Plateaued for 3 weeks.


:(

If you're hungry that should give you a clue. Go to maintenance for a week, only clean stuff.

Then keep cutting. Persistance is the best Plateau-booster there is.

I get confused - if I'm plateuaed, aren't I at maintenance?

I get confused - if I'm plateuaed, aren't I at maintenance?

Well, sort of. It could be that your body got used to your "cutting" caloric intake and is holding fat on those calories. If you go to your maintainance level you calculate according to your stats for a week, you should reset your maintainance level back again and then you can safely start cutting back.

Good luck. :tucool:

Plateaued for 3 weeks.


:(

If your hungry eat more.
or eat more often is better, small meals every 2 to 3 hours will keep you from being hungry.
If your sore and not gaining strength you need to have a week off and get your diet under control.
You should come back stronger. :bb:

If your hungry eat more.
or eat more often is better, small meals every 2 to 3 hours will keep you from being hungry.
If your sore and not gaining strength you need to have a week off and get your diet under control.
You should come back stronger. :bb:

A week off makes sense to me. How long have been without a week off? This happened to me, and when I rested for a week, I started making gains again.

If you're hungry that should give you a clue. Go to maintenance for a week, only clean stuff.

Then keep cutting. Persistance is the best Plateau-booster there is.

Agreed. i wouldn't even worry if it's not entirely clean. You might also want to take a short. break from training. I just got back from 4 days of Florida. When I left I was drained from many solid weeks of hard training and cutting. While I was in Florida I missed one weights workout and ate a little more. Not entirely clean but pretty good . I feel really energized and ready to get to my normal routine. And it wasn't even a full week.

I've only been at it hard core again for 7 weeks. My last full week off, though - can't remember. Diet-wise probably 7 weeks ago. Exercise-wise? Hmm. Only I'm going on vacation at the end of April and was hoping to take my break then... and be slimmer for the occassion.

It's interesting - my plateau started after I got a cold that wasn't bad enough to stop me exercising, but I simply wasn't hungry, and ate 1200 calories a day for about a week. After that I went back up to 1500-1700 and that's when things stalled out. I'm 5'4" and 132-133, near the 130 where I have always stalled out the last two years.

Ack.

Oh well. I'll figure it out. Thanks for the support.

how often do you do cardio? what type? for how long?
how often do you lift? what's your split?

all the details for the last 6.5 weeks are at my grindstone blog -

http://bisousmd.tripod.com/grindstoneblog/

Not all the portion sizes, but weights, foods, calories and ratios for most days are there. Plus all my exercise.

(I'm just afraid someone is going to say - cut dairy! go to 40/40/40 ratios! Cardio 2X a day! - when I'm discouraged like this it is hard to do more - I'm hopeful that plugging away in the same manner will be helpful. If I believe for long enough...persistance. Yeah.)

I'd tighten up the diet and then up the calories to 1700. Trade the pizza/rice/pastas for lean proteins or protein shakes.

40/40/40? What is this, football? Giving it the ol' 120% ? :D
I would recommend a refeed day, get your feet up for a few days and rest, and then try it again.

lol @ 120% comment :lol:

all the details for the last 6.5 weeks are at my grindstone blog -

http://bisousmd.tripod.com/grindstoneblog/

Not all the portion sizes, but weights, foods, calories and ratios for most days are there. Plus all my exercise.

(I'm just afraid someone is going to say - cut dairy! go to 40/40/40 ratios! Cardio 2X a day! - when I'm discouraged like this it is hard to do more - I'm hopeful that plugging away in the same manner will be helpful. If I believe for long enough...persistance. Yeah.)

Some clues:
afraid
discouraged

Take a week off.
That doesn't mean eat whatever you want.
It means pay attention to what you feel like eating and when. Eat only enough to feel full, but don't worry about tracking the exact amounts. Eat good quality foods, but don't worry about their macronutrient ratios.

Stress WILL cause you to hang onto fat. If you focus on performance-related goals instead of body-related goals, that could be the secret in breaking through your plateau.

You're sore?

I dont know what you're doing for PWO 1 & 2 but when i started doing these corretlly i stopped hurting altogether. I could lift everyday now if i want cuase i recover that fast. (at least it feels this way) I used to feel pain for 3 or 4 days in the muscle that I lifted and could hardly even use it (extend my arm for example) before i started eating correctly after lifting.

Course im far from in shape yet so advice may sound funny coming from me.

Thanks for the advice everyone -

(the spinach pizza is made on a low carb torillia :) )

And this may sound strange - I've been lifting regularly for a long, long time, and the soreness from that doesn't bother me much. I still get sore, but it's almost like I don't notice, unless I really push too hard and injure myself. Cardio on the other hand - I get sore feet, knees, calf, hip flexor, shoulders (x-xountry skiing). Gah.

Well, yesterday I ate 2300 calories - and a good percentage of it was stuff like tortilla chips, lite beer, and hershey's kisses. Today I'm finally down a pound.

The "free day" has never ever worked for me before - usually I gain 4 pounds of water weight. Go figure.

I feel much more motivated and less exhausted today.

I thought I might chime in with another idea: are you sleeping OK? Not just the duration, but the quality. Being properly rested and refreshed ought to help.

Well, yesterday I ate 2300 calories - and a good percentage of it was stuff like tortilla chips, lite beer, and hershey's kisses. Today I'm finally down a pound.

The "free day" has never ever worked for me before - usually I gain 4 pounds of water weight. Go figure.

I feel much more motivated and less exhausted today.
The body seems to react more to the fact that a change has occurred, than to the nature of that change.

Well, good news. I've plugged my stats into mybodycomp again and these are the changes over the last 6 weeks (including the 3.5 week "plateau").

scale wt: -3 lbs
chest: -2 inches
Waist: -1.5 inches
abdomen: -2 inches
hips: -1 inch
thigh: -1.2 inches
BF%: -2.74%
lean mass: +2 lbs
fat mass: -5 pounds

Thanks for the kind motivation and words during my freak out! I've decided to change my last two meals of the day to protein+veggie carbs. I think that will help me keep going forward.