At its most basic level, weight loss is easy – you need to either eat less or exercise more, so that your calorie expenditure is greater than your intake.
But as most of us know, it’s not that simple to execute the plan in real life.
There are many physical, emotional and psychological reasons why your weight-loss journey may have plateaued.
Thankfully, there are solutions to most of these stalling problems.
Need more help? Read our advice on how to lose that belly fat.
Know yourself
One of the finest books to keep you on track is The Brave Athlete: Calm the F*ck Down, written by Dr Simon Marshall and multiple off-road triathlon world champion Lesley Paterson, and published in 2023.
I spoke to Marshall a few years ago (before he sadly died in 2024) and, as is illustrated in the book, he was a master at helping folk hit their goals through a mixture of psychology and neuroscience.
There were many takeaways from that enlightening chat, but here are three of the key ones…
Too many people are outcome-focused, meaning they don’t concentrate on the smaller victories before the bigger win (which more often than not, is never reached, because of not focusing on the smaller wins).
This approach sidesteps the most important element of goal-setting biology – the neurotransmitter dopamine.
Although it’s associated with pleasure, dopamine’s main role is keeping us on the right path toward hitting our goals.
If you teach yourself to microdose dopamine at regular intervals, you’ll receive a happy-hormone squirt that’ll please your brain and crank up the encouragement.
To open the dopamine floodgates, Marshall said, try to watch and listen to inspirational material, especially before a ride or meal.
This is an individual thing, but you can’t go wrong with YouTube hits of athletes overcoming adversity.
When it comes to self-control, early mornings are almost always better for exercise.
Neuroscientists and cognitive psychologists have discovered that we find it harder to take on a challenge the later in the day it gets.
That’s because the part of your brain responsible for self-control (the anterior cingulate cortex) tires just like a muscle.
Your emotional reserves to tackle a challenge and tolerate discomfort are eroded throughout the day because you’re constantly resisting temptation, stifling emotion and otherwise exerting self-restraint.
That’s why dreaming of a large glass of red wine at home becomes more appealing than mounting your smart trainer.
Basically, if you have the choice, work with your anterior cingulate cortex and train early in the morning.
Brick by brick
Struggling to cope with the bigger picture, be it a long session or consistent training?
Segment it. Why? Because your brain likes things in manageable chunks, and if things become tough, it deals with them better when not looking too far into the future.
Instead of thinking, “I can’t suffer this for 60 minutes”, think, “I can do 10 minutes”. Instead of “I can’t exercise regularly for eight weeks”, think, “I can get through today”.
Do that and it’ll be much easier, partly because of point one. Every time you tick off a segment, you’ll receive a motivating shot of dopamine.
To understand your mind and motivation, Marshall also recommended reading Atomic Habits by James Clear and Mindset by Carol Dweck.
Cheat your biology
An enlightening 2024 study led by Gurpeet Sarwan revealed that diets and their long-term impacts aren’t happy bedfellows.
In fact, while various diets produce similar weight loss over an eight- to 12-week period, maintaining weight loss long-term (longer than 24 weeks) is successful in only about 10% to 20% of people.
There are a multitude of physiological, metabolic and psychological components to a weight-loss plateau.
For example, levels of the appetite hormone leptin decrease during weight loss, due to reduced fat mass.
That might sound good, but, unfortunately, pre-existing leptin receptors persist.
This is bad, since it promotes more food consumption and less energy expenditure, because your body thinks it’s starving.
However, Sarwan and co rounded up some definite weight-loss wins. These included aiming for an energy deficit of 500 to 750 calories per day.
This usually results in a weight loss of around 0.5 to 1kg a week.
Aiming for a weekly weight loss of approximately 0.7% of body weight maximises fat loss while minimising metabolic adaptations and muscle loss.
Also, include a protein intake of 1.2 to 1.5g/kg per day to preserve lean mass and promote satiety.
Eating more fibre-rich foods (wholegrains, chickpeas, lentils) lessens hunger too, by delivering fewer calories per volume of food and slowing gastric emptying time.
Women are not men
“My tagline is ‘women are not small men’,” says Dr Stacy Sims, a former professional cyclist who’s now a coach and expert on women’s health.
“Coaching hasn’t yet caught up with the science, which itself needs more robust data, because most sport-science studies have focused on men, but it will get there.”
And that includes women’s weight plateauing through an incorrect assessment of a common weight-loss training technique – fasted sessions.
“Women are already biologically maximally capable of burning fatty acids, so the idea of fasted training doesn’t ring true,” says Sims.
“For women, fasted training, especially in the morning when cortisol levels are high, is too stressful. It’s perceived as a threat and the brain begins conserving calories.
“It’s different with men, because of evolutionary reasons – low calorie intake results in a leaner, stronger individual to bring the food home.”
So, if you’re female, drop the fasted sessions and eat before every workout.
We’re not talking gluttony – if you’re undergoing cardio on the bike, you’ll need to take in around 30g of carbohydrates and 15g of protein, so maybe a couple of eggs on toast.
For weights, just the two eggs is fine. Make sure to leave time to digest the food, too.
“Do this and your metabolism stays elevated, while there’s also better signalling for adaptations, so you enjoy better adaptive response to your training,” says Sims.
Small shifts
If you’ve fallen into a routine of exercise, pat yourself on the back. But not too many times, because this routine might be resulting in something called ‘compensatory inactivity’.
In other words, you might be exercising more but moving less.
We’ve all experienced it. You work hard in a session and reward yourself by collapsing on the sofa to watch TV.
But that could be a mistake, because your metabolism will soon fall back to resting levels (you might also fall into the snack trap).
So, if you’re serious about weight loss, look to be as active as you can be as often as possible.
That means taking the stairs instead of the lift and cycling to the shops instead of taking the car.
There are further easy wins. For instance, if you’re drinking a cappuccino daily, swap it out for an Americano.
While you’re looking at a minimum of 150 calories for the cappuccino, a black Americano is only 10cals.
Throw in a splash of semi-skimmed milk and you’re still only talking 25-30cals.
Cutting back on alcohol is another victory, albeit not always that easy. The key is to make small changes that are sustainable rather than one whopping big change that doesn’t last the week.
So, if you’re drinking three or four times a week, try to cut back to two. You’re looking at around 170cals in a large glass of red wine. If you’re drinking two each night you drink, you’ll save yourself 680cals. And avoid a series of hangovers.
