forgot about potatoes, semi-finished products and sausages. Agree, after three months of these products no longer want and food is not perceived as a series of restrictions. 

Add something else

To help your body get to the old fat reserves, take the next step. For example, eliminate gluten from your diet completely. Gluten is found in wheat. That means it’s in wheat and whole wheat flour, pasta, couscous, bulgur, Poltava grits, oatmeal, breakfast cereals and even harmless whole wheat buns. Modified starches and thickeners in foods are also gluten. 

To see how well you digest gluten, eliminate all foods containing gluten from your diet for at least a month. If you have an enzyme deficiency to digest it, gluten will also slow down your weight loss. In addition, all of the most caloric foods contain gluten. Perhaps this is what will help your body now.

Add Movement

To keep your metabolism on track, you need to exercise to speed it up. If you haven’t exercised yet, now is the time. Try different types of exercise: running, fitness equipment, aerobic group exercise, Nordic walking, yoga, Pilates, and swimming. Go to different classes to see what you like best. If you don’t eat more, and you start spending more calories now, the weight will definitely shift.  

Massage and sauna 

Massage and sauna will also boost your metabolic processes. Saunas can help flush out toxins, massages can tighten your skin, remove cellulite and help excess fat leave your body. 

If you continue to eat right and don’t overeat on procedures, the result is sure to appear. Taking care of yourself will help you realize once again that you are continuing to take care of yourself. The longer this period lasts, the more chances are that you will love your new lifestyle, and about evening binges will be remembered with disgust.  

Figure out why you need the pounds

Sometimes extra pounds are caused by psychological problems, not by poor eating habits. Some reasons why it’s worth working through the extra weight with a psychologist. If you have already lost weight and gained it again; if you have been dreaming of a slim body all your life, but you weigh 30-40 kilograms more; if you gain weight in your most difficult moments, which means that you eat up stress. Sometimes the reasons for being overweight are much deeper than just a childhood habit of pleasing significant adults when you had to finish eating everything. Sometimes being overweight closes us off from close relationships, or food becomes the only pleasure allowed since childhood, someone wants to be loved not as perfect, but “as is.” 

Such reasons are usually not conspicuous, and it’s likely the last thing you’ll think about is the real reason you’re overweight. That’s how our subconscious mind works.

Try a consultation with a psychologist. If one doesn’t work for you, try another. Maybe you will be lucky the first time. And by no means shy away from such help. You are finally taking care of yourself and your body and you need different helpers for that. 

How to keep the mindset of losing weight 

Measure your volumes

If a plateau has occurred, forget about the scale for a while. Measure your volumes at that time. If you start exercising and fat begins to be replaced by muscle, the weight may increase slightly, but the volumes will decrease. Understand that the cherished 55 pounds may not be the ideal weight for you at all. You can be in such good physical shape that you will weigh 60 kilograms, but you will be fit and slim. 

Remember how much is behind you

Keep a weight loss diary, record your progress there. When it gets really sad, flip through the diary. You will remember how difficult it was in the beginning and realize that now do not fail is much easier. 

Add the allowed sweets

To avoid breakdowns and make yourself happy, add healthy sweets to your diet. These can be dried fruit, date paste bars with supplements, honey. Eat them twice a week in the morning, then you are unlikely to have a breakdown.

Get a lot of emotion

Make sure your emotions are high. It will help keep the fighting spirit, and if eating was for fun, you just need positive emotions not obtained with food. Tell yourself that this is a great time in your life, you’re finally getting slimmer. Even if you have nowhere to go besides work, just change your daily route. In the evening, instead of binge watching movies, TV shows, read books about proper nutrition. 

Take up a hobby

This method will also improve your mood and diversify your life. If you already have a hobby, great. Give it more time, attend events and workshops and courses. 

Find a sidekick

With the help of the Internet, it will be very easy to do this. There are many forums, groups on social networks or instagram, where the thinners gather. You can also choose to participate in a weight loss marathon, where there is feedback from supervisors and communication with other thinners.

Why there is no progress in losing weight while on a diet

Our bodies need energy to sustain life, movement, work and study. It can only come from food. We need different amounts of energy for different activities, and even when we sleep, the body expends it because our internal organs work during rest as well. All food has a certain amount of calories. And it would be logical to assume that if you eat less than what you spend, you will lose weight. But sometimes there is no reasonable explanation for why dieting doesn’t work. 

If proper nutrition, lots of movement, diets and unloading diets don’t help, then the reason is something else. To begin with, it’s worth carefully analyzing your diet and its caloric content. Then it is worth to understand how many calories you really spend. Honestly admit to yourself, if you do not eat the bulk of calories during snacks. 

Eating habits

Scrambled eggs and vegetables for breakfast. Brown rice and baked chicken breast for lunch. For dinner, just a salad. But for some reason there is no way to lose weight on such a diet. If you make a food diary and write down everything you eat and drink there, then you can find the reason for the excess weight. We do not always give importance to snacks, do not count the calories of drinks. Nevertheless, a seemingly harmless cappuccino may contain 400 calories at once. Finishing porridge after the baby, then a creamy soup at lunch, three cookies on the walk – that’s another 200 calories. A handful of nuts, two apples, a tiny candy in the morning – another 300 calories. So, you eat little, but you snack on almost 1,000 calories. 

Our eating habits also manifest themselves in other ways. Rice is needed in the diet, and we choose white steamed rice. Instead of baked chicken breast, we roast chicken thighs. We add cream to coffee, and instead of yogurt we dress the salad with 20% sour cream, and eat 9% cottage cheese for dinner. If you eat only healthy foods, take another critical look at your diet. You may be choosing the very same items, but 

After all, you can eat whole wheat bread without yeast, as advised by your nutritionist, and buy custard bread. You think it’s dark, unsweetened, and there are almost as many calories as in the cake. A piece of such bread for breakfast ruins all plans to have a thin waistline.

Metabolism 

Sometimes a very frugal diet does not contribute to weight loss. This can be due to problems with metabolism and hormonal disorders. Only a doctor can diagnose the cause if it’s hormones. 

If you have been on a low-calorie diet for years, your body is used to living in deficit. Everything eaten in excess of the usual norm, it hoards. An increase in calories, even by 100 calories, affects the appearance of excess weight. Of course, this happens in the most difficult cases, when the habit of sitting on low-calorie diets has already affected the metabolism. In this case, a good nutritionist will help. Help the body with sports, which speeds up the metabolism, and a gradual increase in the caloric content of the daily diet so that the body gets used to the new diet. 

Calorie Surplus 

The body needs a caloric surplus at times of recuperation. For example, after a long illness. Professional athletes also need a caloric surplus when they are actively training or building muscle mass. 

Of course, in these cases, we are not talking about extra calories, which should be filled with cakes, fatty kebabs, milk chocolate and hamburgers. Calories in excess should benefit the body. Therefore, athletes choose lean meats, protein omelets, cottage cheese, and long carbohydrates. 

To understand how many calories you need to maintain your weight, you can use the formula: 655 + (9.6 x weight) + (1.8 x height) – (4.7 x age in years). This will be your baseline metabolic rate.

Let’s calculate this figure for a 30-year-old woman who weighs 55 pounds and is 165 centimeters tall. 

655 + (9.6 x 55) + (1.8 x 165) – (4.7 x 30) = 655 + 528 + 297 – 141 = 1339

This means that if you are happy with your weight, you can eat and not gain weight at 1339 calories. That’s how much your body needs to maintain vitality. If you practice sports, multiply this number by 1.375 (for light exercise), by 1.55 for moderate activity, and by 1.725 for those who practice sports intensively and lead an active life. 

If you eat 2,000-2,500 calories every day and have an inactive lifestyle, a caloric surplus will be the main reason you are overweight. To eliminate this cause, keep a food diary for a week. Write down everything you eat, weigh your food. This experience will help you in the future. First, you will learn to determine the weight of foods by eye. Learn the caloric content of fruits and vegetables. Detect foods that discreetly increase the caloric content of your diet. 

Calorie deficit

The caloric value of foods shows us how much energy each fruit, vegetable, and other food we eat can give us. The energy we need to sustain life, for sports or sleep is also measured in calories. A strength training session may consume up to 400-500 calories, a jog may consume about 200 calories, and two hours of yoga may consume 300-500 calories. The number of calories burned depends on your weight, age, workout intensity, and other information.  

If you eat less than your body needs, it will begin to convert your excess fat into energy, so you will lose weight. If you have already lost weight, eating within your metabolism will be enough to maintain your weight. If you are losing weight, don’t reduce the calories in your diet by many times. Your best bet is to eat long carbs, lean meats, steamed vegetables, fresh herbs, fruits. Eliminate sugar, alcohol, cakes and pastries, chocolate, sweet coffee with heavy cream, and muffins. 

You may have a gluten intolerance. You can find this out by taking a special test. You can also determine whether your body can handle gluten by excluding all gluten-containing products from your diet for two weeks. 

Honestly admit to yourself whether you eat the bulk of your calories during snacks. Nuts, fatty meats and dairy products, hidden sugar in yogurts, teas, breads and sauces can quietly double the calories in your diet. Other hidden causes that prevent you from losing weight are child-satisfaction and a confused metabolism. Let’s look at all the reasons why dieting doesn’t work, in more detail.