I don’t start threads often, but I remember reading the old week 40 check-ins when I was only a few months in, so this feels like a good place to add one. I’m 74 lbs down since I started, which took about 76 weeks. The first 35 came off pretty steadily, then I sat in the same 5-lb window from roughly Thanksgiving to Valentine’s Day. Not a true stall, just my body and my habits arguing. What helped was boring stuff: protein at breakfast, a 20-minute walk after dinner, and keeping the same two lunch options during the week. I also went from a 2XL to a medium in most shirts, which still surprises me in store mirrors. No big secret, just enough weeks stacked up. For the folks in the middle of a long flat stretch, what’s one small habit that kept you from quitting?
Three years here, 74 pounds down, and still learning patience
#1
#2
Night shift here too. Plateaus hit different when your "morning" is 2pm. I stopped weighing daily. Once a week, same day, after sleep, before food. Also tracked waist and monthly average. Kept me sane through a 4-month stall. One concrete thing: 10-min walk after shift before bed. Not for burn. Just to stop grazing. Did your stall break on its own, or did you change your tracking?
#3
Congrats—76 weeks is the unsexy part nobody posts. That Thanksgiving-to-February window is brutal because routine vanishes and sodium/alcohol/carb shifts can mask fat loss for weeks. In the trials, plateaus are common as weight drops; energy expenditure falls too, so it’s not just “willpower.” What actually broke it for you? My own 6-week stall ended when I stopped weighing daily and switched to a Monday average plus waist tape—turned out I was down 3 cm even while the scale sat in the same 2-lb range. Did your hunger or steps change during that stretch, or was it mostly the calendar?
#4
I keep a daily weight tab with a 7-day centered average. My last “plateau” was 58 days inside a 4.8-lb range, but the trendline still fell 0.09 lb/week—not flat, just slow enough to feel like a wall. Then it dropped 3.6 lbs in 9 days. Curious: in your Thanksgiving-to-Valentine’s window, what did your weekly average do? Did you track any non-scale trend (waist, pics, how clothes fit) or just the scale? I found the scale lied loudest in that phase.
#5
Long stalls are so weird because the scale acts like nothing’s happening while your body quietly keeps changing. During one 3-month plateau, I started measuring my waist every Sunday and took a photo in the same leggings. The scale didn’t budge, but my belt notch moved one hole, which kept me from quitting. What non-scale sign did you notice during that 5-lb window—rings, sleep, how stairs felt? I’m back after regaining 20, so I’m trying to care about those again instead of just the weekly number.
#6
That Thanksgiving-to-February stretch is rough because the scale goes flat right when the calendar gets carb-heavy and dark. What got me through my last 12-week flat was switching to recomp markers: kept lifting 4x, held protein steady, tracked waist at the navel weekly. Scale didn't budge but I lost 1.5 inches off my waist and added 20 lbs to my squat. Curious — did your lifts or tape measurements move during that window, or was everything flat? That's usually the tell between a true stall and water/glycogen just masking fat loss.
#7
Cafe owner here, so the food-business temptation is real—every batch of scones, every rejected latte, every “just test the frosting” bite. What helped me was a tasting tally on the prep clipboard: one hash mark per intentional taste, no full log, no judgement. Just made the invisible bites visible. After two weeks I could see the pattern: it wasn’t meals, it was the 3 p.m. pick-me-up. Did you find one specific trigger like that, or was it more overall decision fatigue? Rooting for you.
#8
Plateaus are usually a measurement problem or a compliance leak wearing a costume. I track weekly averages instead of daily weights and compare the same 4-week window year over year. Thanksgiving-to-Valentine’s was basically a 12-week behavior drift for me: fewer steps, more standing-around calories, same log. My fix was a 10-minute walk after the biggest meal and a Sunday tape measure. Did your step count drop in that window, or was intake the variable?
#9
This resonates. During a similar winter stall, I switched to a monthly average plus a few odd checkpoints: how my coat zipped, whether I needed a mid-afternoon snack, and how steady my energy felt on my usual walk. The scale parked for weeks, but those little signals kept shifting, which made it easier to stay patient. Gentle question: during those Thanksgiving-to-Valentine’s months, did anything non-scale move at all for you—sleep, hunger cues, waistband, stamina—or did it fel like everything paused together? I’m curious whether it was more routine drift than your body actually stalling.
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