So You Hit A Fat Loss Plateau…Here’s 3 Ways To Break It

Plateau (noun); When results have flatlined and you’ve tried everything, but the scale still won’t budge and the person you see in the mirror hasn’t changed in 2 months. Also, the pent up frustration has put you on the verge of a weekend long Netflix and food binge. HELP!!!

Okay, so it’s not exactly Merriam-Webster, but there’s my definition of a “plateau” in the realm of fitness.

Plateaus happen to everyone. It happens. Your body is a master at adapting to it’s surroundings. That’s why you’ve gained so much muscle in your first 3 months of lifting weights. It needed to adapt to the new stimuli being thrown it’s way the 3–5 days you were in the gym lifting heavy things. This is how our body’s adept ability to adapt helps us.

Where it hurts us is when it catches up to what we’re doing. If you’ve been in the same 500 calorie deficit for the last 4 months, it’s going to realize that. Your body will adjust to it’s new expected daily calorie intake and it won’t require as many as it used to. This is how fat loss stalls.

Why Did I Plateau?

It was easy when you started because the shift in your energy balance was a shock to your body. All of a sudden you slashed your caloric intake, went from not working out at all to 3 resistance training sessions a week, and wiped all (okay not all, that’s crazy, but MOST) of the junk from your diet.

Now, here we are, 3–6–12 months later and suddenly progress has slowed to a crawl or even a dead halt. Why? Because life isn’t fair and our bodies hate us and we just aren’t meant to have nice things.

Just kidding.

It’s because our bodies adapt to the situation it’s given. If it recognizes that food intake is significantly lower than it once was then it will adjust to not need as many as before. Similarly, if our workout routine and intensity hasn’t been modified in a while our bodies wise up to that too. It got really good at doing 80lb lat pulldowns for 3 sets of 10 over the last 6 months. It’s probably time to try something new.

In any case, plateaus occur because we need change. So, let’s talk about how to change what we’re doing so progress can begin again.

Breaking a Fat Loss Plateau

Fat loss is driven by the first law of thermodynamics.

‘Energy In’ is the food calories we eat. ‘Energy Out’ is the energy (calories) we expend through exercise activities, non-exercise activities, and chemical reactions in the body, including digestion.

In relation to fat loss we must expend more energy than we take in. This is what is known as a ‘calorie deficit’. When the left side of the equation is equal to the right side that means we’re at what is known as ‘maintenance’ — maintaining our current body weight.

So, if you’ve plateaued in your fat loss journey it means that the deficit that you created (through diet/exercise) is no longer enough. The solution: increase the deficit. We can do this one of 3 ways.

1. Eat Less Calories

3500 calories = 1lb. So, with that fact in mind, we can expect to lose 1lb per week in a deficit of 500 calories. This is the gold for many reasons that I’ll cover in an article I’ll write later this week about how to set up your calorie intake.

Now, since you’re at a plateau, you’re already in that deficit. Doubling down on that 500 calorie deficit and dropping another 500 calories from your diet is too drastic, too unrealistic for most people. Luckily, you don’t have to push it to that extreme.

From personal experience, reducing calories by as little as 100–150 calories is enough to move the needle.

For the sake of preserving lean body mass and performance, protein is off limits.

So that leaves us with carbs and fat. Both have been made out to be villians over the years, but neither are inherently bad. Looking at them logically, fat would be not only the easiest, but the best to cut.

• Carbs = 4 calories/gram. Fat = 9 calories/gram. So you have two options to reach that 100–150 calorie decrease: reduce carbs by 25g-38g or reduce fat by 11g-17g. Which would you rather cut?
• While fats are important for hormone regulation, carbs are essential for exercise performance. Reducing carbs past a certain point will affect your workouts which will affect calories burned and lean mass (muscle).

Plenty of more detail to dive into, but that’s for a later article. The case for cutting fats over carbs while already in a deficit is strong.

But I’m happy with my food intake. I really can’t see myself cutting even more calories! I’ve cut enough out!

Enter option 2.

2. Burn More Calories

If you’d rather work off some extra calories rather than eat less of them, this option is for you. This is also where the addition of cardio comes in.

The debate between Low Intensity Steady State (LISS) and High Intensity Interval Training (HIIT) cardio has gone on for a while now. The cliffs notes are this.

• LISS is more effective at the oxidation of fat cells. A higher percentage of the calories you burn from LISS will come from fats rather than carbs.
• HIIT is more effective at burning the most calories in the least amount of time.

LISS may sound more attractive because you see it’s more effective at oxidizing fat cells, but you have to be careful with how you interpret that. It’s a higher percentage of calories that come from fat, not more calories total.

So, for example, if you spent 10 minutes doing HIIT and 10 doing LISS and you burn 150 calories from HIIT and 90 from LISS, sure a higher percentage of your LISS calories burned will come from fat, but you’re burning more overall calories total from HIIT.

And as we discussed earlier, the first law of thermodynamics is king.

Energy In - Energy Out = Weight Gain/Loss

Doesn’t matter where the calories come from as long as we expend more than we consume.

ZACH, JUST TELL US THE ANSWER ALREADY! HIIT OR LISS, WHICH IS IT?!

First of all, please lower your voice. It’s scaring me.

Second of all, it’s really your preference. HIIT is more time effective, but maybe you don’t like HIIT. Maybe you’d rather pedal on the bike at a low intensity for 30 minutes and read a book or play on Instagram.

Or maybe that sounds boring and you need ACTION so HIIT is more your flavor.

As long as calories are burned, either is fine.

So now the question is, “How much cardio should I do?”

If you aren’t much of a cardio fanatic and you’re just looking to do enough to see results then 1 hour of HIIT/1.5 hours hours of LISS is probably good enough.

If you really like cardio and enjoy it then you’ll have no problem putting the time in to benefit from the increased calorie deficit. Just be careful that you aren’t doing too much.

• Too much cardio increases stress and fatigue and thus affects your training performance.
• The more cardio we do the more efficient our bodies become at it and the less calories we burn doing it making it less effective for burning those extra calories.
• If you’re already doing a high volume of cardio, you won’t have much room to increase it when you plateau without affecting other aspects of your training.

Listen to your body. Find your middle ground between how much you like to do and how much you can do before it becomes detrimental.

3. Add A Cheat Day

I was never a big fan of cheat days. I thought they promoted lack of discipline and desire. That was until I understood the benefits that come from a cheat day or “refeed” as it’s known in the bodybuilding circle.

Essentially, the purpose of a cheat day should be not just to pig out on some of your favorite sweet and savory food, although Chik-Fil-A is a great option for cheat days, just sayin’. It’s purpose is 3 fold:

• Boost Leptin levels: Leptin is a hormone created in fat tissue that controls hunger. When we spend extended time in a deficit our Leptin levels drop. That’s why you start to “feel hungry all the time”. Having a day where we eat above our calorie maintenance is a good way to boost those Leptin levels back up.
• Mental Clarity: Plainly put, it’s nice to have a day where you can eat a little more than usual.
• You Can Be More Sociable: It’s hard balance your fat loss program and going out to eat. We know that. Take a cheat day to enjoy a night with friends/family.

Now, this doesn’t mean you completely let loose like it’s the Last Supper. Calories still count. If you eat 2000 calories over your maintenance that’s essentially taking back the last week of work you put in. Do this every week and you’re setting yourself up for frustration and asking “HOW AM I NOT LOSING WEIGHT?!” despite eating back the work you put in every week during your cheat day.

Don’t go overboard. Eat 500–700 calories over your maintenance and make it count. You still get to enjoy yourself and you’ll make up the for it over the next week.

How often you have a cheat day is up to you. Once a week is fine if you keep it modest like I suggested above. If you’re going to really let loose, like 1000+ calories over maintenance loose, then I’d have that cheat day once every 2–3 weeks.

Conclusion

Plateaus are inevitable, but it doesn’t mean we have to let them break us. A tweak in your diet, your cardio, or maybe just a cheat day here and there can help push you right through it.

Any questions on the subject of plateaus and fat loss? ASK AWAY! I’d love to heat from you. :)

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About The Author: I’m Zach Newman — Personal Trainer/Physical Therapy Student/a guy who just love learn and write about fitness, and nutrition. Conversation is insanely important to me. It’s why I love creating things because creation sparks discussion and discussion is the best way to learn from each other and create community. So please, hop in the comments and respond to the article, ask a question, or simply tell me what you had for lunch today — seriously, I’m curious. What DID you have for lunch today?