Plateauing ....need advice!!

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A thing many forget is that as you drop weight, the calories need to drop as well to reflect your lower weight.

The more weight you drop the harder it becomes to drop the existing weight you want to lose. Also, focus more on how you look and feel versus the number on the scale. The Rock weighs 290lbs.+ but is most clearly not fat. Evander Holyfield when he was in prime fighting shape had a BMI that said he was obese.

Answer

What worked for me was actually taking a break from it all. I know that’s not conventional…but I decided to continue to do things I would do if I were trying to maintain . I didn’t eat so strict but I did continue to be active . I tried to eat more balanced and not in a deficit. I just had to do this because I was burned out.

Once I was ready to pick back up I went back at it and am back to eating in a deficit and the pounds are melting.

From now on this is what I’m going to do. Back and forth between eating at maintenance and eating in a deficit.

I realize this won’t work for everyone but this is just what worked for me and again isn’t conventional.

Answer

That’s a decent amount of working out and it’s likely you’re putting on muscle at the same time you’re losing fat. Even though you’re not doing heavy weightlifting, you’ll still put on muscle doing any activity that’s new to your body consistently. The changes you are seeing are way more important than the number on the scale.

There’s no info on your gender, height, and build, and I’m not a doctor anyway so I wouldn’t try to give specific advice for your body. Instead I’d ask how you came up with your goal weight? Any chance that your body is happier and healthier closer to where you are now? If you’re doing everything right and seeing all these great changes but the lbs are staying the same, maybe your body is maintaining for a reason.

Answer

Are you tracking your calories? You need to be in a deficit. If you’re in a deficit then you just need to give it time.

I find it easier to track using photos and measure, but then I don’t have weight to lose, more like fat to burn and muscle to build so the scale needs fo go up for me.

Answer

“lots of cardio” is more for fitness/cardiac health/endurance than weight loss.

Strength training is more for body recomposition (fat loss, muscle building) than it is for weight loss.

Weight loss is made in the kitchen; fitness is made in the gym.

On the weight loss front, you need to have a caloric deficit. And you have no idea if you are in a caloric deficit, or in enough of a caloric deficit, to be able to measurably overcome the body recomposition if you aren’t tracking.

A gallon of water weighs 8 pounds. When you weight train, your body recruits water to fill in muscle tears until they can be adequately repaired. In order to make repairs, you have to eat protein to give your body the building blocks it can’t make on its own.

Fat is light and fluffy; not nearly as dense as water and muscle; it takes up more space in the body. So you are literally seeing with your own eyes the recomposition that’s happening, but refuse to acknowledge it because you would rather have the number on the scale dictate your progress.

If weight is more important to you, just stop working out and you can lose a lot of weight, a lot of that being your muscle mass. But you’ll get those big numbers you’re looking for.

If you want to preserve your muscle mass and get healthier, and prioritize fat loss over weight loss, you’re going to need to use more tools for tracking progress that can tell a fuller picture.

Things I would recommend for nutrition:

1. Calculate your current TDEE so you know how much of a caloric deficit you need to be in to actually lose weight (500 is about 1lb per week and is more sustainable than more significant deficits).
2. Get a kitchen scale and actually figure out what you are eating every day, and compare this to your TDEE - 500. Make adjustments as needed. There will be a point where this is no longer feasible, and so your weight loss will need to slow or you’ll have to employ other techniques to create a deficit again (reverse-dieting, increasing activity levels, eating at maintenance for a while, etc.)
3. Calculate the number of protein grams you need to eat to support your existing lean body mass and account for that in your meals (if you’re lifting this is about 1.0 - 1.2g per pound of lean mass.)
4. Increase your water intake; this accounts for higher protein intake and helps flush out lactic acid during workouts (recovery aid.)
5. Look for inflammatory foods in your diet that can cause water retention and inflammation. Too much sugar/refined grains (glycogen requires water for storage), too much sodium (the body is balancing electrolytes and may hang onto water to regulate), too many nuts/nut butters/dairy (some people have sensitivities to processing in the gut and can lead also to retention.)

Things I would recommend for fitness:

1. Swap “lots of cardio” for more targeted interval training; moderate intensity/high intensity for shorter periods instead of lengthy sessions at the same pace. (Training for a marathon is very different than training as a sprinter.)
2. Consider higher weight/lower reps; you want muscle fatigue sooner as it’s more efficient. When you get to the point where you can do more reps in a set (keeping good form), this is a sign you are ready to increase weight.
3. Take body measurements for progress in addition to scale weights (when measurements go down and the scale is flat/goes up, this is usually a sign of fat loss being masked by fluid recruitment.)

Me: Just someone at this rodeo sharing what I’ve learned about diet and nutrition that helped me break out of my 5 pound yo-yo when I began working out…

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