What Happens When Your Weight Loss Stalls?

You found a diet that you can live with, and for the first month you are excited as the scale says that you are eight pounds lighter. Two weeks later, all is not well, as the scale stops moving. What is going on and what should you do about it? You are experiencing a weight loss plateau, a natural occurrence in most weight loss attempts.

Physiology

Your weight loss success is based on your metabolism, the rate at which your body converts the food you eat to the energy you need. The goal of dieting is to achieve a caloric deficit, with the amount of calories burned exceeding the amount of calories eaten. When this happens, the extra energy that your body needs is derived from your stored body fat, resulting in weight loss and fat loss.

Effects

The key to continued weight loss is keeping your metabolism at the highest level possible. Factors contributing to an increased metabolism include muscle mass and weight gain. With dieting, both muscle mass and body weight are reduced, resulting in decreases in your metabolism. The diet that started out as a caloric deficit may now be at a caloric balance with the amount of calories eaten equal to the amount of calories burned resulting in weight maintenance, not weight loss. Decreases in metabolism can also be attributed to your body, sensing that it is losing weight, slowing down energy output as a survival mechanism. Your body instinctively tries to slow down to prevent further weight loss.

Time Frame

During the initial two weeks of starting a diet, you may be losing more than body fat. When you restrict the amount of carbohydrates that you eat, your body will lose excess sodium and water, adding to the amount of body weight lost. After this time, any additional weight lost is in the form of body fat and muscle mass, which slows down the amount of weight that you can lose. At this time, if your metabolism has started to decrease, further weight loss becomes more difficult. According to Weight Watchers, a plateau is reached when, after an initial weight loss, your weight remains the same for at least two weeks.

Prevention/Solution

The key to getting past a weight plateau is to avoid eating less. This will further reduce your metabolism. Suggestions include increasing your metabolism through increased activity. Cardio training will burn more calories while strength training will increase your muscle mass, contributing to an increased metabolism.

Expert Insight

The goal of weight loss is to slim down your appearance. A leaner physique doesn't have to be about achieving a specific weight loss. When starting a weight loss program, the goal should be more about losing inches than about losing weight. Recording and comparing body measurements is an alternative to dealing with the ups and downs of weight loss. While the scale may not be moving, the tape measure may be documenting progress.