I have read all over that if you hit a plateau with your reduced calorie diet... to go back to your maintenance level "for a while" to reset your metabolism (basically) then resume your reduced calorie diet. So how long is a while? and how do you gauge it if its different for everyone?

Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't. It depends on things like how long you've been dieting, what you've been eating, what your caloric intake has been, if you're truly plateaued or simply miscalculating your intake vs. requirements, etc, etc.

Trial and error.

Scientific method.

Hypothesis -> Experiment -> Observations -> Evaluation -> Hypothesis... ad infinitum.

Im thinking thats not the answer a lot of people who may read this wanted....

On a long enough timeline, success is inevitable. Provided you don't quit. Or die. And aren't screwing things up royally.

Most people who claim to be plateauing - really aren't... and they don't want to hear that either...

That's why anyone can be an expert in this field, lol. These are the kinds of questions that are asked most often and the answer to said questions is always, "It depends."

There are no absolutes here.

If someone has been chronically dieting for an extended period of time, is sure they're in a supposed deficit, and is not seeing any real progress for an appreciable length of time (i.e. not two weeks).... systematically increasing calories toward maintenance over a certain time (for some this may be a week, for others a month) might help to upregulate some of the adaptations they're encountering from the prolonged diet. Once at maintenance, staying there for 1-4 weeks (and that's not written in stone at all) might not be a bad idea.

The truth is more often than not the person isn't really plateaued. What usually is the case is:

a) they aren't tracking their foods appropriately
b) they lack consistency
c) they don't account for the metabolic downshift associated with a loss of weight (lose 30 lbs and don't adjust your intake downward to account for the lesser need of energy in relation to a smaller body and you have yourself a 'plateau.'

The list goes on.

Oh, and there's things like:

d) magic

and

e) the ever so common metabolic diseases

My mother told me this several years ago. I was on a diet and had plateaued. I was very depressed. She told me to go out and get some pizza. I did, of course, who can argue with that? Then she told me to go back to my diet for the rest of the week- wouldn't you know it? I dropped the ten pounds I should've lost during the plateau. I have no idea what the scientific reason is- perhaps your body is worried about starving?

There's a bunch of possible reasons that are discussed in the stickies here.

LMAO!!! "provided you don't quit or die"...I almost fell out of my chair laughing! Focus, you are too funny

My plan is to find a scheme that'll keep me healthy to live long enough to become successful. My only concern is I'll reach a mathusalemic age by then. Wait, that wouldn't be too bad...

You may want to look into the work of Dr. John Berardi at John Berardi - Articles He has documented several cases where he had to UP peoples' calories significantly to get them to lose fat.

The 'starvation mode' is a very real genetically evolved trait that us humans possess. I can elaborate from a paleonutrition standpoint,, but that bores most people to death.

If you have been dieting hard for a long period, then your plateau is probably real and lowering calories further or doing more exercise is just going to be counterproductive.

Now simply adding more calories isn't always the answer. Some types of calories are going to be stored as fat because the body has been waiting for them to be around so that it can do just that (while you dieted, your endocrine system produced a nett fat-storage metabolic profile).

Here are some 'tricks' that work for me and for others that I have recommended it to:

• Take 3-5 days off dieting

• Up your calories to 500 above maintenance on those days

• significantly up your protein intake - this is not for the 'thermic effect of food', but to stimulate protein synthetic pathways that are both energetically costly and produces a metabolic profile that is almost exactly the opposite of 'starvation mode'

• make sure that you actually get 'too much' protein, relatively speaking - you are trying to produce an 'engineered' effect here. Normal just won't cut it. Its only for a few days anyway.

• to prevent fat storage on those days, time your calories - complex carbs at breakfast, moderate amounts of very low GI carbs at lunch, and very low carb at dinner. Lean protein 'snacks' in between (shake or solid) with generous helpings of fruit.

• have some extra fish oil - many benefits, but the one I am after is increased insulin sensitivity.

• remember to count calories - too many will have you storing fat and too few will not break you out of starvation mode

I'm sure I'm going to be flamed for these recommendations, but they work if you follow it as prescribed. And yes, even in 3-5 days.

How to prevent hitting a plateau again? PLAN for it. Take one 'off' day every 3 days (if your diet is really a low calorie one) and structure it like I mentioned above. It *is* similar to the old zigzag diet concept, but both the zigs and zags are shorter and the zags are engineered to actively stimulate the metabolism.

Yup, happens quite frequently actually with most anyone working with people who are chronically eating below maintenance and significantly reduce their body fat.

If I were going to be looking to read an author/researcher though about the topic I'd probably lean toward Lyle McDonald. I mean, he's the one that really brought Leptin into light for the fitness community.

This really depends on how much body fat one is carrying. You left that out here and that makes a big difference. If one plateaus and is still carrying a good bit of fat, chances are it has more to do with not dropping calories enough below their new maintenance than anything else.

Granted, a break is a great psychological buffer, but beyond that in an overweight individual, I wouldn't use the word "probably" above.

You mean some types of nutrients?

A calorie is a calorie is a calorie.

@@@@@@@@@

Oh yea, and the link in your sig was removed. You might want to read over the forum rules before posting.

Well, I said "look into the work of Dr. John Berardi", not "prostrate and pray to an image of".

So you're implying that we should discard any offerings from the likes of Berardi, Lonnie Lowery, Will Brink, Mike Roussell, Joel Marion, Tim Ziegenfuss, Chris Lockwood, Christopher Mohr and all the other knowledgeable men and women working in this field? What about those working silently in the 'background', including the people that the current experts have (or are) studied under. I'm not even sure that McDonald would be flattered by your sentiment.

And leptin? There's nothing magical about leptin. You may want to re-read your Lyle McDonald collection.

I have seen many cases where a highly motivated dieter was eating far fewer calories than recommended at time. Sometimes as few as 500 calories, which only became apparent after looking at the person's food log. This seems to happen *after* the dieter 'unknowingly' lowers calories in response to a plateau. Not everyone screws up their 'diet' by eating too much.

In those cases, what I recommended works - and on the ground - not just on a piece of paper that cites dozens of scientific publications to support a pet viewpoint...


Which is exactly what you nutrition experts say when you mean to talk about the calories from protein, fat, carbs, alcohol, ketones, etc. But yes, I wasn't clear and thanks for pointing it out.

I'm surprised that you even say that a calorie is a calorie after citing Lyle McDonald. As I said, re-read your Lyle McDonald collection.

Well, this is from the FAQ, but point taken, I'll read the rules again:

Signatures, Avatars and Profile Pictures

What are signatures?

'Signatures' contain information that you want to include at the bottom of all your posts. This might include pictures, links to your site(s), quotes, etc."

The link in my sig was simply to my blog. In fact, it's the bold, uppercase, extra-large font "LOOK INTO MY EYES" link in YOUR signature that I took the lead from. But as I said, I'll have another look at the rules.

I've lost almost 60 pounds so far at a constant rate of 2-5lbs a week. There are no "plateaus" they are what you make of them.

Just thought I'd get in on this fun.