If you haven't hit a plateau yet, you will. And when you do, you're going to want to give up (lizard brain!). Let's talk about plateaus, why they happen, how to punch through them, and create some ammunition to use against the lizard brain BEFORE you hit this crisis, shall we?
A plateau is a sticking point in your weight loss. It may happen after the first 10% weight loss, it may happen after the first 10 pounds, or it may not happen until the LAST 10 pounds. But at some point, you're going to get stuck. Day after day, week after week, you will step on that scale and it will stay within the same 1-3 pound fluctuation. And if, as this happens to you, you do not break down and cry at least once...
You're a stronger person than I am!
The shortest plateau I've ever hit was 3 weeks. The longest plateau was 8. EIGHT WEEKS of doing everything I could think of, and having that scale mock me! Imagine it! EIGHT WEEKS working out 4-6 hours per week, counting every calorie, piously avoiding every impulse not to work out, every piece of cake and steak thrown at me. EIGHT. LONG. WEEKS. And not so much as 1/4 of a pound of weight loss to show for it. To say that I was driven mad with the frustration and disappointment would be somewhat of an understatement.
I blamed PMS. I blamed too many calories. I blamed not enough workouts. I blamed routine. I blamed myself. I tried more exercise, fewer calories, adding morning workouts, even supplements. Nothing worked.
I began to think nothing would ever work again.
Now, I'm a very black-and-white, all-or-nothing thinker. Either I can lose weight, and therefore I should be losing it right now, or I can't lose weight, and therefore why should I bother? DANGER WILL ROBINSON DANGER! If you catch yourself subconsciously thinking shit like this, WHOA. Take a step back, because you're WRONG, and you're only hurting yourself.
Plateaus happen for a number of reasons. MORE OFTEN THAN NOT it's because your workouts have become too predictable and routine, and you've lost more than 10 pounds WITHOUT adjusting your caloric intake. As you lose weight, you need LESS FOOD to sustain you. Sooner or later, if you keep eating the same # of calories per day while you lose weight, your new low weight will not be able to lose fat at those calories, you'll be MAINTAINING your weight. So go back to my crunching the numbers post, plug in your new weight, etc., and drop those calorie levels accordingly!
If your calories are still where they need to be, you probably need a change in your fitness routine. Change ANYTHING. Vary the intensity of your workouts day to day. If you always do the elliptical, hit the bike, the stairmaster (that machine is seriously underrated, it is GREAT cardio), the rowing machine, the treadmill. Go outside and run. Go skiing. Take a dance class. DO SOMETHING DIFFERENT. Have you upped the amount of weight you're lifting? Are you hitting failure in 12-15 reps? No? UP THE WEIGHT! You've gotten stronger and are no longer challenging yourself. No challenge=no change, folks. It's gotta be hard!
But what if you've done all of that, to no avail? What if you're a workout and calorie nazi like me, and you haven't slipped even once. What if maybe...maybe it's something else. Shall I tell you about my crisis, my plateau, and how I made it worse before I made it better?
I was diagnosed in 2001 with secondary-onset PCOS, aka PolyCystic Ovarian Syndrome. No, I don't have cystic ovaries. I have a hormone imbalance (too much free testosterone in my system) that was keeping my ovaries from being able to ovulate. So the eggs would begin to develop in my ovaries, but never get the signal to mature and release the eggs, so they'd stall, and then fade, leaving behind a cyst-like structure. Not true cysts, but cystic-looking on an ultrasound.
There are two things we believe caused the adult-onset PCOS. One is the triphasic birth control pill I was on in the late nineties, Orthotrycyclin, which has been proven to be linked with secondary PCOS. The other was fat. I had gotten too fat, and fat produces estrogen. Estrogen is what the body uses to create Testosterone. So, great. My Estrogen and Testosterone levels were through the roof. I didn't have a period on my own for almost a decade. Non-Ovulatory PCOS; I couldn't ovulate, so I couldn't get pregnant. When I wanted to have kids, this was devastating to me. I had to go on fertility treatments for well over a year, and all the hormones and depression just helped make me fatter.
Then I had my son, and then I spent another 4 years in denial, and then I got serious about losing weight. After just ONE month of working out regularly, my periods started to come back! I was amazed! But when I contacted my fertility specialists, they told me that once PCOS, always PCOS; it is incurable. I may have affected my hormones enough to resume getting periods, but they would be anovulatory periods. I wasn't actually maturing or releasing eggs.
Oh, well, I thought. I didn't want more kids anyway, we'd already decided that much. Now at least I wouldn't have to worry about developing Endometriosis! As you can imagine, with my history with birth control pills, and with my diagnosis of infertility, we didn't worry about birth control. We hadn't for ten years, and my specialists had told me I could not get pregnant on my own.
And then, this last December 14th, exactly two weeks after the first day of my last period, the unthinkable happened. I conceived.
I didn't know it at the time, obviously. I had about five or six weeks left with my trainers, I had 9 pounds left to lose, I'd lost 5 pounds over the last 6 weeks and I'd hit my all-time low weight on December 14th. Life was great. Christmas was coming, everything was dandy. But come January 1, my period didn't show. I hadn't lost any weight over the previous two weeks, and though I was frustrated, I didn't really freak out about it too much. I figured it was PMS. But the period never came. And on January 7th, I found out why, and had a complete breakdown.
What followed was a dark week for me. I'll say it may be the worst week of my life to date. I struggled with denial; this couldn't have happened. What would I do? Oh, my god, we couldn't afford another child, I didn't WANT another child, and I did NOT want to get fat again, on top of it all! How could I work out? How could this happen to me? And then, on January 13th, as I went in to have an OB confirm the pregnancy, the ultrasound caused a great deal of concern, and the doctors started murmuring "Ectopic". The next 48 hours were a whirlwind. I went from being impossibly pregnant, to being in a life-threatening situation. They scheduled my D&C on January 15th. As I awoke from the anaesthesia, the doctor informed me that it had not been an ectopic (tubal) pregnancy, it was a blighted ovum. That's a pregnancy that fails to develop, usually due to a chromosomal/genetic disorder. I was safe, I was not in any danger, and the non-developing pregnancy would have ended in miscarriage sooner or later.
All of this took an unbelievable toll on my health and my emotions. I was restricted from working out for a few weeks, and working out was my outlet. I'd find myself craving food, but then not wanting it even when I had it. "Why eat it? It's not going to change anything" was the surprising new voice I heard in my head. Bitterly, I realized I'd cured my emotional eating.
So a month had gone by with no weight loss. Understandable, given that I was pregnant. But now I had to begin my journey again, start again trying to pick up where I left off. I vowed to kick the weight loss into high gear. I started working out 2x per day and limited my calories to the bare 1200/day minimum. And more weeks passed, and no weight loss. I was driven to the brink. Comfort food was no comfort, working out was not soothing me, and starving myself was not getting me any results. What could I do? Of course, the pregnancy hormone is still in my system even as I type this, and it has been almost 9 weeks since I conceived. That, in and of itself, is enough to stop the body from allowing fat to be lost. The body is still trying to protect the baby it thinks is in my body. But SURELY, SURELY all of my hard work should be showing! How can I be deficiting 4600 calories/week and not see ANY weight loss?
I have finally broken through my plateau, and in the last two weeks managed to accumulate a total weight loss of a pound and a half (from my 12/14th low weight). And I had to do it by letting go.
I was obsessing. I was mad! I was deranged! I was starving myself and working my body to the brink! This wasn't healthy! What had I become? I didn't feel like myself any more. First it felt like my body had turned on me, as though my own body I'd worked so hard for had been kidnapped and my brain had been injected into someone else's less-able body! And now it felt like even my MIND was turning on me!
I had to step back. I had to let it go. I had to accept that my habits had always been healthy, and that I'd been fighting against my body rather than working with it. I upped my calories to around 1450. I cut my workouts back to more normal levels. I made sure I ate more during the first 2/3rds of the day than in the last 1/3rd. I rededicated myself to cutting out processed foods and added more whole grains, fruits, vegetables, healthy fats and lean meats back into my diet.
But most of all, I followed the advice of my beloved sister, my rock of Gibraltar through this whole mess. She reminded me, "Don't be too frustrated. You'll get there, you're just going through a to-be-expected rough patch. That's what people like me are for :) Besides, you've lost the bulk of it, you're in the finishing chute, and it's not a life-and-death race to lose the last 10lbs, right? So don't fear, you've got time on your side. Most of the hard part's over."
I don't know why I couldn't see that part clearly before. She's right! It's not a race! Oh, sure, who wants to be overweight for any longer than absolutely necessary, right? And yet, to be sure, so what if it took me an extra 10 weeks than I expected to lose that last 9 pounds? Was I going to give up on my 60 pound weight loss because I was struggling a bit with the last NINE? SERIOUSLY?
We all hit plateaus, people. We hit them for all kinds of reasons. Sometimes it's bad math. Sometimes it's bad timing. Life likes to throw you curveballs, and your lizard brain likes to crawl back into its prehistoric cave and hide from them. The only way to protect yourself is to expect the unexpected. Know that the plateaus are coming, the bad news, the life-altering events. Know that safety, stability, predictability, are states of mind, and are anything but constant or dependable. None of it will be easy, but you are going to hit rough patches that make the rest of the process look like a cakewalk, in retrospect. Anticipate that. Anticipate your behavior, your reaction to these things. Vow to take the long view, to care enough about yourself to plug away, and not be too hard on yourself about it. Don't give up, friends. You're worth so much more than quitting. My most sincere best wishes to all of you in your personal struggles. You can do this!
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