When we talk about plateaus we are talking about lack of WEIGHT loss, but the goal is really FAT loss.  Unfortunately, weight and fat loss don't coincide, especially at the beginning of a diet when the body’s water balance is altered by the smaller amounts of food or new foods that you are eating.

During the first few weeks of losing weight, a rapid drop is normal. In part, this is because when you cut calories, the body gets needed energy initially by releasing its stores of glycogen, a type of carbohydrate found in the muscles and liver. Glycogen is partly made of water, so when glycogen is burned for energy, it releases water, resulting in weight loss that's mostly water. This effect is only temporary.

Everyone wants, and hopes for, fast weight-loss. Unscrupulous “experts” … in books and advertising ... promise dieters more weight-loss than is possible.  It is only possible for the human body to lose a certain limited average amount of fat per week. 

Also the sharp decrease in weight that often happens during the first week or two of dieting raises false and unrealistic expectations that this fast initial weight-loss rate will continue throughout the following weeks.

It’s an unfortunate fact that the bodies of most women max out at an average of about 2 pounds of fat loss a week, and even this only happens with very active dieting. 

Below are calculator chart examples demonstrating this fact. So if you have 20 pounds of real fat to get rid of,  it will probably take at least 10 weeks, and it often takes 20 or 30 weeks for even a very successful dieter to lose 20 pounds of fat.

After dieting for a while, a woman’s weight can go up and down by 3 pounds between one day and the next ... because of changes in hydration and water balance, ... and for some women, menstrual cycle hormones make water change weight even more than this.

This daily change in water weight makes it genuinely hard to see the comparatively small loss of an ongoing one or two pounds of fat loss per week. 

There are many of methods of dieting … including low-calorie, low-fat, low-carb, high-fat, ketogenic, intermittent fasting (i.e. everything from fasting between meals to long-term fasting), whole foods, unprocessed foods, food exchanges, portion control etc. 

However, cutting calories is the basis for every effective weight-loss diet because the only way to lose actual fat is to consistently get one’s calorie intake lower than one’s calorie expenditure.

So for weight-loss the average daily calorie number is the bottom line.

After weight-loss stalls, in order to continue losing weight, one must create a consistent calorie deficit until reaching desired goal. This means one needs to start paying attention to how many calories are consumed and how many are burned.

The best way to begin figuring out how many calories your body is burning is to use an online calorie calculator that gives you the average calorie burn for someone your age and size.  

These calculators are based on mathematical formulas, and a mathematical formula will not necessarily provide an accurate calorie number result for an individual ..... because that number is always the result of AVERAGING. 

It is very common for people of the same size, age, and activity level to be up to 15% lower or higher than the stated averaged number, and some people will have even a larger percentage of deviation up or down.

Mifflin is currently considered to be the most accurate of these formulas, and that is the one I normally use to run calorie burn numbers.

Here’s a link to a Mifflin online calorie calculator. 

For more Accuracy,
 ....  when I use a calculator to run the Mifflin formula calorie numbers ...
I always enter a person’s activity level as “Sedentary” because using the inexact numbers provided as "Activity calories" greatly increases the chances of an incorrect result.

Exercise has many benefits, but recent research has proven that, despite the marketing claims by the fitness industry, weight-loss usually isn’t one of them.

It is an unfortunate mistake to over-estimate one’s activity level when calculating one’s calories, because while being guided by a calorie number that is too low could result in additional weight LOSS, ... being guided by a calorie number that is too high can result in actual weight GAIN.

Getting an individual calorie burn number from an online calculator is a good place to START, but it is always important to recognize and remember that YOUR own personal calorie burn could be a lot lower than the number given.

Earlier in this article, I stated that that the bodies of most woman max out at an average of about 2 pounds of fat loss per week, and even this only happens with very active dieting.  People who dispute this unpopular truth aren’t doing the math.



 

The pictured charts above show calorie calculations for a 50 year old female, 5’4” tall.  These calculations show her Maximum Average Weekly weight-loss potential:

At 170 pounds.......
..........eat only 651 calories daily to lose 2 lbs per week

At 150 pounds……
..........eat only 542 calories daily to lose 2 lbs per week

At 130 pounds….
.........eat only 434 calories daily to lose 2 lbs per week.

Remember, all of these calorie numbers are Averages, in that some women of that age and size will have numbers that are Lower or Higher.  Unfortunately, the burn rate numbers of most dieters tend to be either average or lower than average.   This is because most women with a higher burn rate have bodies that are better able to maintain a “normal” weight without dieting.

The term “plateau” is commonly used to describe the fact that weight loss has come to a halt before it was intended.

Sometimes this happens because people forget to adjust their caloric intake down as they lose weight, or they don’t adjust it down enough. People also generally get some muscle loss along with fat loss, which makes their metabolic rate a bit less than they expected it to be.

Sometimes after having some weight-loss success people get a bit more relaxed with the way they track their food intake. They don’t notice some of the things they eat; or they begin to guess at their portion sizes instead of measuring them ... which leads to additional food eaten and a higher calorie intake.

Also, illness, injury or medications can sometimes have an effect on the way someone does or doesn’t lose weight.

An ongoing calorie deficit will always cause fat loss in every human body… eventually. 

Obesity expert, Dr. Yoni Freedhoff, M.D. says that physiologically, “Plateaus” don’t actually exist.   He says that although it is common for people to experience several weeks, or even a month or more without seeing weight-loss, …. that “unless it is a temporary trick of the scale, …. if you’re not losing, either you’re burning fewer calories than you think; you’re eating more than you think; or some combination thereof”.

The way to track your calorie intake is to accurately count the calories in every bite of your food intake.

Until you get into the habit of doing this, it can seem time-consuming and tedious, but research studies have shown that the more regularly a dieter keeps a food log, the more weight they lose.

During my lifetime, I’ve lost and regained a great deal of weight.  For the past 11+ years, I've maintained my body at or near my “normal” BMI range.

I’ve experimented with many different diets, lifestyles, ways-of-eating, and non-diets.  See ABOUT ME. 

After all these years, here’s the most important basic fact that I’ve learned about losing weight and keeping it off.

How to Lose weight:
Sustain a caloric DEFICIT.

How to Keep it off:
Sustain a caloric BALANCE.

Various diet “experts” exist who dispute this law of calorie balance.  I’ve spent a lot of time studying and experimenting with that issue, and it has become clear to me that manipulating micronutrients does NOT “open a rift in the space-time-insulin continuum to transport body fat into the fifth dimension”.

I find it helpful to deal with Reality.

There are lots of methods of dieting including low-calorie, low-fat, low-carb, high-fat,  ketogenic, intermittent fasting, whole foods, unprocessed foods, food exchanges, etc. etc. etc.

However, cutting calories is the basis for every effective weight-loss diet because the only way to lose actual fat is to consistently get one’s calorie intake lower than one’s calorie expenditure. So in actuality, the bottom line for weight-loss is the average daily calorie number.

There are essentially 3 issues involved in all Diets,

The main food issue is: AMOUNT; and two sub-issues are: KIND and FREQUENCY.

•  AMOUNT -- of food eaten
  
•  KIND – fundamental nature (micronutrients) of food eaten
  
•  FREQUENCY of eating food

All Diets involving weight-loss or maintenance of weight-loss place restrictions on one or more of those three food issues.  The fundamental purpose of each of these restrictions is to reduce a dieter’s calorie intake. 

Some diets Directly restrict the food AMOUNT; while other diets Indirectly restrict the food Amount by restricting the KIND of food eaten, and/or the FREQUENCY of eating.  For additional information on this issue, see: The Essence of Diets. 

Every weight-loss diet requires that, … through some method, … attention be paid to how many calories one consumes, and how many one is burning.

ANY diet will lead to weight loss if one is in a caloric deficit, even one that is based on Twinkies, Doritos and Oreos, like Professor Mark Haub’s junk-food weight-loss experiment diet.

Some Diet Experts discount the importance of calorie restriction in order to get dieters to focus on their recommended way-of-eating. 

For example, Dr. Jason Fung, a proponent of Intermittent Fasting, refers to it as CRaP (Calorie Restriction as Primary).  While he doesn’t deny that a calorie deficit must exist for weight loss to occur, his claim is that calories aren’t the First and Most Important consideration. 

Calories are what matters for weight loss, but that doesn’t mean that all foods are equal, or that one shouldn’t pay attention to the specific foods eaten, because quality affects quantity. Low quality foods tend to be higher in calories and lower in nutrition.

There are “experts” everywhere who will tell you exactly What, and When, and How to eat. 

But food issues are very personal, and many of these involve a need for self-experimentation to find out which food restrictions will cause weight-loss without making one feel suicidal.

My personal choice is to track and record all my food intake in a computer journal which provides me with a calorie count. 

I have consistently done that every day for the past 12+ years, and I plan to continue with that practice. 

Calorie Counting gives me the Freedom to make my own individual food choices.

But with Freedom comes Responsibility, meaning that for ME, it requires consistent Food Tracking.  See: Freedom and Calorie Counting.   At the beginning, doing this can seem time-consuming and tedious, but for ME, it has now become a rather enjoyable habit. 

Accuracy or lack of accuracy is always an issue when counting calories, but I do my ultimate best to weigh, measure, and record consistently and accurately, and I am willing to trust that my personal best efforts are good enough.

While it is impossible for any calorie count to be totally accurate, it is possible ….

with
Consistent Effort,
Attention,
and Honesty

…. to get calorie numbers that will provide successful weight-loss and maintenance. 

Research studies have shown, again and again, that the more regularly a dieter keeps a food log, the more weight the dieter loses.

 People may Ask…

WHAT is the Right Thing?

For Weight-Loss, the right thing is to sustain a calorie DEFICIT (by any method that works for you) because this will always cause fat loss in every human body … eventually.

For Maintenance of Weight-Loss, the right thing is to sustain a calorie BALANCE (by any method that works for you) because when a body takes in the same energy that it uses, it doesn’t gain fat.

HOW LONG is Long Enough?

For Weight-Loss: Until you reach your weight goal.

For Maintenance of Weight-Loss:  Forever … Until you die.

Thinking of Obesity as a Disease,
and
Dieting as the Treatment Plan.

History of the Concept

Weight loss is a big business which comes with a built-in supply of repeat customers, and medical doctors have been involved in that business for a long time.

In 1942, Metropolitan Life Insurance Company used age, weight, and mortality numbers from nearly 5 million policies to create “desirable” height and weight charts. As a result people (and their doctors) began to compare themselves to a standardized notion of what they “should” weigh.

In the 1980s, the BMI ... which is a ratio of height/weight ... became the standard for determining obesity.

 In 1998, the AMA lowered the BMI cutoff of "normal" weight to 25, down from the previous 27 & 28. 

Overnight, millions of people became “overweight” or “obese”. 

Putting more people in those categories made more people eligible for medical weight-loss treatment.

In 2013 the American Medical Association declared obesity to be a chronic disease. 

Call me cynical, but follow the money. Doctors want to be paid for weight-loss treatments, and they get insurance reimbursement for treating disease. 

Although labeling obesity as a disease put the insurance industry on the hook financially, it also activated the concept of obesity as a “pre-existing condition”.

This could affect any person who has ever been obese … forcing such people to pay higher insurance premiums, and to face the possibly of being denied any medical insurance coverage at all.

Helpful Feature of the Concept

At this point, I want to set aside financial concerns about “Obesity as a Disease”,  and consider how the use of this concept might be helpful to someone dealing with obesity.

Heart disease, stroke, cancer, diabetes, and arthritis are all considered chronic diseases.  Obesity has now been added to that list. 

A chronic disease doesn’t get cured by just taking a pill or a shot.  The effects of a chronic disease tend to linger for long periods of time, sometimes forever.

Embracing the idea that Obesity is a Disease, and that Dieting is the required Treatment Plan, could be used to help make us realize that we need to stay active in managing our weight for all of the rest of our lives.

Some might consider this to be depressing, but consider this.

In order to maintain dental health you have to remember to brush your teeth multiple times a day.

In order to maintain good hygiene you have to maintain a regimen of washing yourself.

In order to maintain good health you have to commit to getting some sleep every day.

There are thousands of routines that we do every single day for our overall health, and we do most of them without feeling resentment.  We can choose to consider managing obesity as just another one of life’s daily requirements.

I’ve now been successfully maintaining my body at or near my “normal” BMI for 11+ years, after spending most of my lifetime with a BMI high in the obesity range. 

This weight maintenance didn’t just “happen”. 

My maintenance success has required ongoing vigilance and … quite frankly.. a great deal of effort … every single day. 

For a great explanation of this issue, see: Running Down the Up Escalator.