5 Tips for Breaking Through Your Weight Loss Plateau

PLATEAUS, how I despise you!

I'm watching my portions, making healthy choices, working out HARD everyday and then BOOM in my face the scale refuses to move! The thought crosses your mind, "have I hit a plateau? What am I doing wrong? What is wrong with me!? Maybe I have a thryoid issue, or maybe I am allergic to gluten..... yeah that's got to be it, blame it on the gluten!

So don't be like this blubbering dork who jumps to conclusions (aka me!!). Instead of seeing this as a setback or a problem, assess your situation and take it on as a challenge! It is NORMAL to hit a snag in your fitness journey, but DO NOT let this set you back or derail you. I always tell my challengers, "It doesn't matter if you fall off track, it matters how long it takes you to BUCK UP and get back on the train." << CHEESY? Yes. Completely RIGHT? Yes.

So don't cry and whine about how its not working while you shove pizza, cookies, and wine down your throat (I can neither confirm or deny that I have done this more than once.). INSTEAD be strong and start getting back on the weight-loss and healthy train, WOOT WOOT!!

Here are five important things to know about hydration, exercise, and BUSTING through that plateau:

1. Zigzag your daily calorie intake.

In theory, you've got to eat less to lose more, right? But this isn't always the case, and well it isn't always easy! 

TIP from Justine Holberg at Beachbody -- "Here's one way to do it: If your average daily intake is 1,400 calories, try dropping to 1,200 one day, going up to 1,800 the next day, and then dropping back to 1,400. The idea is to keep your metabolism guessing! There's no magic number that works for everyone, so you'll have to experiment until you find the right calorie levels for you."

According to Beachbody Director of Results Steve Edwards, what happens when you zigzag is that you force your body to choose how many calories it needs to recover from the rigors of your exercise program. "Most people who hit a plateau are UNDEREATING."

OMG is this real life? You can eat TOO LITTLE? Yes. 

"If you are indeed undereating, adding calories for a few days, then lowering them again, will help you force your body into a hormonal response that will not only help you break out of a plateau, but—as you learn to recognize the signals—will teach you how much food you should be eating."

This is why I LOVE the 21 Day Fix portion control containers. You do not focus in on eating an EXACT calorie count, you are focusing on the PORTIONS for your weight loss bracket. So one day I could eat 1200 calories and the next eat 1500 and I would not even realize it! Each day I am still eating healthy, and still following the portions but it all adds up a little different.

2. Switch up your exercise routine.

If you do the same workout each day, WAIT do you?? My a.d.h.d. brain is IMPRESSED. If you are doing the same routine every single day, eventually it can start to become less challenging for you, and (the worst part) less effective. You NEED to push yourself to new levels, set weekly goals to challenge your strength, flexibility, or exhaustion. YOU WILL SEE A SHIFT.

Here are some ways you can challenge your body:
>> SWAP your jog for a bike ride; you will be using some different muscles and challenging your body in a different way!
>> ADD weights with your cardio routine. OH BOY, let me tell you right now these will really challenge you. (21 Day Fix or P90X3 can help you do this.)
>> HIIT -- add high intensity interval training to the mix to really make you SWEAT BABY. (INSANITY MAX 30® will surely help you sweat)
>> DROP to the floor for 20 push-ups right now! :) just kidding, no really why are you not doing push ups right now I can see you!

The idea is to try something DIFFERENT, step outside your box and go to new levels. According to Edwards, "The better you get at something, the easier it becomes. That's why we're always telling you to add more weight as you get stronger, and to move faster and jump higher as our programs progress. But it's also why all of our programs have phases of training. As your body adapts to stimulus, you need to change that stimulus in order to keep results happening." 

It does not get easier, you get stronger.

3. Eat some almonds.

Almonds are a great snack, would you agree? Guess what? There is actually research that indicates that they can help you burn fat! NOBODY told me that! 

That's because they contain fiber and fatty acids—the good kind of fat that helps you lose weight. So next time you grab a snack, try a small handful of almonds, or as Edwards says, "Any nut, really. While almonds are one of the better nuts, all of them have a similar nutritional profile and make excellent snacks. That research probably would have turned out similarly if they'd used walnuts or filberts or whatever."

4. Get more sleep.

I may be contradicting myself in #2, but sometimes your workouts are pushing your body a little too hard. LISTEN TO YOUR BODY! Training too hard is one of the quickest ways to hit a weight loss plateau, because an over-trained body holds on to weight as if it were starving to death. Test this theory out by sleeping more and see if that helps your body recover. The reason is that your body recovers much more quickly from exercise while it's asleep, and if you're burning the midnight oil while trying to do INSANITY, you could easily plateau from lack of recovery time. BOOM, now that is balance. 

"There's a good reason why five-time Tour de France winner Eddy Merckx said, 'The Tour is won in bed,'" says Edwards. "Your body's recovery response during deep sleep is only rivaled by performance-enhancing drugs. When you're on the borderline of overtraining, getting more sleep is the first thing anyone should try."

5. Relax.

Stress is a killer of dreams and joy. The end. I am just kidding, but really stress will steal your joy from everything in life. Coming from a stressor herself, I KNOW how much stress can affect your health and fitness. 

One of the big things besides diet and exercise that can put you at a plateau is your stress levels. When you're stressed, your body sends out higher levels of the hormone cortisol that, as stated in number 4, can encourage your body to hang on to fat.  WHO WANTS THAT? Not I, not I! "Cortisol is actually a performance-enhancing hormone," says Edwards. "But it's gotten a bad rap because we've begun living our lives at too high a volume. Cortisol is released at times when the body is in an emergency state. It increases performance, but only over a short period of time. When cortisol is released and forced into action at regular intervals, it causes your body to wear down and switch to more drastic means of survival, like holding on to excess amounts of body fat. Your life shouldn't feel like one big emergency."

We get stressed for many reasons, most of which are connected to the environment and community around us. Alone time is a great way to disconnect from the go-go-go and reconnect to your "chill place." If you are hyper active and JUST CANNOT STOP,  force yourself to! Your body needs that time to just relax, and let go! Try yoga, meditation, reading a calming book, napping, or just go sit in a park and smell the fresh air! There's something SO special about the mind/body experience of yoga that forces a relaxed state even from the most stressed of us.

If you feel you need help figuring this all out, reach out to me to create a relationship so we can discuss YOUR journey.  OR if you just need that community of like minded people, I am here! I would love to connect you with an amazing program that can compliment your life and help you achieve you goals. 

Credit and appreciation for the ideas to Justine Holberg http://www.teambeachbody.com/get-fit/fitness-tip/-/ftip/140026045/all/0/5