Why Fat Loss Stalls and How to Fix It: A Step by Step Guide
This WILL BE the summer!
You’ve decided that this is the summer you’ll finally have those summer abs. This is the year you’ll be turning heads at the beach and getting those double-takes you’ve always wanted.
For that first month, things are going great! You’re accurately tracking your nutrition and crushing your workouts. You’re eating plenty of food to ensure you’re not starving while making sure you’re in a calorie deficit.
As a result, you’re seeing constant movement with your scale weight and seeing some muscular definition. After a few weeks, you’ve lost 5-10 pounds, and those stubborn inches around your waistline are dropping!
This is exciting!
However, just when it was looking like just might be “the diet” aka the diet that actually works, you hit a hard fat loss plateau. Your body stops responding like it used to.
Despite this setback, you remain diligent and stay the course. You step onto the scale…...
And it goes up three pounds….. 🤯😤🤬🤬🤬🤬🤬
Does this sound familiar??
I call this being in diet purgatory as it always feels like your dieting, but never making sustainable progress. The end result? After a few days/weeks, you eventually give up altogether.
If this sounds familiar it’s because I’ve been there. For years, I struggled with losing weight and making sustainable progress aka being stuck in diet purgatory. Being trapped in dieting purgatory is one of the most frustrating and disheartening situations any dieter can experience.
So what's really going on here?
Why do so many people seem to have this exact struggle??
And How the Hell Do I Get out of Dieting Purgatory??
In this blog, I’m going to show you step by step how to finally end diet purgatory by busting through your fat loss plateau so you can get as lean and confident as you’ve always wanted.
In today’s blog, you’ll learn
---> The simplified nutritional science behind fat loss stalls
---> A step by step system to fix fat loss stalls
---> How to adjust your nutrition to break through those plateaus
---> And so much more.
Let’s get into it.
Why Fat Loss Stalls
It’s well known that to lose body fat, you must be in a calorie deficit aka your calories must be less than calories outs aka you need to eat fewer calories than you burn in a day.
The total calories you burn in a day is what we call your metabolism and it’s a lot simpler and easier to manipulate than you may think.
Basically, your metabolism has four different aspects:
1) Basal Metabolic Rate (BMR): This is the number of calories your body burns just to stay alive. Even if you lie in bed all day, not moving a single muscle, your BMR won’t change. It’s the number of calories burned to keep your body running optimally i.e. breathing, heart pumping, and other basic metabolic processes.
2) Thermic Effect of Food (TEF): This is the number of calories your body burns via digesting the foods you eat. Certain foods can influence your TEF and it can be broken down as such:
TEF of Protein: 20-30%
TEF of Carbs: 5-10%
TEF of Fats: 0-3%
3) Non-Exercise Activity Thermogenesis (N.E.A.T): This is the number of calories you burn outside the gym. N.E.A.T is the most controllable variable of your metabolism and seems to be the biggest difference between becoming lean or obese.
4) Thermic Effect of Exercise: (TEE): This is the number of calories you burn within the gym, i.e. lifting weights, cardio, etc. Unfortunately, this is the smallest portion of your metabolism as exercises don't burn that many calories.
All in all, these four pieces of your metabolism accounts for all the calories you burn within your day.
So, if your food intake remains the same (aka calories in) but you’re not losing body fat anymore, we know that your calories burned must have decreased.
Or in other words, your metabolism has slowed down!
Don’t worry, there’s nothing to worry about. Seriously, because this is a part of the process, as this is known as metabolic adaptation.
As the four aspects of your metabolism adapt to weight loss and less food, some predictable changes occur.
---> Your BMR drops as you lose weight: A smaller body burns fewer calories.
---> Your TEE Drops as calories decrease: similar to your BMR, as a smaller person, you’ll burn fewer calories during exercises.
---> TEF drops since you’re eating less food: While this is normal, we can offset this by increasing protein intake, but an overall decrease in calories will create a decrease in total TEF.
---> Calories burned via NEAT: When dieting, you’re depriving your body of energy (calories) Due to this, you’re more likely to become lethargic, resulting in less daily movement as your body is wanting to preserve its energy. Step goals and increasing exercise can help, but a decrease in calories burn here is inevitable.
Why Fat Loss Progress Actually Stalls (95% of the time)
As cool as the scientific facts of Metabolic Adaptation can be……
The reality is the most of the time your fat loss actually stalls due to errors in measuring your calories.
I know, I know…. Kinda anti-climatic and you want to place the blame on your metabolism or someone else, but it’s true.
The honest truth is people are often too quick to cut calories when the problem isn’t actually metabolic adaptation, rather mismanaging calories in.
The rapid cut and reduction of calories will lead to another vicious cycle of yo-yo dieting:
Cutting calories → Not losing weight → Cutting calories again → STILL not losing weight → Mentally beating yourself up on “failing” again → Temporary Quitting before starting the vicious cycle over again.
Unfortunately, this is an all too familiar situation for a lot of people.
However, as your nutritional coach, the absolutely last thing we want to do is reduce calories. The reason is simple; if we cut calories even more, this will only make your life more miserable and you’ll eventfully want to quit altogether.
Instead of cutting calories, I have a very clear proven system for troubleshooting stalled fat loss so you can jumpstart your fat loss progress again.
The Proven System for Diagnosing Stalled Fat Loss
I’m going to show you the exact order of operation I use with my online clients. After years of nutritional coaching, I’ve tweaked and perfected this system. This proven system will allow us to pinpoint exactly what issue is stalling your fat loss and make an intelligent adjustment with your nutrition and training strategy accordingly.
Let’s dive headfirst into this.
Step #1: Have your Measurements Decreased?
The first thing we want to assess is if your body measurements are changing. My online clients all take body measurements and enter their data into their accountability tracker.
Your scale weight can fluctuate pretty wildly due to things like water retention from higher sodium intake, stress, and digestive issues. This is why taking body measurements is so important.
Body measurements actually provide a far more accurate picture of your progress across the course of a week and are less prone to fluctuations. So, if we know your scale weight hasn’t changed, yet you're looking leaner and more defined, you are on the right track.
The Key Decision Making Factor:
---> Have you lost 0.25’’+ off multiple measurement sites? If so, then it’s safe to say you’re losing body fat. No nutrition adjustments needed.
---> If no to above, then move onto #1
Step #2: Has Your Weight Decreased?
The next step is to assess is your scale weight. When becoming leaner and stronger, the ideal speed of weight loss is losing between 0.5-1% of bodyweight per week or roughly 1-2 pounds per week. We know that fat loss isn’t linear as there will be some fluctuations. This is why we want to weigh in at least 3 times per week, ideally every day. At the end of the day, the number on the scale is just data and we want to look for overall trends.
My online clients will often see a weight-loss stall, but a big decrease in measurements. This tells us that you are building lean muscle and getting stronger. Again, this lets us know we are on the right track.
Eventually, this will be followed by a large weight drop in a week or two further along. Please don’t get caught up in daily weight fluctuations as you want to look at the trend over multiple weeks/month. If your weight is trending downward, we know you're losing body fat. At the end of the day, your scale weight is just data and we need to treat it as such.
The Key Decision Making Factor:
---> Have you lost 0.5% of body weight (on average) over the last two weeks? If so, no nutritional adjustments necessary)
---> If not, then move onto #3
Step #3: Consistent with your Nutritional Goals?
This one is pretty simple; if you aren’t consistent with your macros or nutritional goals, then you’re not in a calorie deficit. This is important because there are no nutritional nor coaching adjustments that can make up for a lack of consistency.
If you are tracking your calories and macros, then you need to dial in your nutrition a bit. I typically give my online clients macro ranges as I rather have you be consistent than perfect. Typically, these macro ranges are +/- 100 calories and 10g of protein.
Does this mean you need to be perfect? Hell no, but you need to be within your macro target ranges.
For clients who are not macro counting, we need to ensure you’re staying within the structure of your diet. That usually means getting back to having 1-2 servings of protein per meal, having fruit as your snack, or following your personalized diet structure.
Again, no nutritional nor coaching adjustments can make up for a lack of consistency.
The Key Decision Making Factor:
---> Are you consistently staying within your calorie and macro ranges? If not tracking macros, are you staying the course with your nutritional approach? If not, then no macro decrease is needed. We’ll likely revisit your diet strategy and make sure it’s the best fit for you and your consistency.
---> If not, then move onto #4
Step #4: Are you Accurately Measuring your Food??
Accurately measuring your food is essential, not just for macros, yet to ensure you’re not eating more calories than you think.
This requires you to measure most of your foods to ensure you’re eating the correct amount.
I already know what you’re thinking: yes I know it’s a pain in the ass. However, it’s not as bad as kinda tracking for years and never getting results. Do you wanna stay in dieting purgatory? I didn’t think so.
However, this is a very common mistake and it’s all about the learning process. Together, we’ll analyze your food over the next few weeks and figure out where those inaccuracies may be occurring.
Here are the necessary tools to ensure you’re tracking accurately.
---> A food scale
---> A set of measuring cups
---> a set of teaspoons and tablespoons
Throughout my coaching career, I’ve repeatedly found the most common “mistakes” my clients make are:
Not tracking Cooking Oils: Even if you don’t apply it to your food, but on the pan, it still gets absorbed. This can quickly add up to a few hundred calories of untracked food.
Guess-imitation instead of measuring: Human beings, in general, are pretty terrible at estimating our food intake accurately. This is why it’s important to learn how to track accurately and/or know portion sizes.
Dressing, toppings, and condiments: These are easily overlooked. The biggest culprits are salad dressings and condiments like BBQ sauce. Both are high in calories, easy to over-indulge, and forget to track.
General Guidelines to Ensure Accurate Macro Tracking:
---> Don’t use metrics like small/medium/large. This leaves a lot of room for error. A few examples are 1 medium apple. 1 large banana. ½ bowl of rice.
---> Weight Measurements: Make sure you use grams as this is the most accurate method.
---> Weight your meats: Make sure your weight your lean meets thawed and raw as this is more accurate than cooked.
The Key Decision Making Factor:
---> If you realize you haven’t been accurately measuring your food, don’t fret about it too much. Again, this is a very common mistake and I want you to learn from this. Together, we’ll look at your food log and find the low-hanging fruit to fix the inaccuracies. Once we dial this in, your fat loss will resume shortly.
---> If not, then move onto #5
Step #5: Are you Consistently with your Daily Step Goals?
As mentioned earlier, NEAT is the most manipulative variable of your metabolism, and greatly overlooked. From my experience, I’ve repeatedly found NEAT levels to dramatically decrease subconsciously as your diet.
This means if you are regularly walking 10K steps a day, you may find yourself walking less without even realizing it! This is normal as this is your body’s attempt to keep your weight the same, to compensate for the decrease in energy aka calories.
This is why I give my online clients a daily step count goal as this ensures your fat loss hasn’t stalled from a subconscious decrease in movement. Depending on your job and how active you are, 7-10K steps per day is a realistic target for most.
The Key Decision Making Factor:
---> If your daily step count has been inconsistent or decreased, determine a more realistic step count goal you can hit. Once consistent, your fat loss attempts will resume shortly.
---> If not, then proceed towards step #6
Step #6: Was your last macro adjustment less than two weeks ago??
When everything above has been taken accorded for, we want to look at our macros. Unfortunately, the reality is that it just takes time for a calorie deficit to compound into noticeable changes.
That is the sad, honest truth. However, if you are consistent with everything so far for 2 weeks, then this probably means you need a macro adjustment.
So, if you haven’t had your macros adjusted in two weeks, then it's time for an adjustment. Yet, if it’s been less than two weeks since your last macro adjustment, you probably just need to give it more time.
The Key Decision Making Factor:
---> If it’s been less than 2 weeks since your last macro adjustment, stay strong and stay the course. Progress should pick up soon.
---> If it’s been two weeks since your last macro adjustment, while consistently following all the above points, It’s time to move on to the last step.
Step #7: Have you taken a diet break in the last 8+ weeks?
Dieting is hard from both a physiological and psychological point of view. This is especially true after weeks or months of pushing forward. This is when dieting fatigue starts to creep in. Dieting fatigue is usually when your mental attention to the finer details of dieting starts to have a big impact on your progress, results, and overall enjoyment.
This is why the majority of my online clients have prescribed a diet break for 1-2 weeks every 8-12 weeks. This is intended more for a psychological benefit. Once that 1-2 week diet break is completed, my online clients almost always see a dramatic increase in their adherence and overall satisfaction and enjoyment again.
The Key Decision Making Factor:
---> If you haven’t taken a diet break in the last 8-12 weeks, it’s time to implement one for the next 1-2 weeks.
---> If you have taken a diet break in the last 12 weeks, fat loss has definitely stalled. The solution? It’s time to make a macro adjustment.
For a complete guide on making macro adjustments for either fat loss or building muscle, check out this guide.
And There you go!
There is my step-by-step guide on how to fix stalled fat loss. I take my online clients through the entire step-by-step process before decreasing macros because the macro adjustment isn’t needed more often than not.
If you are constantly finding yourself being stuck in diet purgatory, then be smart and use my system when determining whether you really need to decrease macros or not.
Instead of blinding guessing what to do next, use the proven science-backed nutrition and training methods through individualized coaching to help you get the body you want as I teach you how to keep it for a lifetime.