Weight Loss Plateaus
Breaking through a weight loss plateau is something that feels impossible sometimes. Everything that has been working up to that point has stopped being as effective, your motivating results have dried up, and it’s so easy to feel that quitting is the only sensible alternative…
Please reconsider! You may have been working on your weight for a long time – why would you give up now? Would you turn down weight loss results that were 10% slower then you actually experienced? Then why would a pause get you down? You may have just started – this is great evidence, telling you that you may not be working on the right plan – or with the necessary dedication. All a plateau is is information – something needs to change.
Here are some tweaks you might want to consider. They tend to be on the exercise side of things – if you’re not sticking to your diet plan though, of course that needs to be the first place you turn to return to losing weight.
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Food first:
Return to counting calories… You may feel like you moved past this stage long ago, but it’s easy to creep a few luxuries under the radar more and more often, especially when your weight loss plan is working. Well, it just stopped, so getting back to the initial discipline might be all you need to get back to the initial level of results.
Discard counting calories… opposite advice from above. Many experts recommend occasional (just occasional) splurge days as a way to kick-start your metabolism. If you’ve been flogging the low-cal side of things for longer then you can remember, schedule some calorie-busting days in there a few times a month. Go out and have a little more indulgent food night with your friends… remind your body what it’s like to need to process food fast, and it might reward you with remembering.
Workout:
Pick up the pace! High intensity training does something entirely different for the body then long, slow cardio. If you’ve found yourself bored on the treadmill, try sprints or kettlebell swings. I read a description once of the ‘HGH flush’ – human growth hormone, certainly a huge contributor to metabolism. If, after intense exercise (it doesn’t need to take very long), you can feel your cheeks distinctly heating up, getting red – you’ve caused some HGH release – it’s supposed to do wonders for your fat-burning. It’s also extremely fun to watch for – sometimes I can feel the exact rep that causes the change in your body systems.
Start weight training! If you’re not already – you’re in a plateau, so you’ve been doing something physical. Challenge your body now – make it realize that it needs to work harder, not just longer. If you’ve lost a significant amount of weight, you might be suprised at how much weight you can lift – you’d been lifting it daily for a long time. Don’t let that capacity go to waste! 
. New muscles will certainly help your weight loss – a pound of muscle needs many more calories (ie, needs to eat ) then a pound of fat, it’s just math. Sexy, muscly math.
For more workout and general tips on busting out of a weight loss plateau, see page two.