Can you plateau with insanity

Hi Latricia, Weight fluctuation is normal but it seems like you do need to take a break from a calorie deficit. Thank you but im kinda scared to do that.

You can only gain fat if you are in a calorie surplus during a hour energy cycle. Your maintenance numbers are calculated to keep you at a balanced energy level. You can create a small buffer by entering your goal weight instead of your current weight when calculating your maintenance. The most important thing is to eat more and give your body a break from always being in a deficit. Well, just like I was afraid of I have been eating between and calories.

Those are the maintenance for my current weight and the weight I want. Do you have any more advice? Be patient with the process, focus on fueling your body with nutritious foods and using the extra nutrition to help push you a little harder during your exercise. This is very refreshing this morning, thank you! I will try to switch things up and maybe back off for a while. I lost pounds on low carb, non-processed food ten years ago but the battle has been lifelong — I just finally found what works.

I ate about cals a day, weight trained 4 days a week, did pilates, and some swimming and lots of walking. Life happened and I regained about This past year, I took off that 50 off at — cals eating low carb and unprocessed foods I am older now and need work harder at it than ten years ago with weight training 4x a week and lots of walking, but then got stuck—FOR MONTHS!

I decided to chill thru the holidays and regained 10 pounds in the blink of an eye. Am trying to get back on track. Cals at but I zig zag a bit. Been back on track for 8 weeks.

Losing a few inches, but the scale has not budged. Any advice? Hi Ted! I have been on my weight loss journey for 4 months now. I have lost 40 pounds. I have been tracking my macros. I have been eating grams of protein daily, around 50 grams of carbs, and around 30 grams of fat. Possibly because of some antiquated and unscientific idea that eating more meals per day helps keep your metabolism revved.

And that's without any added shakes! Pros and cons The best part of any review is getting to list the pros and cons. So here we go! I place a lot more importance on what you can accomplish during the other 23 hours of the day when you're not sweating in front of your TV. Pros It's a zero-guesswork program. Everything is laid out for you. They make it easy to get started. There are no fancy dance moves or tricky choreography.

Cons It's a zero-guesswork program. This is a con as well as a pro! A one-size-fits-all approach doesn't do individual participants any favors. There is no way to know how quickly you will recover, what other stresses will impact your performance, or how your sleep, mood, or health will turn out on any given day.

So a program that is laid out so specifically makes my inner coach cringe. Even the National Strength and Conditioning Journal has gone on record stating, "Is there a single, perfect workout? A workout with the best weight training, plyometric, flexibility, and endurance exercises? A workout with the precise number of sets and repetitions? A workout that tells the athlete exactly how much weight to use? The answer is no.

The on-demand pricing is quite confusing. Insanity is not a magic formula for fitness. It is just an extreme form of High-Intensity Interval Training. You can get the same basic results for free by running up and down a set of stairs. You could get hurt. The impossible continues, as the the calories required to lose a pound is working out to something like since I started trying to lose weight, and about calories per pound over the last couple weeks.

My metabolism, according to the calculator in WEB-MD, should be about or so for a 65 year old guy and setting the activity box at inactive. Thought it was supposed to be Dave — 1lb of fat has approximately calories. Also focusing on whole, natural foods can help. Finally, if you have been eating a calorie deficit, exercising effectively for a couple months and nothing is working, it may be worth seeing your doctor to get your hormones checked out i.

Also, you may consider getting your metabolism checked out using a metacheck analyzer. I believe that, instead of following the rule-of-thumb 10X my body weight for my metabolism, I believe I am consuming quite a bit less due to my inactivity.

The spreadsheet is now tracking my real weight. Cure for losing weight will be to consume about calories less, or exercise calories more per day.

Either will be hard to do. I could go back to doing yard work, too, that I stopped doing in an effort to help my heel, heal. Sounds great, Dave. Yes, inactivity can have a major impact on total calorie burn, so definitely want to take that into account. Just what I needed. I thought it was just me but now I see this is a known issue. Oh and I just learned something new, drinking water helps with water retention…nice.

Diandra — Happy to hear you have had some great success losing weight. John had some interesting thoughts to share in his comment to Becky here. The challenge with strength training is it can be difficult to learn. Think about strength training in terms of movement patterns:. For more, check out this workout, which is an example — 20 Minute Circuit Training Workout. Regarding interval training , you can do it, you just need to be careful and choose activities that make sense for your fitness level.

So a workout could be minutes of strength training followed by minutes of interval training. About two years ago I hired a trainer and started a new hormone therapy thyroid, adrenal, progesterone, etc. After years of trying to lose the baby weight from two pregnancies, I started losing weight. By October of last year, I was down to lbs from and in fantastic shape. I even competed in my first duathlon. The weight loss stopped so I took a short break in December to just relax after obsessing about my diet, exercise, and weight for years.

I got right back into my grueling day a week workout but started a med for anxiety. Between January and now, I have gained back 10lbs of the weight I lost. I have working out almost daily for I am in excellent shape with great muscle tone and can run the hills around here for miles. I just want to get this extra body fat off and finally start looking how I feel in shape.

What would you suggest? Eating less calories may in fact help, but you need to be careful and pay attention to your energy levels. Good luck! There is a metacheck analyzer that analyzes your metabolic rate. This has got to be one of the best articles on the site. I keep coming back to it. I have to remind myself that the tape measure change counts as progress, too. After rereading this article I think I can attribute the plateau to not recalculating my calorie needs, not drinking enough water, and letting the calorie creep come into play.

So thanks again for the great article! I just stumbled across this article and I want to congratulate you on a really great job. I especially appreciate that you tried to explain how plateaus can occur even when you ARE sticking to your diet. Conversely, the article on WebMD has 10 tips for beating a plateau, and ALL 10 are wholly based on the assumption that plateaus occur only because folks stop following their diet regimens as closely. Anyway, thanks so much for the good ideas. I am going to take all of this into consideration when I rev up my routine the next few weeks.

I know you may think, why do you need to lose anymore weight!? I was this time last year and pushed myself extremely hard to get where I am now. This article really helped me understand that in spite of the fact that I do great things for my body, this is normal and I CAN get out of it!

I eat healthy and on the whole I think my calorie calculations are accurate, I log everything. What do you think I should do?

Baak — Tough to say. From the little information I know about you, I would likely stick with what you are doing and give it a little more time. Hello Marc, I came to your website on a website search and have read almost all the links and comments on here.

You sir are a credit to all who are in need of advice. I see that you reply to many people who ask for your advice. The other three days i lift weights in the hope to manipulate the muscle and not let it get taken in the weight loss.

I have been intermittent fasting eating from 12 noon to 4pm for tree months. I always do my work outs from 9am — am. In my four hour window of eating i consume around calories. Around g protein, g carbs, 30g fat and 21g fiber. It all adds to me getting to pounds. I started this fat loss in May and have lost 42 pounds in that time but have reached my plateau. I would like to lose 20 more pounds and break this plateau but the questions are — Is my calorie intake sufficient for fat loss?

Is my goal to lose weight also restricting my gain in muscle? I have a cheat day on Saturday and my calories on a Sunday do differ from my weekly intake but i do not abuse the intake on calories. Any advice would be gratefully appreciated. Lee from Derby in the UK. Generally speaking, you must eat more calories than you burn along with plenty of protein to build muscle. Building muscle is very difficult in my opinion, more so than losing fat.

Also, congrats on your impressive results. The article is currently rated at 4. You hit the possible causes, the explanations, behind the causes, next steps, and encouraging notes.

The additional in-depth how-tos are in the 20 page guide that you provide free and have a link for. Weight is not the issue for me, body fat is. He has worked on weight at various committment levels for decades.

This article and, more importantly, the guide are as pertinent to me as it is to him. Thank you for both bodies of work. They are truly valuable. It really means a lot. This is a great article! At first it was so easy — like putting butter into a frying pan, the pounds just melted away. My workouts have become progressively more intense and longer lasting, but I enjoy them. But barring a ridiculous 5-hour workout, it seems like nothing works anymore!

When I reduce my calorie intake, my body makes me feel terribly hungry. I know that this is because it wants to maintain its current weight, and the hunger pains are sometimes too hard to resist. From your article, it seems the route I should try is to focus more on calorie intake and less on exercise as a deterrent, and to really use some mental energy rather than physical energy to adjust myself to a reduced caloric intake.

If only exercise were everything…. Keep in mind the quality of calories has a large impact on how full you are after eating.

As an example, calories worth of a chicken breast will fill you up far more than calories worth of a doughnut. Also, keep in mind thirst vs. Sometimes drinking a glass of water can stave off a hunger pain! For more information, check out this article on how to stop food cravings.

I am 55 years old and started on a diet in January. My starting weight was I started a low calorie diet, with a lot of veggies and low calorie protein and lost steadily for 5 months. I am now at lbs. I am stuck, and have been for four months! I want to lose another 15 lbs.

I have asthma and copd so do not exercize at all. I do stand for 8 hours daily at my job. How can I break this plateau, I think I may be eating too little, and frequently do not eat all day? Help, please! Losing any more weight without exercising my not be such a good idea, because you may strip your body of muscle it needs to function. I never recommend anyone attempt to lose weight without exercising because of muscle possibly being stripped away.

This was everything I needed to hear right now. You just validated everything I was already telling myself. I need to kick up my workout and pay closer attention to calories. Ive been slacking and I still have 20 pounds to go! My goal was and is 80 pounds in a year and I think I can still do it!

Hi Marc, Very useful information! I have only lost 3lbs since starting, although my jeans are so much looser and my body shape is changing. I am so discouraged.

Lean protein, veggies, fruits, etc. Is my body confused with my drastic exercise regimen? If you are losing much more than 1. I am training for a climb up Kilimanjaro, but recently have hit a plateau. Aug I started to get serious again and I lost about 12 pound in 2 weeks, but for about 3 weeks now I have not lost a pound. I am keeping a food and excercise diary and I am not cheating.

I am drinking lots of water more then 10 glasses daily. I have not had any problems with will power, but I am getting frustrated that my extra cardio efforts are not showing results on the scale. I know I am getting much stronger, but is it possible that I could be adding that much muscle to offset any fat loss or could it be something else all together? I would consider doing higher intensity interval training cardio for shorter periods to see how your body reacts.

Other than that, just keep up the good work. Congrats on your success so far. Great article. Hi Marc, great article!

I worked my way up to running km 5 days a week and lifting weights once or twice a week. Total Shape is a reader-supported site. Purchases made through links may earn a commission. Learn more. Published by Tyler Sellers. They decrease time and cost and give you a timeline for progress. What is Insanity? What is P90X? Equipment 2. Workout Length 3. Intensity 4. Diet Plan 5. By avoiding plateaus, the P90X regimen can be used effectively over long periods of time. When choosing between P90X or Insanity, think about how you prefer to be coached.

Workout Length. Exercises include warm-ups and cool-downs. P90X combines circuit training with resistance training. Horton provides lots of modifications and spends 10 minutes on warmups. Diet Plan. P90X is a bit more complicated since it has three phases. Both sets include the nutrition meal plan, a fitness guide, and a goal-setting calendar. Can P90X get you ripped?

Is Insanity good for weight loss? Can you build muscle with Insanity?