The Good News About Weight Loss Plateaus
Tips on how to manage your diet when the scale won’t budge
Reshaping your body, losing inches does take some determination to stay the course. If you have tried several different diets, done crash-dieting or even tried weight-loss wonder pills, your body’s metabolism needs time to heal. Anytime you restrict calories, your body assumes that you may not eat again, and it slows down your metabolism. If you have been extreme in your dieting, you may have severely damaged the glands that regulate your metabolism.
It can happen to anyone. One man who lost over 100 pound on the Shaklee Cinch plan actually had a plateau that lasted for six months, before the pounds and inches started coming off again! Most people won’t experience a plateau that stubborn. Here are some tips to help you through plateau time.
Key point: muscle weighs more than fat! Especially if you are using Cinch, you are building muscle. So you may see a weight gain, or slower loss, but your clothes fit better!
Look for other ways to measure your progress:
Inches/Body measurements: – dress size, waist, hips, neck, arms, fitting into favorite clothes
Performance –more endurance during exercise, doing them at a higher level, jumping higher, walking longer, running faster, playing a sport better
Mood and Attitude – rate energy level, rate attitude and outlook, track how often you feel very sleepy during the day, rate your confidence level
Health – blood pressure, cholesterol level, blood sugar level, food cravings, appetite for healthy foods, quality of sleep
Intangibles – how you look, compliments you receive, self-confidence, how others respond to you.
No matter what – stay on track! Plateaus are not fun, but they are a good sign that your body is changing, healing and rebuilding itself. A plateau means that your body is adjusting to becoming the new you! You are forming life habits that will keep you at a healthy weight. Hang around friends who will encourage you. Avoid trigger foods. Be patient. The plateau will come to an end, and the weight will start falling off. You will always be glad you “fought back” by outlasting the plateau.
Copyright 2008 Karen Hurd Enterprises, Inc.
Tags: crash dieting, Weight Loss plateau
Thanks for posting! Walking is a great exercise. It’s best to use a pedometer to count your steps VS just “walking for 20 minutes”. By counting steps, you will actually walk more. Muscle burns fat. Therefore some form of weight training to build muscle and bone strength is imperative. Which is the best exercise to burn fat? Probably aerobic, which would include walking. If however you’re only doing aerobic exercise, you are missing part of the equation. Include weight training, some Pilates, stretching and aerobic for the best overall health and fat burning.