Posting this under the heading it deserves: A plateau that disappeared when I changed how I measured Everything below is what sits behind that.
I was wrong about plateau in a thread last spring and I would like to correct it publicly rather than quietly.
The error was in the units, which changed the conclusion by an order of magnitude. Setting out the corrected version, and the way I now check for that class of mistake.
Coming back to the opening post, because the follow-up matters more than the original answer.
Taking plateau seriously for a moment rather than deflecting: the honest position is that the community has observations and no controlled comparison, and those two things support very different sentences.
Reading back through the plateau threads from last year, the same three questions come up every time and only one of them has ever been answered properly. That seems like a documentation gap rather than a knowledge gap.
Rate of change matters more than the absolute number for most of the questions people ask about their own series.
That is what the documentation says. What happens in practice is usually close.
Confirming post #4 from a second method, which matters more than confirming it from a second person.
My experience of plateau contradicts the reply above. I am posting it as a data point rather than as a refutation, because one person's experience is exactly that.
What I would want before treating plateau as settled: the method, the sample, and whether anyone tried to find the opposite result. Two of the three are usually missing.
That is clearer than the version I had in my head. Thank you.
Non-scale victories: muscle gain or maintenance, clothing fit, energy level, and capability (like climbing stairs without breathlessness) are measurements that scale-based weight misses.
I would put a moderate confidence on that and no more.
On plateau: the maintained page in the documentation commons covers the general case with citations and a review date, which is more reliable than any reply here including this one.
On post #9 — agreed on the reasoning, with one qualification.
Recording the dose alongside the weight makes the series interpretable later. Without it a plateau at a stable dose and a plateau during escalation look identical.
This has been discussed before and I could not find the thread, so, again.
Two claims get bundled together under plateau and they need separating. The descriptive one — this is what was observed — is usually well supported. The causal one — this is why — usually is not.
Almost every disagreement in threads like this one dissolves once you say which of the two you are making.
Seasonal patterns: some people report weight loss is slower in winter than summer. Body composition and activity changes might contribute. Noting the season is useful context.
I have left out the parts I could not verify.
A single scale used throughout beats a more accurate scale introduced halfway through. Consistency beats accuracy for a trend.
Somebody will have a better source than mine, and I hope they post it.
Confirming post #16 from a second method, which matters more than confirming it from a second person.
A note on scope: what I am saying about plateau applies to the case in the first post and I would not extend it further without checking.
Two people in this thread mean different things by plateau and are disagreeing about the definition while believing they are disagreeing about the facts. Worth pausing to define it.
Thank you — that answers what I came here to find out.
Include what else changed. Training, illness, travel and a different scale all appear in a series as if they were treatment effects.
I read post #20 twice before replying, because I had assumed the opposite.
Practical answer on plateau, since the theoretical one is upthread: do the simplest check first, write down the result, and only then decide whether the complicated explanation is needed. It usually is not.
The best progress reports here read as records rather than as arguments, and that difference is visible within a sentence.
Post #26 is right about the mechanism and I think understates the practical bit.
Agreed on plateau, with one qualification that I think matters. The reasoning holds for the case as described. Change the starting assumption and it does not, and the starting assumption is the part nobody states.
Coming back to post #24, because the follow-up matters more than the original answer.
Include what else changed. Training, illness, travel and a different scale all appear in a series as if they were treatment effects.
The short version is the first sentence; the rest is why.
Reading rather than contributing, but this is the most useful thread I have found on it.
Post #28 put the caveat in the right place and I want to underline it.
A plateau over two weeks is usually measurement. A plateau over two months is usually energy balance. The timescale is what distinguishes them.