Dealing With A Plateau

[Wintermute]

So its been about five months since I started eating Paleo and doing primarily strength and interval training. I've had a week here and there when I get to go home and see my family and fiance and eat a little more carbs then I should (and redo the card withdrawl...ugh) but for about 90% percent of the time my carb intake is usually 26gs a day or less. 

 

My workout plan is like so: 3 day of weight lifting during the week, 2 days of sprints, and a day of bodyweight exercises thrown in there for good measure. I eat a bunch of food each day ( a minimum of six eggs, sometimes a dozen, and plenty of fats, protein and vegetables), get a lot of omega-3 fats, and cut my sugar intake to something like >10gs a day. So, all in all I feel like I am being as healthy as I can be. 

 

Sleep is something like 6-9 hours a day, usually averaging around 7. I manage stress the best I can (which is saying something; one of my two jobs is one of those detail-critical, one-mistake-and-people-die kind of jobs), and feel like I'm doing everything right. 

 

Since I lost 35 pounds three months ago, I haven't budged. The weight on my barbell doesn't move but 5 pounds or so, and if I miss a workout day it goes right back to what it used to be. My pull-ups went up to three, and then stopped, two months ago. I keep working with no results. 

 

My diet is pretty much immutable right now; I really don't like the foods I used to eat, and anything starchy is not appetizing at all for me. I have that energy thing people get from eating Paleo where you don't need caffeine at all throughout the whole day (although I do use it for workouts). The issue is working out: I'm starting to get discouraged. I am not gaining any noticeable muscle, and my strength doesn't seem to be moving much either, more content to slide right back once I give it the chance. I don't feel like I am putting too much weight on at all; in fact, sometimes I feel like the workouts I do are a little on the easy side. 

 

This past month has been pretty much all willpower and discipline; my motivation and even excitement for working out is starting to diminish. Three months ago I started to see the outline of my abs, which was really exciting; fast-forward 90 days and I look the same. 

 

So my question is: do plateaus take forever to get through? Why is it that I am sore almost every day I leave the gym, yet no noticeable size is gained? I do 6-8 reps with a minute to a minute-thirty break in-between, and I always stretch afterwards and eat protein within thirty minutes of leaving the gym. Am I doing something wrong, or is this just an exercise in futility? 

 

Sorry for the long post. I'm just getting progressively more frustrated. 

[Waldo]

Are you trying to get leaner OR are you trying to get bigger muscles?

Trying to do both at the same time often leads to the situation you are in.

Lifting, spinting, BW exercises on 26g or less per day of carbs. Whaaaaat. I do similar work, but will crash during my workouts due to lack of carbs even with 200g. Isn't until I'm up in the 300-400g area that I can just go and go and go.

Dietary-wise, how to fix things I can't really help you. I disagree completely with paleo and the priciples behind it, to me IIFYM produces consistent predictable results, and IIFYM is pretty much the philosophical opposite of paleo.

A plateu is a sign of a problem. If you are doing things right, you should never have a plateau.

[Wintermute]

So I read up on IIFYM, and you are right; philosophical opposite of what I'm trying now. I don't know if it would work for me, and I have been getting some really good benefits from the paleo diet, so I won't change that. 

 

You are right though; something is wrong with what I'm doing. I'm going to keep the weight at what I keep sliding at, and see if my form is the issue. All I've ever went off of was youtube videos and tutorials from the internet, so I need to go find someone to double-check and make sure I'm doing them right. 

 

After what you said about the carb thing, I'm wondering if that might be the issue too. I might bump the carb intake to 50 or 100gs, and see if that has any results, and maybe add two more hours to sleep or something. I'll just switch things up and see if anything changes, I guess. 

 

As for trying to gai muscle while lose fat, I've been reading a lot that so long as you are eating the right foods, the gene expression in your body will lean more towards "we need less fat" anyways, so I was wondering if I could switch body compositions. I also read that cutting calories is a temporary solution, and your body adapts to that eventually. I guess it is all an experiment, you know? 

 

Thanks for the reply. I will definitely take what you said and think about it. 

[manofsteel]

This is my first post here, but I've been reading for a long time. I'm going through exactly what you are going through, down to the part where I could see abs. Lost 80 pounds with diet and exercise now I'm completely stuck. No weight loss in 4-5 months, despite working my ass off. I'm frustrated as can be, but not giving up on the exercise. At this point, I'm willing to try anything. I start a 6 week weight loss competition at work on Tuesday.

[Evicious]

Let me caveat first by saying this: I am not an expert.

 

That being said, it sounds like you have come to the moment of balance - that is to say, your body has completely adapted to your diet, your exercise routine, everything. Don't worry, that's what it's supposed to do! It's just that since you're not quite where you want to be yet physically, it seems like it happened prematurely. Once you get to where you want to be, a plateau is exactly what you'll want to happen.

 

That being said, because you haven't achieved the level of fitness you were shooting for, it's time to shake things up a bit. Do what you're comfortable with, but whatever that is, make sure it's a BIG change from what you've been doing. Example: if you are currently squatting 90Lbs for 8 reps, add weight until you can only perform 4 reps. If you are working out 7 days a week, cut it down to 3 and really make those 3 count. Switch the + and - in routine; trade weightlifting for bodyweight exercises. You get the idea.

 

You only need to do this for about 2-3 weeks to break the plateau. However, you need to go into the break knowing two things: 1. Because the change(s) you are making are drastic, you're very likely to feel drastically different during the process, and 2. It is an expiremental process, and the exact results of that process are not guaranteed - nor are they important. The important thing is push your body back outside of its new comfort zone so that you start making progress again.

 

Always remember to be safe about what you're doing. Use the proper form, ask for help when you need it, and don't just throw caution to the wind because the change is frustrating (been there, done that, one torn ACL later.... X-D). Make a plan, just like you made your first plan, and grind through it. You'll come back to your first routine with a fresh appreciation for it; maybe you'll even come back with an updated version.

 

And HAVE FUN!

[Zorch]

Are you trying to get leaner OR are you trying to get bigger muscles?

Trying to do both at the same time often leads to the situation you are in.

Lifting, spinting, BW exercises on 26g or less per day of carbs. Whaaaaat. I do similar work, but will crash during my workouts due to lack of carbs even with 200g. Isn't until I'm up in the 300-400g area that I can just go and go and go.

Dietary-wise, how to fix things I can't really help you. I disagree completely with paleo and the priciples behind it, to me IIFYM produces consistent predictable results, and IIFYM is pretty much the philosophical opposite of paleo.

A plateu is a sign of a problem. If you are doing things right, you should never have a plateau.

 

Paleo or not, <26g of carbs is pretty extreme.  In fact, it's REALLY extreme for someone who's looking to be quite active, as the original poster is.  Speaking only for myself, low-carb proved to be lousy for making strength gains in my experience.  Increased post-workout carbs definitely helped me recover more effectively and led to better sustained strength performance and muscle gains.  You can do this within a paleo framework(sweet potatoes, etc) without issue.  In general it makes sense to scale carb intake with activity level, and ultra-low-carb doesn't really mesh with 5-6 days/week of fairly intense work.

 

I agree with the general statement - if things aren't working, then it's time to tweak things a bit.  For me, a degree of periodization and adequate post-workout fuel(including carbs) have proven to be the keys to making progress.

 

Unless there's a clear medical/therapeutic reason that the original poster needs to be super-low-carb, I'd advocate trying to increase carbohydrate intake a bit to fuel what seems like a fairly heavy workout schedule.

[Brovatar Korra]

I'm in a (kinda) similar situation, I've been following a high protein / low carb diet for about 6 weeks and strength training 3 x week. I lost 10lbs in the first month, but have now plateaued for the last two weeks. Everything I've read on this site the last few days has led me to conclude I need to up my carbs a bit to give me more energy to work harder. Hopefully it works for both of us!

[NicoleCanoes]

It might be when you are consuming what types of food. More protein directly after lifting, more carbs 2 hours before cardio. Google it, because I don't remember the exact numbers and science but changing when I ate things helped my muscles recover better. I didn't fatigue as much during workouts.

 

And maybe it is a mental rut. Do you have a specific goal you are working towards? Those always help keep the motivation up.

[Timmy M]

as said previously, eat dem carbs, muscle growth comes from carbs (well insulin causing things to be stored both in fat and muscle) and yes a clean bulk is possible but you've got to be exact in pretty much everything so the stress would probably make it worthless

you're obviously fairly lean so you can get away with a bulk (sometimes after seriously low carb upping carb intake, along with exercising like you are can reduce bodyfat, your body may have gone into something of a 'panic mode' you're severely limiting energy intake so it's going to want to hold onto what it can)

what are you doing on your workout days, i'm talking sets reps and perceived exertion (how hard do you feel you're working, 1-10, 10 being nearly dead at the end, weight isn't really relevant as heavy is relative)

if upping carb intake doesn't help (doubtful but still) then there's the off chance a rest could be due, for most people rest weeks or excessive but what with your mass of activity and lack of intake you could maybe do with some recovery (you sleep enough so don't bother adding another 2 hours)

also as previously mentioned plateau's shouldn't really happen to the extent of yours, this guy has good advice on getting strong steadily 

and remember, insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results, that's a plateau in a nutshell

[notanartmajor]

It doesn't sound like you're getting "really good benefits" if your workouts are stalling. Eat more.