More on 6-Month Plateaus

October 18th, 2007 · 5 Comments

I went back and read the Reuter’s summary of the Dietetic Association’s study, and found a partial answer to our questions in comments about the why of the 6-month plateau/gain:

The findings suggest that after six months, people should be prepared for their weight loss to taper off. Then the goal should be maintaining whatever success has been achieved.

Dieters often become “frustrated,” Franz and her colleagues note, because they think that if they maintain their lower-calorie ways, the pounds should continue to fall off. “This appears not to happen,” the researchers write, “even when weight-loss interventions are continued.”

“However,” they stress, “if weight-loss interventions are discontinued entirely, weight regain is likely to occur.”

This to me suggests the phenomenon, insofar as it exists, is both physical and mental. It’s exactly as the Melissas said in their comments: The rate of loss slows down or stops as the body gets thinner and is happy to stay where it is despite restricted calories. Then the dieter goes bonkers (”gets frustrated”) and tends toward behavior that puts a few pounds back on.

Maybe programs like Weight Watchers work beyond six months in part because the amount of calories you eat is gradually tapered as you drop pounds? Of course, it still gets harder to lose near goal — OK, harder is inadequate here; let’s try excruciating — and particularly hard if the goal is set toward the lower end of the “healthy range.” But this six-month mystique sounds trumped up to me.

Study participants also lost an average of 11 to 19 pounds, so my guess is that the dieters were not all that big to start with. In other words, if you have a lot to lose, I’d throw this one in the trash.

Tags: Health News

5 responses so far ↓

1 Melissa H. // Oct 18, 2007 at 4:37 pm

You hit it on the head–we GRADUALLY lessen calories on WW. So as your body shrinks, you need less and therefore you eat less. You don’t suddenly drop from 1900 a day to 1200 like radical diet plans might have you do.

And since it’s based on your weight, it makes sense–people who weigh more, need to eat more. There’s research out there that says some heavier people actually have faster metabolisms (I think you showed me that article?) .

Anyhoo it is interesting that those people only lost 11-19; as you said, they probably didn’t have much to lose in the first place.
2 Cathy // Oct 20, 2007 at 3:36 pm

Hi! ok, I’m a lurker here. Melissa encouraged me to visit the site, which btw, I LOVE. such interesting, helpful and humorous articles for those of us who are food obsessed (i.e. ME).

I have been pretty committed on WW for the past year now (it will be a year mid november). “pretty” in that yes, I have had my off weeks. but I’ve been very consciously trying to lose weight. On a whole I’d say I’ve lost 10 lbs, give or take a few.

I am a prime example of this getting “frustrated” situation mentioned above. In fact, Friday I ate a muffin leftover from the morning pastry plate at the office (I have been staying away from these for MONTHS btw) just because my scale isn’t budging and I was on plan this last week and I was “frustrated.” now, I will account for it and just get right back on plan, but it’s actions like this that make dieters so frustrated after 6 months and can start a downward spiral, I think. It DOES get harder after 6 months (you weigh less!) and if what you were doing isn’t working (as it shouldn’t if you weigh less), then you get frustrated and do exactly what you shouldn’t do to get that scale moving down — you eat more! I’m just stating the obvious, but my point is that everything you state here makes a ton of sense to me.

sorry for the long post!
3 Sara // Oct 20, 2007 at 10:27 pm

hi cathy, nice to meet you! :-) i am so glad you are enjoying the site!

your comment has got me thinking about different possible ways to approach this six month problem.

doing it the way i did it - taking a break at six months - is great but has a downside: it takes a lot of focus to get into that restrictive “diet mindset.” Once you’ve left it, it can be hard to get back there. (Believe me, I know!)

I think this may be the topic of Monday’s post… :-)

Hope to hear from you again here! And by the way, I love long comments!
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