Scientific Review of Weight Loss Plateaus: Four Steps to Identify True and False Plateaus and How to Break Through

Identifying a Weight Plateau

To determine if you're experiencing a true weight plateau, you need to learn how to identify it. We can examine this in the following four aspects:

1. Examine Body Fat. As mentioned earlier, the key to weight loss is reducing body fat, not simply losing weight. When weight changes plateau, you should first check if your body fat has decreased. When using correct weight loss methods, especially when combined with exercise, muscle mass will increase. Since muscle density is greater than fat, it's possible that while your weight hasn't changed, your body fat is subtly decreasing—meaning you've lost weight overall. Therefore, if your measurements have decreased but your weight hasn't changed, don't worry; you haven't truly experienced a weight plateau.

2. Examine Your Diet. Dietary issues are also a cause of weight plateaus. In fact, many people unconsciously indulge themselves during weight loss, such as consuming more sugary and fatty foods, eating out more frequently (restaurant dishes generally use sugar and other sauces), or indulging in foods containing refined sugars like luncheon meat, Cantonese sausage, and ham, or eating too many healthy snacks (like nuts). Therefore, when you find your weight has plateaued, you should check your diet for problems.

3. Examine stress and sleep. As analyzed earlier, emotional stress and sleep can cause weight gain in unseen ways. Many people have no dietary problems and even increase their exercise, but their weight still increases instead of decreasing. This is likely because increased stress and poor sleep are negating your efforts. So, when you think you're experiencing a plateau, first check for emotional stress and sleep problems. Weighing yourself every day is also a form of invisible pressure.

4. Examine your menstrual cycle. For women, if you find your weight is not decreasing or is increasing, you should also consider whether you are in a period of significant hormonal fluctuations before and after menstruation. Swelling and constipation during this special period will gradually disappear after menstruation ends, so stop focusing on your weight for a few days, don't put extra pressure on yourself, and just wait quietly for your period to end and everything will return to normal.