On January 28th 2007, I joined a weight release support group for encouragement. It was a free Internet chat forum of women with a similar interest, to release some excess weight and we all had our own preferred way of going about it.  We were not there to instruct on how to do it, but encourage and support and report our progress over 12 week, seasons. 

When I joined, I desperately wanted to succeed in releasing weight, this time.  With 51 kilos to lose to achieve my correct BMI, it seemed a near impossible gaol to achieve but I had been given a new sense of belief that it was possible and that I was not genetically predetermined to always be obese, because a family member had the previous year released around 56 kilo, so I knew it was possible.   I had for the first time in years, belief that I could do it.

 Within this small weight release forum, I found friendships and people who believed in me as I did them and we together believed that if we were persistent we would release weight, and I know that all who were consistent, did lose weight, all be there variations and frustrating weeks of small gains and weight plateaus to contend with, the group stuck together and many of us, including myself, lost a considerable amount of weight and had a huge increase in fitness....then things started to slide. 

What went wrong?  A couple of my best friends stopped having weight losses and dropped out of the group, one of the great motivators in loosing weight became pregnant, others were floundering and there was a new core of members not fully believing they could do it and not trying too hard.  A lot of doubt and negativity appearing and while I stayed in there, it was more in the role of a counsellor, trying to help motivate, with no one there motivating me or leading by example and there I was....my weight heading into a stall pattern, everyone else was stalling, regaining, generally struggling and I was focusing on my plateau.  It was hard to break away from that group but they were not helping me, eventually the decision was not mine, personality clashes occurred, I asked for moderator intervention, it wasn't available, so I parted company and felt a sadness akin to grief that something that had once been so positive for many of us had somehow run it's course for me.  

Note :-I have now developed many ties to supportive friends, and am working in a WAS slimming forum that I don't think could develop the issues of the former forum as a the members and myself are not as dependent on the forum, we are perhaps, more self reliant and the forum is more an aid than an essential  crutch. 

 Well my plateau has been my weight release focus for a year and a half now. During that time I’ve travelled nice around the country, (I’m on my second run now), and friends who only see me once a year, marvelled at the change in me from a size 22/24 to a size 12/14 though this is still obese when you are 5’2” tall.  Some expressed fear I would become too thin, that comment usually from people who don’t want to see you slim as it might make them more aware they themselves are overweight, I think, however it does throw a negativity fear into you, a concern about ‘shrinking away’, if you like.

So I’ve read extensively about this ‘set point’. That even scientists do not fully understand, these plateaus where your body slows down it’s metabolism to try to stop you loosing more body fat.  There is a lot written about why slimmers reach set points, plateaus, weight stalls, I’ll not try to explain this in depth and a lot written about how to break free of such a weight stall. 

Most of the move forward off a weight plateau advice has to do with making a change.  Shocking your body out of it’s plateau, by doing things differently, if you are on a low calorie diet,, eat more weight for a week, then when you start eating fewer calories, it’s like you have started dieting for the first time and your weight release is off and moving again. 

Then others do not advocate low calorie diets in the first place, saying these create slow metabolisms and it’s very hard to gain sufficient nutrients for the long term process of moving from obese to slim, on a low nutrient diet.   If your read the forums in some low carb, low calorie, low fat groups, they have threads about hair loss and gall bladder illness, makes me very wary of wavering away from a reasonable calorie range of a minimum of 1,300 to say 1,600 calories, of a wide range of healthy foods, and listening to my bodies hunger and satisfied signals to determine how much I need to eat within guideline. I have read a lot about Intuitive eating, eating to my hunger scale and those books have not helped me move off my half way to goal weight plateau, any more than brief dalliances into low carb, low calorie eating pans or high intensity exercise has.

Other advice about busting plateaus is to eat higher protein, in smaller quantities and more frequently, say 5 times a day.  Then there is the Wendy plan, where those on weight watchers, eat more points one day, less the next and continue alternately so over the whole week, the points average out as the correct amount for the week.

Personal trainers and gym instructors take a change the exercise routine approach to busting plateaus...the main thing, that keeps coming through is to change something. 

Over these 18 months of my long plateau, I tried heaps of changes and yes there were short term, non lasting results, but always I would go back to my set point of around and close to 88.8 kilo, yesterday’s weight and my weight of 18 months ago. 

Yet today I am convinced I have discovered what is going to work for me, today i have total belief, I know, 18  months from today I will be and will be holding at a set point at or close to my ideal BMI, a weight I was once healthy and comfortable and looking great at. My goal weight of 64 kilo.   I will share why I believe this, tomorrow.

 





 

I'm going to do a 'stuck on Plateau or slow weight release, motivational waffle, as much for me to pledge I am sticking with what will eventually work, as much as for others who might gain from it.  Hope it helps someone, and me too, :-)

I hear every one's frustration and so I want to share something with you all.
Back when I was 50 something, I hit 115 Kg, and I was shocked.... I made a big effort and dieted and exercised and I got down to 102 kg and then hit Plateau...for months.  I 'gave up trying', said the 'why bother, nothing will work',  you  know what happened, next time I looked I was 111 kg.

I joined weight watchers with a family member, who at the time was a little lighter than me, I think,  we both had initial steady success and we made an effort and became more active...then the Plateau hit at the 102 kg again...and I kept trying, and trying,....and...fr [B]18 [/B]months, I  stuck to points and moved more and I stick on 102 kg.      I 'spat the dummy' said 'why bother, I am meant to be big, it's genetic, my mum was obese, my family member (who had given up too), is obese, I am meant to be this size.

You know what happened...I ended up, not still at 102, but at 115Kg and being told I needed a heart lung transplant and if I refused it, as I did (I was nearing 60, younger people need it more than me), my only possible chance to survive was to lose a lot of weight.   Well nothing happened, I thought I was trying, but not hard enough and not with enough belief that I could get the weight off.
Well initially the ‘ family member’ who , 'did it', she had a a gastric band done, joined a gym, became a gym junkie, and lost 56 kilo in one year.

I looked at what she did, found inspiration in it and reasoned it was not the gastric band that did it, it was only eating the smaller portion sizes of better nutrition food plus all the exercises that did it and she had proven to me that it was possible, my weight was not genetically predetermined I just had to be as active and reduce my portion sizes and understand that those occasional (this one time doesn't matter) extra treat, for me, did matter.
I also expected if I programmed my mind to do all I could to release my excess weight again, I would Plateau once more, I did expect this to happen at the old Plateau favourite of 102 kg, but I pushed on through that weight this time and it was a mostly steady weight loss for me from 115 to 88.8 kilo....the weight I am currently at and have maintained, all be it deviations of a few kilo either side, for the past [B]18[/B] months.
This month I have applied more time than usual to reading about stalled weight ,  It appears that everyone will at some time, stall in losing weight as their body decides to slow down the metabolism to protect the body from the perceived starvation it thinks it’s going into.   The lucky few will not stall until they actually achieve goal weight, most of us will hit weight stall, after loosing about 8% of our body weight.    At that stage, we need to apply some special ‘tricks’ to get the body started in it’s weight loss journey again.  I have read all I can find and I have my own ‘tricks’ I have applied this week,  and I’m enthused that I am about to begin my journey through to goal and I’ll share my bust the 88.8 kilo stall platform over the next 100 days.  and share here how I am doing it.