Day 42: Plateau Buster, Assessment Day

Now that I'm back on a normal food regimen for this diet - meaning, 1,250 calories/day consumed in five meals/day - I've seen a hint of what made me back away from the plateau buster earlier: after several weighings at around 6 PM, I found that I've gained half a pound over the last day. Fully clothed, with light slippers on, I weighed in at 230 lbs; unclothed, I weighed in at 226 1/2 pounds.

This slight gain isn't enough to make me abandon it. I have three meals behind me so far this day, even if the calorie count for all of them is slightly less than each of the big breakfasts I ate over the past two days. Since my weight is 3 1/2 pounds below the plateau level I started off at, I've decided that the plateau buster is a real, workable technique, although only an ancillary one to a real diet of the fat-burning type.

Here are its limits:

- This technique, as fully explained in the E-book obtainable at this Website, only works as part of a stuck-to diet. If you're not on a diet, it won't help you sustainably lose weight.
- It acts as a kind of "equalizer." I use it when a reduction of calories has not met with corresponding weight loss. This disparity is what makes it go: the use of the plateau buster should result in a catch-up to trend, not an acceleration of it.
- From what I can tell, it partially depends upon clearing fluid out that has been accumulated in the body.
- It also depends upon breaking food habit to speed the body's metabolism up to normal from diet-shutdown mode. Both this point and the last add up to the point two above: it's only an equalizer, which should get you back on trend. Whatever the underlying trend is depends upon the difference between the calories you consume and the calories you use.
- It also depends upon prior habituation to dieting. Anyone who isn't, will find it a special challenge to fast between the breakfast and supper. I mention that I started experimenting with the plateau buster after I deliberately pulled myself off the diet as a resolve test, and passed that test by going back on the diet.

Despite these limits, I believe it is a valuable technique for this reason: it's a frustration-lessener. One of the frustrating parts of experiencing a plateau is that the input-output relation is seemingly broken: you've got the input down, but the output isn't coming through. If this goes on for a few or several days, then it becomes a real dragdown and confidence drainer. In fact, the temptation to go off the diet does increase, from my own experience, because sticking to the calorie ration doesn't seem to matter than much anymore.

Luckily for me, I haven't experienced the annoyance of being accused of cheating on my diet when I haven't. The plateau buster may be of added use in these circumstances (especially if the big breakfast is eaten before anyone else in the household is awake, and nothing is eaten until the light supper near the end of that day.)

That's what I've got, with both limits and benefits. The plateau buster has, for all intents and purposes, passed the test as a side technique.


Weight as of approx. 6 PM today: 226 1/2 pounds, as stated above.