What causes a weight-loss plateau?

I've had a lot of people ask us whether a weight-loss plateau is a normal part of a weight-loss journey.

Our answer: yes!

What is a weight-loss plateau, anyway? It's a temporary stop in the drop of your weight. It's completely normal to experience this during the weight-loss process, so don't feel discouraged!

What causes a weight-loss plateau? Well for starters, to experience weight-loss you need to put your body in a calorie deficit - whereby you are burning more calories than you are consuming.

At the start of your weight-loss journey, your body starts to lose glycogen (the stored form of carbs in the muscle and liver) because of the need for more energy. Every 1g of glycogen is attached to 3gs of water, so when you lose glycogen in a calorie deficit, essentially you are losing water weight. This is why you lose weight in the beginning - it's water weight.

When you put your body in a calorie deficit, you also begin to lose muscle and fat. The body burns calories to maintain and build muscle mass, so it makes sense that as you lose muscle, your metabolism slows down (hence you burn less calories). So as you lose weight, your metabolism slows down, which means burning less calories than you did at the heavier weight you started at.

If your burning less calories (because of a slower metabolism) and still eating the same amount of calories as when you started, you will see no changes in your weight. When you eat the same amount of calories as you burn, this causes a plateau. You won't see any changes in your weight. Hence, the weight-loss plateau.

In order to overcome a weight-loss plateau, you need to review either your exercise (to burn more calories) or your nutrition (to lower your calories) in order to bring your body back into a calorie deficit.

So the next time you experience a weight-loss plateau, don't feel demotivated. Either increase your physical activity levels, or decrease your calorie intake.

Keep smiling and move along your journey.  

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If you want to start living a healthier lifestyle consistently, we have your back! With our online nutrition coaching app, you can lose weight and keep it off, without dieting! Here’s how you can do it:

1.     Food photos: simply take photos of what you eat and let kayam do the rest for you. It's that easy!

2.     Track your habits. You can also use our app for habit building. Simply build betterfood habits with our tracker effortlessly.

3.     Your personal nutritionist. We do offer you a personal nutritionist, where you will get personalized support and recommendations on a daily basis so that you can make small and simple changes to the way you eat without having to diet or calorie count! Get real human support from a qualified online personal nutritionist.

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