Once Again in the Weight Loss Plateau

Well, as I sit here writing this, I am once again in the throes of a weight loss plateau. I have been at the same weight for roughly two months now, so I feel it is time to mix things up a bit. Since the end of January, I have been exercising 5 days a week without fail. During the previous three weeks, I have increased my workouts to seven days a week; four days of strength training and three days of the dreaded Nordic Track.

Since I am still at 216 pounds, I feel that the only way to break this plateau, is to take a break from exercising. I bet it sounds really strange to say, that if I stop exercising for a week, I will begin to lose weight again? But, it does seem to work. You see, as you tally-forth on your exercise and diet regime, your body does not know what to expect, so it will expend the maximum amount of calories to make sure you have the energy you need. As you continue with the exercises, your body will begin to remember how many calories to expend in order to get you through the routine. You will eventually reach a point where, if you do not alter your exercises, your body will know exactly how many calories to burn. When this occurs, you will not be burning any additional calories and your weight will remain the same.

What you need to do, is to "trick" your body. You see, right now my body is expecting me to workout on my Total Gym or Nordic Track and it knows exactly how many calories to expend, to get me through my exercises. So, I need to break my routine and to do that, I'm not going to be exercising this week. I have got to say that it feels really strange not exercising. It is such an ingrained routine that it is going to be difficult not to do it.

If you read back what I just said, it may help to illustrate my point..."it is such an ingrained routine," with the keyword being: routine. In my mind, I am expecting to exercise today; if my mind expects me to exercise, what do you think my body is expecting?

You may be asking yourself, if this really works or not. Well, I have been at this for just shy of two years and I run into these things just about every six to eight weeks. When I take that well-deserved break and resume the following week, I begin to see the weight beginning to come off, once again. So yes, it does work. I have added a few things you might want to try to break your plateau...

• Take a week off


• Come up with new exercises or a different way of doing the old ones


• Change-up the routine. Don't do it the same way each day


• Do both strength training and cardio

Good Luck and let me know if I can be of any assistance.

Overcoming A Weight Loss Plateau

This originally ran in April of 2008...

In August, 2007, I began my weight loss program. I weighed 296 pounds of pure, unadulterated fat (can we say Jabba the Hutt??). In November, I weighed 254 pounds, with 15 of that in muscle. In December...254lbs. In January....254lbs. In February....254lbs. What is going on here!!!! I am killing myself with these exercises and this diet, but I'm still at the same weight!!! I'm losing inches, but I'm not losing pounds. I am no longer a fitness nut. I QUIT!!!!!

Has this ever happened to you? Well, this is what happened to me and no, I did not quit. Instead, I did some research, because I knew something was going on; I just didn't know what it was. Somewhere out there someone HAD to have gone through this same thing. The first question was to know what it was called. So, I went "college" on myself and picked the word Plateau. I was right. The attached article goes into more detail, but I'll give you the nuts and bolts of it right now.

Here's what happened: When I started to exercise, I naturally weighed a lot more, so there was more mass to move, thus more calories to burn. As I continued to lose the weight, my body had less mass to move, thus less calories were burned. My body eventually became used to my exercise routine and knew how many calories to burn for the workout. You see, I did not alter my workout; I did the same thing every day. Thus, my body did not have to extend itself. Here's an example of what I am talking about: Let's say you start jogging. The first day you huff and puff and eventually you reach the 1 mile goal. Fast-forward 2 weeks. Do you still huff and puff after 1 mile?? Probably not. Your body has gotten used to the run and has adapted to it. Now, do you just stop after running that 1 mile, or do you stretch it to 2 miles? My guess is that you will stretch it. The same scenario is applicable to strength training. You need to continue to challenge your body in order to continue to lose the weight.

What I needed to do is to trick my body. Give it the unexpected. So, I took a week off and researched different ways of doing my exercises. I needed to maintain the exercise routine, but not the routine exercises.

After the week off, I began again. However, this time I did different exercises and in a different order. I don't do them in the same way every day, like I used to. I mix it up. This way my body does not know what to expect. It can't get lulled into a routine. It doesn't know how much energy it will need to complete the exercise routine.

Guess what?? IT WORKS!!! The pounds are once again starting to come off. I am also a lot happier, because each day my workout is different. I like that.

In a nutshell, here is what I did:

• Take a week off
• Come up with new exercises or a different way of doing the old ones
• Change-up the routine. Don't do it the same way each day.
• Do both strength training and cardio

webmd.com

Climbing out of the Plateau

Well, it’s happened again. I have hit, yet again, another weight loss plateau. At first, I thought it was just a result of the new strength exercises I was doing, but after 4 weeks at the same weight, I have to say that it looks suspiciously like a plateau.

I am so tired of these things. The first one I hit came after I lost 40 pounds. This current one has come after losing only 8 pounds. I was hoping that I wouldn’t hit another one for at least 20 pounds or so. You see, I need to lose another 35-40 pounds. At the rate I’m going now, it will probably take more than a year.

I realize that at the start of my diet, my body was not used to the exercise and it was shocked into losing the weight. However, as my body adjusted to the routine, it knew just how much energy to expend in order to complete the exercises. Yes, I know I talked about this in my first article on the dreaded Weight Loss Plateau, but it does bear repeating.

As I mentioned, at first I thought the stagnation was due to the extra muscle mass I gained. You see, after the last plateau, I mixed it up a bit and added new exercises for muscles I had not previously targeted. My thought was to once again, trick my body and it worked, but this time for only about a month.

As of this writing, I have followed my own advice and have just completed my week off from working out. Yesterday, I started a new workout routine and I have to say that today I am sore! I’ll let you know if this has broken the plateau.

This is part of a Blog Hop with Angie's Healthy Living.