How Long Does A Weight Loss Plateau Last?
Q: How long does a weight loss plateau last? See, I’ve been on a diet for months. At first, the fat was virtually coming off me like a lot of women’s clothes on IG. In fact, I was losing the shit faster than people lose their morals in the DMs! But recently? NOTHING!!! The scale hasn’t budged at all!
A: Because of the anonymity and invisibility of the internet, some people feel less restrained and act differently than they would in person. This is known as the online disinhibition effect and maybe I speak for myself here, but I love when it presents itself in the deviant behavior that you described!
Anyyyyyyywaaaaaayyyyyyy…
When you begin a diet, you can lose a lot of weight during the initial weeks because in the face of fewer calories, your body meets its energy demands by using stored glycogen, which is glucose from carbohydrates and water. When that glycogen is burned, the released water gets excreted from the body in urine and is often reflected by a big loss of weight on the scale. Once glycogen is depleted, the body then taps into its fat stores for energy. Unfortunately, the body also burns muscle, a tissue that helps regulate the metabolism by burning calories. So basically, as time passes and you lose weight, you lose muscle and the ability for your metabolism to burn as many calories as it once did when you started. Hormones also play a factor but it’s mostly the metabolism declining from the gradual loss of muscle that explains the slowing down of weight loss, which can reach the point of absolutely no movement on the scale after consistent progress. When that happens that your weight remains the same for at least 3-4 weeks in a row, you’re in a weight loss plateau.
Once past the stage of allowing time to ascertain that weight loss has definitively stalled, the length of a plateau is subject entirely to what you do about it. Depending on how you choose to respond, the plateau can end in a week while another course of action might take longer to get things rolling again.
So what should you do given your situation?
Well, if you want to resume weight loss as soon as possible, you can do what most people do, which is to increase your activity level. That might work but it very well might not because exercise doesn’t play as big of a role in weight loss as nutrition does. Given that, the better alternative might be to address your diet and what you put into your mouth, as that requires less commitment of time, energy, and effort and has more of an impact. As such, because you’ve been dieting for months now, your weight loss plateau might be a signal for you to recalculate your calories so your daily intake is adjusted for your current weight and energy needs. Doing that should bring about immediate results.
Based on the amount of time you’ve been dieting, however, the better choice might be to get out of the calorie deficit your body has been in by slowly adding calories back into your diet until you’re eating at maintenance levels, where you would stay for a while before lowering calories again in resumption of your weight loss efforts. That would help restore the production of several metabolic hormones that are down-regulated the longer the body is in a deficit, as well as to temper the production of stress hormones like cortisol that also inhibit weight loss. This is the type of action that would take several weeks to see results from but might be more worthwhile to do if you’re still far away from your goal weight.
Now, does anyone else have a fitness or nutrition question of their own that they want to ask?
Glossary: caloric deficit, calories, diet, exercise, fat, fitness, hormones, metabolism, muscle, nutrition
- Just The Tip #4441 - May 5, 2026
- Just The Tip #400 - May 4, 2026
- Just The Tip #3017 - April 30, 2026
