Why does weight loss stop?

You have made some impressive progress in your weight loss journey. In the first week, you might have lost over 5 pounds and maintained an average of 2-pound loss every week. However, after months of dieting and/or exercising, it seems like you’ve hit a plateau, and you can’t lose any more weight.

What’s going on?

The reason weight loss slows down or stops is multifactorial and could be caused by a low-intensity exercise routine, overestimating your caloric expenditure during workouts, and repeatedly cheating on your diet.

Regardless of the underlying mechanism, here are some helpful tips to get you out of this plateau.

How to lose weight again

1. Workout harder

The body has amazing adaptive properties that allow it to undergo anatomical and physiological modifications to handle new challenges.

For this reason, you might witness massive weight loss during the first few weeks of cardio or strength training, which gradually slows down as the body adapts to the current stress.

Therefore, to avoid this pitfall, you need to constantly challenge your body during workout sessions to keep the muscles and cellular machinery under sufficient stress, which eventually leads to more weight loss.

2. Change your diet

Sticking to one diet after hitting the plateau is another mistake made by beginners, even if they’re doing everything else correctly.

For instance, if you are on the ketogenic diet for over a year and it doesn’t seem to cause any further weight loss, it would be a good time to switch to another eating habit and/or adding something to the mix, such as intermittent fasting.

3. Boost your metabolism

As we age, our metabolism gradually slows down, which may hinder your weight loss journey. However, this process also occurs when you switch to a sudden caloric deficit status since the body interprets it as a state of starvation.

To counter this phenomenon, you need to maintain an active lifestyle and consume foods that boost metabolism (e.g., green tea, coffee).

Takeaway message

Maintaining weight loss after a long period is more challenging than the process of burning fat itself. Hopefully, these tips will help you lose more weight to reach your fitness goals.