Causes of A Weight-Loss Plateau and The Most Effective Ways to Conquer It
You’ve managed to lose weight by strictly following your diet, and committed yourself with a vigorous exercise routine, but after a few weeks of successful weight loss, you seem to not lose a single pound anymore. You’re suddenly experiencing what is called a weight loss plateau.
The reason for the weight loss plateau is that in the initial stages of exercising and dieting, the body loses much weight in water. Once this rush of weight loss has passed, the metabolism slows down, making it harder to shed more pounds. It is a survival mechanism that allows the body to adapt to changes in diet and exercise demands, although it is not exactly convenient when trying to lose weight.
The good news is that weight loss plateau is common for people who diet to lose weight, so don’t worry about this happening to you as I have some tips on ways to conquer the trouble.
1. You should vary your exercise routine.
In a strict diet, exercise has a vital role to make you lose weight effectively. Maintaining a diet does not make you lose the excess weight alone. A combination of treadmill, walking and aerobics may be great for the first few weeks, but as your diet progresses, this may not be enough. The reason behind this is because as you routinely perform each exercise, your body becomes accustom to them. Your body would not feel any different if it does the same exercise over and over again, that is why you have to do varying exercises during your weight loss program. This is one way to conquer weight loss plateau.
2. Intensify your exercise regime.
Add a few minutes with each set, try harder exercises or incorporate a little weight lifting. A combination of longer periods of low intensity cardio and short periods of high intensity cardio will “confuse” your body so it can’t adapt with the changes. By doing so, you won’t lose the same amount of weight every week, but instead you’ll lose different amounts each week, which will make you lose the diet plateau.
3. Eat varying amounts of calories, but learn to limit them.
When you choose the foods you want to eat, make sure you don’t follow a pattern. Eat a combination of different foods so that your metabolism wouldn’t be conforming to the usual pace. By eating varying amounts of calories, your metabolism will work in variation of speeds, thus eliminating weight loss plateau. Treat yourself with something “sweet” or “bad” once in a while, but do not go overboard. Eating a burger or a bar of chocolate once a week may not be “bad” as long as you don’t include them on a regular basis in your diet.
4. Military diet plan
An absolutely brilliant and effective way to overcome your weight loss plateau is the 3-day military diet. This one week diet menu comprises of two phases where the first three days you’re only allowed to consume low calorie meals 3 times a day with no snacks. On the next four days, you’re free to have a healthy meal plan comprising of not more than 1500 calories per day. Statistics show that repeating the military diet plan severally will certainly guarantee you a weekly weight loss of not less than 10 pounds hence beating your weight loss plateau.
5. Keep a Diet Journal
Don’t cheat! Keep track of your food consumption, exercise regime and calorie intake, and of course your weight loss progress, this will help you to decide which variations work for you to lose weight quickly. This way you won’t fall into the same old pattern that you used to have. You will see signs if you are falling off the wagon or lacking in your diet.
Basically, the above tips are just a few of the ways to conquer weight loss plateau. Just remember that dieting is not all about starving yourself. Don’t get desperate if you fall in a plateau, rather, re-evaluate and think of ways on how to conquer the condition by creating ways to make your body work harder, but not in a way that would make it unhealthy.