Working Moms Refuge | Single Moms

Family
Career
Art of Juggling
Single Moms
Dad's Voice
News
Health
Bookshelf
Recipes
Sports Mom

Archives
Contact Us

Discussion Lists
Wisdom of Mothers
Resources

The Great Plateau's of Weight Loss

This update has been the single most difficult one for me to write. Over the past few months, I have been "stuck" with my 48-pound weight loss. No matter what I did I couldn't seem to lose a single pound without gaining it back the next week.

I felt that I was not only letting myself down, but letting all of you down as well. After all, wasn't the goal of this process to motivate others? How was I going to manage that when I wasn't losing any more weight? Just what was the horrible thing we call a plateau doing to my emotions?

It has been a complex problem and one that I have chosen to deal with in a variety of ways.

First, I didn't give up. I decided that I would weigh myself only once every two weeks, as the scale was becoming my enemy, and at this point I didn't need any enemies.

I also read up on weight loss plateaus in an attempt to understand them better. It made no sense to me that I could maintain my caloric intake, increase my physical exercise and still only maintain the weight loss.

What I found was that I had been lucky: most people experience plateaus far sooner than I did. In simple terms, a plateau is an adjustment time. A time when your body fights back to ensure that you are not going into starvation mode. A time when your body adjusts to its new efficiency and configuration. In other words, it's a perfectly normal and expected part of a weight loss program.

The next question, how to deal with it. I had to keep the faith. I had to constantly remind myself that this was not a lost cause, because what had worked for me in the past (a sensible program) would continue to work for me in the future as well.

Week after week passed by and still there was no change. I worked the plan, kept up my exercise and reminded myself how well I had done so far. Finally, after six weeks of maintaining, the scale started tipping in the right direction again.

I'm proud to say that my weight loss total is now at 56.5 pounds. I made it through a dry spell that would have derailed me in previous weight loss attempts. I have come to accept that my original 100-pound goal in one year was unrealistic and unattainable. But that does not make me a failure. I still have quite a ways to go, but surviving this challenge has made me even more determined to be successful!!