[Closed] bodyfat loss - does it reach a plateau?

Very age dependant, 15-20 years ago I could gain a large gut and then shed it in a few weeks. Now that gut is still there after 9 months of dedicated gut reducing effort. Admittedly it was bigger and more established than those of the past. Diet is at least as important if not more than exercise. Start selecting the right nutritional balance and weight everything that goes in.

Edit: sorry missed the diet bit, have you tried an exercise diet plan or a block of sessions with a PT.

I think the more fat you shift the harder it becomes to shift the remaining fat, don’t forget about all the internal stores that are contributing to your weight and you may be burning first.

If you keep losing weight at the same rate, you will eventually die. Your body has feedback mechanisms to prevent this, so it will become harder and harder to lose weight as your bodyfat drops. Also, if you are heavy, you will burn more calories riding up hills, walking up stairs, etc., so a lot of your exercise will become less effective at burning calories. Even if you are exercising regularly, most of your calorie burn will be from your resting metabolic rate. As you lose weight, this will drop, so you need to eat less to maintain the same calorie deficit. That's ignoring that weight loss will make your body think you are experiencing a famine and will lower your metabolic rate as a survival mechanism, so it will be harder to lose more weight.

I’m not so sure the gym is the best place to loose body fat. Had a discussion with a guy that does all his exercise at the gym recently. A good hour cardio at the gym will burn 600kcal approximately. I can go out on the bike and burn 2000kcal in a 3 hour ride and enjoy it. I couldn’t do 3 hours in the gym.

So go to the gym every day and have an average 600kcal extra burn per day or go out on the bike and your average burn will be twice as much for 4 rides a week.

It’s easier to run a defecit if your burning more.

I’d be quite happy for mine to reach a plateau. At the moment it remains a meall.

I am surprised at the amount I have lost given the amount of cv stuff I do. I think as mentioned above it's the speed up of the metabolic rate three times a week from a combination of the weights and the cv although it's mainly the cv which does it as I am feeding the muscles not burning them off.On training days I am eating regular small amounts of protein mainly every 3 hours to keep the muscles growing and have been losing fat.I wish I could ride 4 times a week but riding locally is not very good although I have been going on 1 hour rides once a week during the week on rest days.I do not think I will need to eat less though as my muscles are constantly growing too so I will not be any lighter at any given stage.The added complication is that I have to take meds for the rest of my life which slow my metabolism and add some weight gain too.

Thanks everyone. I will up the cv stuff and ride further.

Mine's plateaued at 24%

I have been going on 1 hour rides once a week during the week on rest days

That's not really a rest day, surely.

that's a rest from weights. Riding on off days helps muscle development, according to my 1990 body building book. It mentions this new sport called mountain biking lol. It's called cross training in the book. It's a great old school book and I have had success using it's advice so I am continuing ...

That's some pretty enviable fat loss speed you have there. I assume you also have quite an active job/commute as long periods of low activity in the day can be counteractive (I'd imagine - not being my branch if science).

no activate job or cycle commute. I've been drinking alot of green tea too, which I know speeds up the metablism, so maybe that's helped.

Ah. The old famine mode. Does anyone know the source of this and under what conditions the paper cites of when it kicks in?

what's a famine mode? what kicks in?

Didn't seem to plateau for those in concentration camps in WWII.

I once heard that cited as an argument against the idea of famine mode.

cutting down on sugar is the key, and don't eat more carbohydrate than you need to.
remember that it's easier not to eat it in the first place than it is to try and burn it off afterwards.

Remember the old adage that six-packs are made in the kitchen, not the gym. If you want to lose fat, you have to be watching what and how much you eat

Didn’t seem to plateau for those in concentration camps in WWII.

Whole load of other factors at play there. Don't draw ridiculous conclusions.

Various things happen in your body when you lose fat that tend to preserve it. But obviously there's only so much they can do. You could continue to starve yourself even more and get very thin indeed but you'd find maintaining a normal lifestyle quite difficult and you'd be malnourished probably.

I doubt PoWs felt much like riding bikes recreationally whilst they were being starved.

New lower weight you will likely need less calories than old you.
Therefore to maintain the same rate of loss you need even less calories than before.

thanks.

my 2p worth is you want to split out what you're doing at this point

i. 'bulking' by working out at the gym to build muscle (read increase metabolic rate). Which is what you're doing at the moment and on a 'diet' which supports that growth

ii. 'cutting' by running on a carb-low diet with reduced exercise levels & changed focus, i.e. easy exercise such as recovery rides, light gym sessions or cross training (swimming, easy running) to avoid expecting your body to build muscle / recover from hard efforts while restricting nutrients

do let us know how you get on 🙂

it’s easier not to eat it in the first place than it is to try and burn it off afterwards.

Well in one sense this is true, but IRL it seems not to be the case for a lot of us.

But to the OP - four weeks is just getting started, keep at it and come back in four months. Or preferably eight.

Well in one sense this is true, but IRL it seems not to be the case for a lot of us.

Depends on the person, and what 'it' is. That fourth Mars Bar of the day - yes. The morning bowl of porridge however might be what you need to fuel your bike ride, and end up burning more fat in the process given that you might be riding using 60% energy from stored fat.

Anyway re the OP - increasing cardio yes in theory will result in more fat loss but you may approach the limit of what you can fit into your life. This is where biking comes in because a 3 hour bike ride is ok, 3 hours of gym cardio is murder.

And it's well known that cardio is not the most time-effective way to lose weight for most people.

From the little reading I've been doing and from my own little experience from losing 15kg in 3 months.

If more muscle and less fat is your goal as opposed to just less mass overall. Then you want to do fewer long extended sessions of exercise and move towards shorter high intensity exercises.

Longer exercises have been shown to reduce muscle mass along with the fat too. While short high intensity bursts are shown to give similar fat reduction but maintain the muscle mass.

This is what current day body builders do during their cutting phase when preparing for a competition and to get super lean. They absolutely need to maintain that muscle mass but cut down on the fat content and even water levels when get closer still to competition day. Many of the top competitors have switched over to shorter bursts of high intensity training rather than the old long and steady cardio type training.

And yes as has been said you need keep cutting down on your food portion sizes as you get smaller. I have smart scales and would track the weight loss on an app. The graph looked very step like. I'd loose a bunch of weight one week then plateau another week then I realised I need to cut down on portion sizes so would loose weight again .. and repeat!

I think with everything the size of gains you achieve get smaller and smaller so you need to try harder and harder the less fat you have. Getting to around 15% body fat is fine with a general eat less carbs and small portion sizes and exercise lots methodology. But to get to 10-12% and lower you really need to start being very structured with your diet and exercise plan.

But to get to 10-12% and lower you really need to start being very structured with your diet and exercise plan.

Or, IME, just exercise A LOT!

very interesting.