What is the average time anyone of you guys has experienced from the time you changed your diet/training, losing weight, to the time you were obviously in a plateau?

I'm asking this because I changed my diet/training/plan exactly one week ago and been making some good progress, although I'm seeing some signs of slowing down. This can't be a real plateau can't it? Not after 7 days? :confused:

Would be cool to know how long you guys have been going on until hitting a plateau...

i went about 5 months before seeing a plateau..

This can't be a real plateau can't it? Not after 7 days? :confused:


You can't even start a trend to plateau with only seven days worth of data. Your weight will fluctuate from day to day based on a number of things which are mostly out of your control. However track you wieght every day getting the data at the same time everyday. Average the numbers for the week. This will give you your wieght for the week. Next week do the same thing. It's this weekly trend that can plateau not your daily wieght.

However just so you are prepared you will notice that amount you lost from week to week will very likely start to decline slowly. This will start almost imediatly. For instance you week 2 wieght might be 2.2 pounds less than your week 1 wieght. Well your week 3 wieght may only be 2.0 pounds less than your week 2 weight. This is pretty normal. your body is just adjusting to its new calorie intake. When this delta gets low enough (say a delta of 1.0 or less) then you can start worrying about a plateau and respond accordingly (cycle clalories, increase cardio, etc).

As an example here is the deltas for my weightloss for the last 2 months or so.

Week 1 -2.9
Week 2 -3.0
Week 3 -1.9
Week 4 -1.5
Week 5 -1.35
Week 6 -1.95
Week 7 -1.44
Week 8 -1.21
Week 9 -1.15

As you can see I am starting to plateau as I only lost 1.15 pounds this week. I will probably do something to break it within the next week or so. I think week 5 I ate closer to maintence for a week, which is why week 6 basically kick started the process agian.

Hope this helps....

Ves

The first week is usually a lot of water weight. Any slow down is because your body has gotten rid of the excess water it was carrying.

It'd take several weeks of monitoring weight before you could tell if you were plateauing.

You won't plateau in a week or even in a couple of weeks. Your body doesn't adapt that quickly.

Cool stuff. Thanks for the responses :tu:

I subconsciously knew it couldn't be a plateau, it's just that I lost a lot the first 3 days (almost 3 pounds) and then BOOM, nothing, nada, zilch. My weight stayed on the same EXACT number (211.6) for 4 days now. Calories are roughly the same, watering is exactly the same, sleep is exactly the same, heck, even training passes are the same at roughly the same intensity..

This is weird, I'll see what happens tomorrow.

While I guess it wasn't an issue for John, this is exactly the reason I don't weigh myself every day. The change you show from one given day to the next is utterly meaningless, but people often get obsessed about it one way or the other (unexpected 'gains', lack of change, dramatic 'losses'). I weigh myself every two weeks, and don't see any benefit in anyone doing it more than once a week. You can't understand a forest by studying a single tree, etc.

While I guess it wasn't an issue for John, this is exactly the reason I don't weigh myself every day. The change you show from one given day to the next is utterly meaningless, but people often get obsessed about it one way or the other (unexpected 'gains', lack of change, dramatic 'losses'). I weigh myself every two weeks, and don't see any benefit in anyone doing it more than once a week. You can't understand a forest by studying a single tree, etc.


Yes, your scale is your worst enemy. I'm fully aware of that. The reason I'm collecting daily readings is that I'm developing computer software that will analyze the weight readings, food logs including macronutrients, training records (including calories expenditure) and then analyze the whole log and statistically and heuristically draw conclusions and point out trends. Also it will point out what generally works and what it less beneficial.

This is a research project within my own company.

That is pretty cool, got no problem with it - John's progress charts remain very informative for countless people long after he's lost all the weight. Just try to remain detached from the data; treat your daily scale weight is just a curiousity, focusing on the long term, and happiness will ensue :)