The Easiest Breakdown and Solutions for A Weight Loss Plateau
--
You’ve been on a steady path to losing weight and you have made amazing progress so far.
However, you’re not quite where you want to be and the weight just won’t budge any lower.
Stop me if you heard this story before.
I’m sorry to say this, but you have reached a weight loss plateau.
In this article, we’re going to discuss:
- Why do we reach a weight loss plateau
- How to break through it
There are several reasons why you hit a weight loss plateau.
1. You’re Losing Fat and Gaining Muscle
This one happens more often than not.
If the scale is the only thing you’re using, you don’t know what’s happening to your body fat, and your muscle mass.
It’s a possibility that your fat has fallen more than your muscle has risen initially, and that’s why you saw your overall weight drop, but after some time, you started gaining muscle at the same rate as you started losing fat.
The net effect: no change in weight.
That’s why you should measure not just weight, but body fat.
This way you see whether your weight loss has peaked because your rate of fat loss is matching your rate of muscle gain, or if it has stalled for another reason.
Though that for your muscle mass to go up, you need to be strength training.
If you’re not strength training, and you’ve reached a weight loss plateau, you can rule this one out.
And you should be doing strength training anyways!
2. Your Body Fat is Already Low
If you get below a certain level of body fat, your health starts to suffer, and your body knows that.
So it’s going to purposely make it harder for you to get even lower.
But this applies to a few people.
In general, health starts to suffer below 6% body fat for men, and for women, it’s more of a range.
