Why has my weight loss stopped?
Usually intake has crept up, and your maintenance drops as you get lighter; water can also hide real fat loss for weeks.
Three things happen at once. Portions grow back without you noticing, which is the most common cause by far. Your body burns less because there is less of it. And your deficit itself shrinks, because the calories you set weeks ago were for a heavier you.
Water also muddies the picture: it can hold the scale still for two or three weeks while you are still losing fat.
Before changing anything, weigh and log everything for a week, including drinks, cooking oil and bites while cooking. Then compare the average of this week with the average of two to four weeks ago. If it has genuinely not moved, take 10% off your intake or add daily steps, and hold that for another two weeks.
Run the numbers
Compare
Sources
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- Lichtman, S.W. et al. (1992). Discrepancy between self-reported and actual caloric intake and exercise in obese subjects. N Engl J Med 327(27). People who believed they could not lose weight under-reported what they ate by 47% on average, and over-reported activity.
- Hall, K.D. et al. (2012). Energy balance and its components: implications for body weight regulation. Am J Clin Nutr 95(4). A lighter body burns less, so the same intake becomes a smaller deficit over time.
- Thomas, D.M. et al. (2013). Can a weight loss of one pound a week be achieved with a 3500-kcal deficit? Commentary on a commonly accepted rule. Int J Obes 37(12). Compared with supervised trials, the 3,500 kcal rule clearly overestimates how much weight a deficit takes off.
- Trexler, E.T. et al. (2014). Metabolic adaptation to weight loss: implications for the athlete. J Int Soc Sports Nutr 11(1). Dieting also lowers energy burned beyond what the weight loss alone explains, more so with larger deficits.