Hitting a plateau

I'm not exactly sure why this happens while dieting, but it seems rather normal to hit a weight plateau, where, while generally declining, you can't get under a certain weight for quite a while. For me, this has been 252 pounds.

On August 4, exactly a week ago, I weighed in at 253 pounds. Today, after 126.0 miles on the bike -- burning off 10,551 calories, which equal 2.9 pounds of fat -- plus some long walks with Truman and sticking to my dietary rules, I'm essentially the same weight.

It's a bit of a mystery to me why I haven't lost weight for a week. I have four theories:

1) Water weight. I don't think it unlikely that how much water is in a person's system varies a few percent either way. When trying to lose weight and replacing food calories with more liquids, especially water, it's probably the case that I am retaining more water. Hence, I may have lost 3-5 pounds of fat over the previous 7 days, but I replaced that with added water weight and thus the scale remains the same;

2) Greater muscle. It also seems reasonable to me to think that while working hard on the bike, putting in more than 140 miles each week, my muscles are getting bigger and stronger. So one explanation for not losing weight for a while is that fat is being replaced by dense muscle, which weighs as much as the fat lost;

3) Overeating. While it is true that I am no longer eating late at night or even early in the morning -- per the time restrictions of my diet -- it's possible I have hit this plateau because I have simply been increasing the number of calories at each meal and in between meals. In order to stay true to the strictures of the diet, I need to watch this; and

4) Reduced metabolic rate. A final possibility is that, in response to taking in fewer calories, my body is burning calories at a much lower rate. Thus, at least for now, even while exercising seriously every day, my body is consuming no more calories than I am taking in, and therefore my total body weight has stabilized.

In response to the 252 pound plateau, I am going to try harder to limit my caloric intake until I can reach 249 pounds. If the true answer to the plateau is #1 or #2, there is nothing I can do which will help. But if it is #3, eating less should work. Even if it's not #3, eating less cannot hurt.