There seems to be quite a bit of discussion lately about plateaus here, and I just wanted to offer some hope to those of you who are experiencing the dreaded "P".
This post is for all my peeps that are putting in the work and not seeing a whole lot of success for what seems like forever. If you're eating Cheese Puffs, pork rinds or whatever crappy non-nutritive food is your drug of choice....go ahead and read, but please understand, this post is not directed at you. I don't mean to be harsh, just honest. If you're eating stuff you shouldn't, your issue is a different one, and should be dealt with as such.
Take a look at my stats below. I have been pretty successful with my weight loss journey. I'm not bragging, but I say this so you know exactly where I'm coming from. I've gone from a size 24 to a 4 in about 14 months...certainly not the fastest loser on this forum, but I've managed to get where I intended to go.
Granted, that at a starting weight of 251, I didn't have as much to lose as some, but I wasn't a "lightweight" either. I feel more than fortunate to have had a relatively smooth journey after my initial post-op period. As some of you know, I have a hematoma on my diaphragm that caused me three months of pain.
Since then however, I've had a few minor issues, but nothing to write home about. I feel lucky to have lost the weight that I have and I'm feeling more and more sure each day that I can do this for the rest of my life. When I say lucky, I don't mean lucky like "I won the lottery" lucky. I just mean that I feel gratitude for the opportunity to have this surgery and, that with hard work, I've experienced success. The first thing I think when I wake up every morning is..." Hey, I'm thin...yay!" Not to say that weight loss is the key to happiness, but it sure don't hurt..feel me?
That being said, I've worked my ass off...quite literally. I go to the gym, I make good food choices, and check myself out emotionally on a regular basis. I'm not special, or magical, or even that dilligent. I just did what they told me to, and plugged along.
I don't want to make it sound like I never ate something stupid. Surely I did, and suffered for it. I had a coco puff incident that I knew I was gonna die over. I thought for sure that my cause of death would be "Acute cereal toxification". One of the worst hours of my life. I don't dump much anymore, but every now and then, something sneaks up on me. I'm not perfect, but I consistantly make way more good choices than bad ones, and it works for me.
So, if you're wondering when I'm going to get to the plateau part, here it comes. I'm an extremely analytical person. As such, I've kept a daily weight loss chart since the beginning. And I experienced the dreaded P several times along the way. I was slower than my pod-mates and it was hard to see how well everyone else was doing. Not that I begrudged them their success...but I felt like I re-routed y intestines for very little return. I knew that I was the only person on earth that the surgery didn't work for and that I was destined for failure.
My point is that even though it was slow and I stalled so many times, it worked! In my experience, plateaus are a normal part of weight loss. One of mine lasted 6 weeks. I was doing
what I was supposed to and my weight didn't budge. I'd even gain a pound or two. Each time it happened I thought...Okay, the weight loss is over. But it wasn't.
It seemed that my weight loss would stall for a bit, and then I'd drop weight like mad. I'd level out for a bit, get frustrated, and then I'd have another period of big loss.
I'll let you do your own in depth research on why plateaus happens, but basically, my understanding is that two separate processes are occuring.
The first is that our bodies are amazing machines that are designed for survival. You've all heard it before. "Starvation mode". Your metabolism slows because you're taking in less calories. Your body becomes more efficient at the work that it needs to do and therefore, requires less energy to do it. It's how our paliolithic ancestors made it through periods of famine. This happens even with exercise. Sucks, but it's the way things are.
One way to bust out of it is to change up your work out routine. Read up on the difference between anaerobic and aerobic exercise and it's effect on fat burning. Helped me a few times.
The second process, especially in the early stages, (think about all the "I'm three weeks out and stalled" you've seen) is muscle loss. The calorie restriction is so extreme in the beginning that it's neigh to impossible to avoid burning muscle for protein.
I know there are people that hit their protein goals on the way home from the hospital, but I don't think that's the average experience.Since muscle requires more energy to function than fat does, the loss of muscle tissue means that your body is going to require even less calories to function. This is why weight training is so important. It builds muscle mass which raises your caloric need.
That's a simple explanation of a complex thing...but you get the point.
I just want you all to know...if you're stuck, you're not the only person alive that GBP didn't work for. If you're not one of those lucky super fast losers, it doesn't mean that you've failed.Stick it out, do the right thing, and this plateau will pass. Take heart, there's hope.
My thoughts on plateaus
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