Don't Panic if the Scales Stop Moving
How to Identify and Overcome a Body Composition Plateau
Body composition plateaus are frustrating - no one likes to be putting in work without seeing results. However, plateaus are a good problem because they demonstrate you are making progress from your starting point.
To overcome a plateau, we need to take time to:
Determine whether it’s a legitimate plateau
Identify the type of plateau
Develop a strategy to overcome it.
I’m going to run you through each step so you can use them next time your body composition progress halts.
Has your body composition plateaued?
Once you’ve got through the initial stages of understanding your fitness and nutrition and beginning to make some changes, body composition can move quite quickly.
It’s common to see reductions in body fat of around 1.5-2.5kg per month in the early stages with strong adherence. Eventually, this has to slow down because if you lost at this rate indefinitely, you would disappear.
So when we suspect a body composition plateau, we need to dig a little deeper to confirm whether this is the case.
Measuring body composition is important for determining a plateau. Many of my clients won’t track changes from the start because we are focused on structure and habits (process) instead of body composition changes (outcome).
The downside is this makes it harder to quantify a plateau and typically means it takes a bit longer to identify. What often happens is the plateau is suspected, so then we take some measurements and review them in a couple of weeks.
These measurements can include body weight (scales), photos, circumference measurements or how clothes fit. All have their strengths and limitations, which I have discussed in this article about measuring your body recomposition progress.
This article also shares a story from 2018, when I tracked my body weight daily for eight weeks while losing 3.9kg.
When looking through the data, I came across a few interesting observations.
49.1% of daily check-ins saw a decrease from the previous day
40% of daily check-ins saw an increase from the previous day
10.9% of daily check-ins saw no change from the previous day.
Despite an average daily weight loss of 70g, this trend only showed over longer durations. This shows how high-frequency weight measures won’t necessarily reflect the long-term trend.
If you try to determine a plateau by weighing in on Monday and again two days later, it’s unlikely a large enough timeframe to give an understanding of the progress. My recommendation is to allow two weeks between assessments.
This might seem excessive, but it’s important to progress the program only when required. And as you will see, when it comes to adherence plateaus, there can be problems advancing the program unnecessarily.
The Two Types of Body Composition Plateaus
Adaptation Plateau
An adaptation is when the body adapts to your current strategy and no further adaptations are made.
Most people intuitively understand this about fitness, which is why we need to increase the frequency, intensity or duration of training sessions over time. But this also happens with energy balance.
A certain food intake and amount of exercise will create an energy deficit when you’re starting out, but if you keep doing the same thing, eventually you will plateau due to changes in energy expenditure.
As you lose weight, your total energy expenditure reduces. All physical activity becomes less energy-intensive with less weight and there is less body mass to maintain.
Therefore, we need to make changes to energy intake or energy expenditure to continue creating an energy deficit.
It’s worth noting that the reduced energy expenditure is from doing the same activity. But when we lose 4kg, it becomes easier to increase the intensity and duration of activities, which allows energy expenditure to stay similar overall.
This is why it’s critical to continue progressing your training program. If you don’t, energy expenditure will reduce.
However, if increasing energy expenditure is not the best option, energy intake can also be reduced. The decision to remove energy intake or increase energy expenditure will depend on the individual.
Generally speaking, we are increasing physical activity due to improved strength and fitness, so energy expenditure increases as a byproduct. However, if someone already has a high training base or needs a slower increase in physical activity, changes may be made to nutrition intake instead.
The fundamental cause of an adaptation plateau is the elimination of an energy deficit, which leads to body composition stagnating. An energy deficit must be reinstated by adjusting the 3 F’s - food, fluid and fitness.
Adherence Plateau
An adherence plateau is caused by lower adherence to the strategy. In these circumstances, the target energy deficit is sufficient for progress, but it’s not being implemented. This typically cancels out the energy deficit, hence why progress stagnates.
An adherence plateau is remedied by evaluating the existing strategy to understand what is not working. The strategy is then adjusted to see if adherence is improved.
The target energy deficit typically remains the same, and the focus is on the strategy for its implementation.
The Problem with Confusing an Adherence Plateau for an Adaptation Plateau
The biggest mistake people make when their body composition plateaus trying to fix an adherence problem with an adaptation solution. This is highly likely to exacerbate the problem.
An adherence plateau requires adjustment to the implementation strategy, not the energy deficit target. We could improve adherence by changing meal type or frequency, or changing the training plan based on what has been enjoyable so far.
It’s normal to be making these changes early on as we establish what types of food and exercise are best for us. For want of a better term, the budget remains the same - we need to change how we spend (not how much).
An adaptation plateau requires adjustment to energy intake and/or energy expenditure, which means consuming less energy from food or increasing physical activity. Let’s consider what can do wrong with this solution for an adherence plateau.
Our diet is looking good but we struggle to get all five of our training sessions in during the week. We do the three home resistance training sessions, but the two longer cardio swimming sessions at the pool are always getting pushed because of the time it takes to get there, home and out the door for work.
From an adherence point of view, what can be done to make this happen? We could change the cardio sessions to running, which cuts out the commute and might make the sessions more adherable (likely, if all the home sessions are already being done).
This is a good idea.
However, the adaptation solution would be to reduce food intake or increase the duration of each training session, none of which addresses the critical issue.
The problem with continually applying adaptation solutions to adherence problems is the program becomes unnecessarily hard. Most of the time, people stop adhering because it’s not tailored to them. However, if they continually make it more difficult than required, it can soon become a program they can’t complete!
Summary
If you think you’ve hit a plateau, take your time to assess it.
Take a measurement (weight, circumference, photos, or whatever) and give it two weeks. Try to stick to the plan as strongly as possible, ideally tracking your food and exercise (to be sure).
Many people will find things start moving again during this time, be that because:
Their body composition was still progressing anyway (i.e. no plateau); or
Their adherence improved.
It doesn’t matter why. If body composition is progressing, keep on going.
If adherence is strong and body composition has plateaued, you will need to adjust your energy intake or expenditure. Whether to make adjustments to food and fluid or fitness will depend on your individual circumstances.
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