I have been training for a while and I have stopped losing weight. What's going on?

Question

I started working out about 5 months ago. In the initial stage I lost 5-6kg in the first 3 months. Then my weight stayed the same for the past 2 months. What changes can I do?

Answer 1

Your caloric intake has come to match your caloric expenditure. You might have started eating more, or doing less when you aren’t exercising. You can remedy this weight loss plateau by creating opportunities for a caloric deficit.

This can be accomplished by...

• Eating fewer calories.
• Getting proper rest.
• Exercise in its various forms.
  • Notably, resistance training will provide the greatest stimulus for muscle growth. Muscle tissue will burn more calories by simply existing and it’s development also requires adding calories.

Answer 2

Weight lifters can switch things up by replacing exercises. Instead of doing a barbell bench press, do a dumbbell bench press. Do hammer curls instead of preacher curls. Swap out the handle for a tricep push down for a rope.

Essentially, switch an exercise for a similar exercise that has a small tweak so that the body gets something different while still exercising the same muscle group. Athlean-X on YouTube has been doing a series of videos that showcase several different exercises for each muscle group. (The name of the series is slipping my mind at the moment, will try to edit question once I can look it up.)

Answer 3

To quote Dan John, which I'm very fond of doing, "efficiency is the enemy of fat loss".

We humans are highly adaptive creatures, it's what has allowed us to thrive in such a wide variety of climates and conditions. Part of this adaptability is the body's ability to train itself to become more efficient at tasks we put it through. Ever learnt a new skill and noticed how it becomes easier over time as you practice more? That's your body becoming more efficient at that skill.

The problem with efficiency is that it's, well, efficient.

The more efficiently you do something, the less effort you have to put into it. The less effort you put into something, the less energy it takes and the less calories it burns.

The good news is that it usually only takes a small change to get things moving, or a slightly bigger change to get things moving faster.

You don't say what your current routine is, but whatever it is, change it up!

If you usually just do cardio, throw in some weight lifting or bodyweight exercises, change the type of cardio (swap running for swimming or rowing, cycling for using the cross trainer, etc) or introduce some sprints.

If you lift, then change the exercises for different variations (back squats for front squats, barbell bench press for incline bench press, etc) or go for the bigger change (if you run a powerlifting program, then do 10 weeks of calisthenics; if you do bodybuilding, switch to a powerlifting program; if you do CrossFit, then just take a week off and go for a walk).

One of the biggest body composition changes I made was went I went from a 3 day a week powerlifting based program to running a 4 day a week bodyweight training program. First couple of weeks exhausted me, but I dropped a lot of body fat and put on some muscle to boot.