Down 62 pounds in a year, with many plateaus

Those winter plateaus are so real—my daily walks and soup experiments kept me sane.

I track the same way—morning weights, Sunday average—but I added a 10-day rolling average because a single Sunday can fake a whoosh or a stall. My winter plateau was 9 weeks inside a 3.8 lb range. What finally nudged it wasn’t dramatic: I swapped my usual grab-bag lunch for a packed 450-cal protein + veg bowl and set a 7k step floor. Two weeks later the average started moving again. You cut off at “Two habi...” — what were the two habits? And did you keep your Sunday weigh-in during travel/salty weekends, or switch to comparing month-to-month averages?

Man, 62 in a year is huge. I hit a 9-week stall around -55, bouncing in a 3-lb window. What finally moved my weekly average was boring: same breakfast fve days a week (eggs + fruit), 10k steps, and actually logging weekends. My Sunday average was hiding 1,000+ calorie Saturdays. Are you tracking Sat/Sun the same as weekdays? That was my leak. Also, when the scale froze, my waist dropped 1.5 inches over six weeks, so I stopped treating a flat scale as zero progress.

Ten weeks bouncing in a 4-lb range and you still kept logging, that's the real win honestly.

That 10-week flat stretch is usually where recomp hides. Did you track waist/chest or just the scale? During my last 9-week plateau I stayed within 3 lb on weekly averages, but lost ~1.5 inches off my waist and added 20 lb to my squat. What broke the stall wasn’t a trick—it was auditing my non-lifting days: steps had quietly dropped from 9k to 5k, sleep got ugly, and weekend intake was erasing the week. I set a step floor, kept protein high, and only judged Sunday averages. How’s your gym log looking during the flat weeks?

ngl the weekly average thing is so underrated, i wish i'd started it before i spent months panicking over single mornings. my plateau breaker was honestly the late-night gaming grazing, i'd queue up and just eat without noticing. now i portion popcorn into a bowl first and keep a giant cold sparkling water with flavor drops next to me, and the scale started moving again in like two weeks. still get the crunch, just capped it.

what were your two habits that got you through the winter flat stretch? i'm heading into my own slog right now and could use ideas.

tbh late-night gamer here too. the thing that finally moved my 5-week flat was moving my last real meal before my ranked block instead of eating at 1am after. same cals, just earlier. also swapped my usual soda for seltzer + lime during queues and the bloat/scale noise dropped a lot. did your winter fat come with more late-night snacking, or was intake pretty much the same? curious if the 4-lb bounce felt more like water or actual appetite creep.

Even my pharmacy ladies cheered my slow weeks—plateaus are rough. 62 down is huge, congrats! 🎉

That 10-week plateau stretch is so real. Mine tested every ounce of my patience lol.

The winter bounce is brutal. You’re not stalled, just marinating 😅

grats on the 62, especially surviving that 10-week 4-lb bounce. one thing that helped me when my sunday average went stale: i tracked a 7-day median alongside it, because one big whoosh or salty night made the avg lie to me. also tried the soda swap thing—kept one regular soda as my “gaming drink” and did sparkling water + lime for the rest. weirdly the scale moved more when i pre-portioned my late-night snack instead. did your winter plateau line up with later gaming nights/sleep drift, or was it mostly the fod side?

That ten-week 4-lb bounce sounds painfully familiar. Sunday averages are my sanity saver too.

Something I’ve started watching during flat stretches is my resting heart rate and sleep, not just the scale. My weekly average sat still for almost a month last fall, but my RHR was up 4–5 bpm and sleep was rough from stress. Once those settled, the scale finally moved. Did your winter plateau line up with anything like that—sleep, stress, steps, or energy? I’m always curious whether the scale is just the last thing to catch up

Congrats on 62 down. That 10-week 4-pound bounce sounds brutal. I'm in a similar spot now—week 6 of my weekly average being flat within 2 pounds. What helped me was tracking something besides weight: I started measuring my waist every other Sunday. It moved half an inch during a scale plateau, which kept me from losing my mind. Did you change anything when you finally broke out of that winter flat, or did it just lift on its own? I'm trying to decide if I should switch up my walking route or just wait it out.

Congratulations on 62 pounds and, more importantly, on keeping your sanity through a ten-week flat stretch. That is the part I find hardest. One thing that helped me during a similar winter plateau was adding a second, slower metric: a 10-day rolling average alongside my Sunday number, plus a monthly waist measurement. It gave me something to watch when the scale was stubborn. I also noticed my plateaus often broke after I changed one small routine, usually an after-dinner walk or a more consistent lunch. You mentioned two habits at the end of your post; I would love to hear what they were. Which one do you think made the biggest difference during the flat weeks?

Congrats — 62 in a year with a ten-week flat stretch in the middle is the real version of this, not the highlight reel. The weekly-average thing saved me too. Cafe owner here: my winter plateau lined up exactly with soup-and-pastry season, and the killer was the "just tasting" spoonfuls. Five or six a shift, six days a week, that's basically a meal I never logged. Now I taste once and dump the spoon instead of finishing it. Curious what your Sunday average was actually doing during those ten weeks — dead flat, or creeping up 0.2 at a time? Those micro-creeps are what sneak past me.

did you track waist too? My scale stalls while jeans get looser—so rude.

Sunday averages turned my scale freakouts into background noise too.

One thing that helped me in a similar long flat stretch: I stopped comparing Sunday averages week-to-week and switched to a 4-week rolling average, plus I annotated my log for travel/holiday/salty weekends. The raw Sundays looked identical for about 8 weeks, but the rolling line was still drifting down around 0.25 lb/week. Seeing that kept me from changing anything drastic. Did you tag anything in your log during that winter stretch? I’m curious whether your 4-lb bounce lined up with specific weeks or was just random noise.