How to Break Through a Weight Loss Plateau
Introduction: Why Weight Loss Plateaus Happen
If you’re on a weight loss journey, chances are that you’ve experienced (or are experiencing) a weight loss plateau. I can tell you from my own experience that there is nothing more frustrating than doing everything “right” for a decent amount of time, only to see the exact same number on the scale. This is a common experience for almost everyone who loses weight.
Remember, though, experiencing a weight loss plateau does not mean you are failing – it simply provides feedback. Today, I am going to teach you the reasons why plateaus happen, and even more importantly, how to overcome your weight loss plateau. Let’s dive in and get started!
What Is A Weight Loss Plateau?
A weight loss plateau happens when you begin to maintain your current weight, even when you’re remaining consistent with your eating and movement patterns. In other words, your weight loss stalls or slows down to the point where you’re no longer seeing the results you’d expect.
At this point, you may be asking yourself, “How many weeks is considered a weight loss plateau?” A true weight loss plateau happens when you’ve seen the same average number on the scale for at least 3 weeks with consistent effort and action.
Before we dive into the reasons behind a weight loss plateau, I want to remind you — our bodies aren’t like cars. We don’t all run the same way, like a Honda or a Toyota getting a predictable number of miles per gallon. Even if the math says you should be losing weight at a certain calorie level, real life doesn’t always follow the equation. Our bodies are incredibly complex, and they don’t always respond in a perfectly linear way.
Common Causes of a Weight Loss Plateau
There are many reasons why a weight loss plateau happens in the first place. It’s also important to note that your plateau could be a result of two (or more) of the following reasons combined. Here are the most common reasons why plateaus happen:
Metabolic Adaptation
As you lose weight, your metabolism adapts and slows down. This occurs for a few reasons.
First, smaller bodies need fewer calories for both maintenance and to continue a calorie deficit (and lose weight).
Second, eating less (to create a calorie deficit) can actually slow down your metabolism, too. When we are losing weight, our bodies tend to conserve energy by reducing the rate at which we burn calories or lowering our basal metabolic rate (BMR).
The good news is that aside from being in a calorie deficit, our metabolisms tend to slow down (as a whole) much later in life than we previously thought. Previously, many people (including researchers) believed that metabolism slowed down starting at age 30. However, according to Harvard University, new evidence suggests that metabolism doesn’t end up slowing down until age 60.
Inconsistent Tracking or Habits
One of the most common reasons for weight plateaus is inconsistent tracking or a change in the consistency of your new habits. As humans, we tend to feel very motivated at the beginning of a new weight loss journey. I like to call this the “honeymoon phase.” However, after a while, habits like tracking your nutrition, exercising, or incorporating more fruits and veggies can start to feel like a grind. This can lead to a drop in consistency, with or without you realizing it.
Stress, Sleep, and Hormones
All 3 of these components can affect your weight loss plateau. Let’s dive into each one separately!
Stress – Stress raises cortisol levels, and while cortisol alone won’t prevent you from losing weight, cortisol does signal the body to store fat, especially around the belly. Chronic stress is also known to increase cravings, especially for high-carb, high-fat, high-calorie foods. Some people unconsciously move less while stressed out, which leads to fewer calories burned.
Sleep – When we don’t get enough sleep, it can throw off the hormones that control hunger and fullness — ghrelin and leptin. That’s why you might feel extra hungry and have a hard time feeling satisfied, even if you’ve eaten what would normally be enough.
Hormones – When certain hormones are out of balance, specifically if you are suffering from a Thyroid imbalance or insulin resistance, it can lower your body’s ability to efficiently lose fat.
Muscle Gain Offsetting Fat Loss
If you’ve been doing strength training — especially if you’re gradually increasing the weights — and eating in a calorie deficit, but the scale isn’t moving, don’t panic. You might actually be losing body fat and gaining lean muscle at the same time.
Muscle and fat weigh the same (a pound is a pound!), but muscle is denser, which means it takes up less space in your body than fat does. So even if the number on the scale isn’t dropping, you might notice your clothes fitting better or your measurements going down — that’s a sign your body is changing in a really positive way!
How to Break Through a Weight Loss Plateau
Let’s get to the most important reason that you’re reading this article: How to break a weight loss plateau! There are many ways to overcome plateaus. Let’s dive into each a bit more:
👀 Review Your Current Intake and Adjust Slightly
Take 1-2 weeks and accurately review how many calories or how much food you’re actually consuming. While logging your intake, be sure to account for everything you eat, including the small bites, licks, and tastes that quickly add up. Once you have an accurate representation of how much you’re eating (whether that be from logging calories or using a photo or written food diary), try reducing your intake by roughly 10-20%.
💪🏻 Try Strength Training or Increasing NEAT (Non-Exercise Activity)
One of the best ways to break a weight loss plateau is to increase the number of calories you burn while living your life. Two of the most effective ways to burn more calories are strength training and increasing your step count (or simply moving more through life, which is also called NEAT).
Strength training burns more calories by building lean muscle. The more lean muscle mass you have, the higher your metabolism.
🛌 Prioritize Sleep and Recovery
We’ve already discussed how a lack of sleep can cause a weight loss plateau. To help you prioritize sleep, challenge yourself to turn off technology at least 30 minutes prior to bedtime. Be sure your bedroom is cool and dark. Have fun creating a bedtime routine that is relaxing and helps you fall asleep quicker.
While prioritizing workouts helps rev your metabolism and burn more calories, rest days are crucial, too. When you give your muscles time to recover, you are able to push harder (meaning lift heavier weights and push harder during cardio sessions), which boosts your metabolism.
🙀 Manage Your Stress Levels
Use techniques to lower your stress levels that don’t involve food or alcohol. Some examples are:
Journaling
Taking 5 deep breaths
Listening to your favorite song
Getting outside for a brisk 5-minute walk
Playing a quick game on your phone
By lowering your stress levels, you may experience fewer cravings and less inflammation (thanks to lowered cortisol levels).
👗 Focus on Non-Scale Victories
Just because you are experiencing a weight loss plateau does not mean that your body composition isn’t changing. Focusing on results that have nothing to do with the bathroom scale can be extremely helpful.
For example, noticing that your favorite clothes fit better, or that you have more energy throughout the day, or that your measurements are dropping, are all signs that you’re losing body fat while gaining or maintaining lean muscle… Even if the number on the scale stays the exact same!
🚫 DON’T Extremely Cut Calories or Over-exercise
One of the first things many people are tempted to do when experiencing a weight loss plateau is to drastically cut calories or vastly increase workouts. While that may seem like a “common sense” approach to overcoming a weight loss plateau, both of these actions usually tend to backfire.
Drastically overexercising or cutting your calories tends to quickly lead to feelings of burnout, while reinforcing the “all or nothing” mentality of fad dieting. Neither of these actions is sustainable for anyone long-term.
Will a Plateau Go Away on Its Own?
Before we finish up, I want to address one of the most common questions I receive as a weight loss coach: “Will a weight loss plateau go away on its own?” The answer isn’t as straightforward as many of us would hope:
Sometimes yes! Some bodies take time to adjust to a calorie deficit, which means that, naturally, after 2-3 weeks of consistency with eating and movement, the scale begins to drop. This is why practicing patience and consistency is incredibly important on a weight loss journey.
Sometimes no! Weight loss plateaus are a very really thing, and they don’t always go away on their own. Sometimes adjustments or gentle changes are needed in order to continue to lose weight.
At the end of the day, remember to be patient and consistent with your actions. Losing weight at a healthy rate is a slower process than we all want. Sustainable results don’t happen overnight (or quickly at all!)
Final Thoughts
If you’re stuck in a weight loss plateau right now, I know how frustrating and discouraging it can feel — but please remember, it doesn’t mean you’re doing anything wrong or that your efforts aren’t working. In fact, the very fact that you’re still showing up and trying says so much about your commitment.
Plateaus are a completely normal part of the process. Your body is adapting, learning, and responding — even when the scale doesn’t move right away. Sometimes, all it takes is a few small, strategic adjustments to get things moving again.
If you’re feeling overwhelmed or unsure of what to tweak, you don’t have to figure it out alone. This is exactly the kind of challenge we help our clients work through every day — with compassion, clarity, and a sustainable approach.
If you’d like support breaking through your plateau and building a plan that actually works with your body (not against it), I’d love to help. Click here to learn more about working together — we’re here to walk alongside you every step of the way. 💛
