If you're active but your fat loss has stalled, it might be due to a TDEE plateau. In Newark, DE, we coach clients through this at Hardbat by focusing on strength, smart nutrition, and daily movement. Your body adapts. That’s normal. But there are ways to work around it.
If you’re sitting all day and start walking regularly or doing light exercise, your TDEE (total daily energy expenditure) climbs fast. This includes calories from workouts, but also NEAT (non-exercise activity thermogenesis)—stuff like pacing on a phone call, doing laundry, or walking the dog.
NEAT can make up about 15% of your TDEE, sometimes more if you're naturally fidgety or active during the day. That’s why when folks start moving more—even just daily walks—calorie burn spikes. Your body’s baseline output goes up.
So if you’re new to exercise, expect a noticeable bump in energy use. This is a win. It’s why we see such fast changes in new clients doing Personal Training or Small Group Fitness for the first time.
Here’s the twist—once you hit moderate to high activity levels, your TDEE stops rising linearly. This is where most people get stuck.
What’s happening? Your body starts compensating. It shifts energy around to stay within a set energy budget.
Some processes get dialed back:
Researchers call this the "constrained energy model." You can be training hard, but your total burn doesn't keep going up.
Even super-active hunter-gatherer populations burn about the same total calories per day as desk-job Americans. Wild, right? Their bodies just reallocate energy differently.
Let’s break it down:
You might crush a 60-minute session at Hardbat, but then sit on the couch the rest of the day. That shift matters. In studies, people doing cardio five days a week saw a dip in non-exercise movement—even though their workouts were solid.
Over time, your body lowers resting metabolic rate and becomes more efficient during exercise. Muscles burn fewer calories to do the same work. That’s great for endurance. Not great for fat loss.
Ever skipped a walk because you were wiped after a lift? That’s behavioral compensation. It’s subtle, but it adds up. People naturally pull back when they’re doing intense training—less errands, fewer steps, less spontaneous movement.
When you're new to training, results can feel fast. But once you're consistent, TDEE gains flatten. That’s not failure—it’s your body adapting.
The solution isn’t always “do more.” Often, it’s:
At Hardbat, we coach this balance. Whether you’re just starting or deep into training, we help you push past plateaus with a smarter approach. Book a No-Sweat Intro to sit down with a coach and build a plan that works for your life.
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