Why Fat Loss Stalls whilst Running/Training

People get into running for many reasons. 

The challenge of it, prove someone wrong, gets you out the house or for social reasons. 

But one massive factor will be trying to lose some weight/fat. I always try and seperate the two as a coach as happiness isn’t always derived from hitting a certain number on a scale. 

However one big factor of running is that many will plateau, which is typically for 1 of 2 reasons. 

1. Underfuelling & 2. Over-expectation of expenditure. 

Let’s break them down. 

1. Underfuelling 

I hate saying ‘starvation mode’ but underfuelling for fat loss makes it a hell of a lot harder for the body to utilize energy for a number of reasons. The simplest to break down will fall into your body becoming a lot more stressed so it makes it a lot harder for the body to utilize energy the same way and the different forms of energy systems. Which then leads nicely into the second problem of a reduced source of energy dipping your performance which can lead to RED-S, essentially a space of calorie balance which can lead to impaired health and performance problems like injuries etc. 

The body doesn’t work well under stress so you will often find deficits too big can create more issues than they are worth. 

1. Over-expectation of expenditure

As your fitness builds over time, so does your bodies efficiency to burn calories but also not require burning as many calories. 

Let me explain. 

A tough, balls to the wall 10k could burn a heck of a lot of calories. But as time progresses and that same time it takes is a hell of a lot easier. 

The body doesn’t need to work as hard to complete the same task as before, which means the body doesn’t have to work as hard and maybe doesn’t need to use the same amount of fuel sources to complete it. 

Fantastic! 

But if you haven’t changed either your input of calories of your expenditure of work, that progression of your fat loss may slow or even stop which many people don’t account for. 

From my end as a coach, I will typically increase calories and output at the same time but output is slightly higher than the calories in so that we can keep moving in the right direction training wise as it’s generally easier to progress output than just go as low as physically possible with your food going in. 

Both of these can become super easy tweaks to get out of that plateau, but it can be just down to management and expectations of rate of loss aswell relative to how much fat you need/want to lose.