Why Your Weight Loss Has Stalled

Why you’ve hit a plateau

Lack of compliance

As frustrating as it is for some people to hear, the number one reason that most people hit a plateau when trying to lose weight is down to lack of compliance.

Ask yourself if you are really doing everything you can to reach your weight loss goal? Are you really giving it your all in your workouts, your nutrition and monitoring your goals? If the answer is no to any of those questions, then look at what you need to improve on and commit. The best way to monitor this is with an app – My Fitness Pal is great for this.

Have you been accurately tracking your food intake? Or have you just been guessing your portion sizes? Studies have shown, that when participants measured food portions by eye, they were WAY over. The chances are, you’re over eating without even realising it. Again, My Fitness Pal rules supreme, it has a bar-code scanner that works like a dream.

If you’ve looked at your compliance and you’re smashing your workouts and accurately tracking your food intake then it’s time to take a look at the other factors at play that are keeping you from your weight loss goal.

Adaptation

Your body adapts hormonally and metabolically to weight loss. The more weight you lose and the more you restrict your calories, the slower your metabolism gets. If you’ve been totally compliant with your plan and you’ve hit a plateau, your body has adapted.

Let’s talk about the SAID principle: it stands for Specific Adaptation to Imposed Demand. This basically means that when you make changes or apply a stressor, your body will adapt itself to cope with that stress until it has fully adapted and it is no longer a stress.

For example: You reduce your calorie intake, your body responds by losing weight. You keep your calorie intake the same and your weight doesn’t get any lower, because, in short, your body has got used to the reduction in calories.

Here’s another example: You want bigger biceps. You start weight lifting and doing bicep curls with, say 20KG. At first, your biceps start to look much more defined and feel a lot more toned. However, after a few weeks of doing bicep curls with the same weight, your bicep has learnt to deal with the stress, so it stops responding (getting stronger, firmer, more toned) to the exercise you are doing. The only way it will continue to respond is if you up the weight.

So, if you have been totally comitted and compliant with your nutrition, your workouts and monitoring your goals, it means that your body has adapted to the new demands you have put on it.

How to avoid a plateau

Start with minimum effective dose

Start with the smallest calorie deficit that you can get away with to start losing weight. This goes for workouts and diet. Start with just 3 workouts a week and a small calorie deficit through your diet.

The reason for this is because, when you DO eventually hit a plateau, you have something else you can pull out the bag to stimulate more adaption from your body. If you started cutting calories by 500 a day and running a marathon 5 days a week, what more could you possibly do to increase the demand? Very little.

Hang onto muscle

Having more muscle makes you a fat burning machine. The more muscle mass you have, the higher your metabolic rate when at rest. Hang onto and even build muscle by engaging in regular weight lifting and resistance workouts.

Increase intensity over time

Ensure that you increase the intensity of your workouts over time. If you continue to do the same workout at the same intensity, week after week your body will eventually adapt and stop responding by losing weight.

Whatever it is that you are doing, ensure that each week, you increase the intensity of your workout.

7 ways to break through a plateau

1. Nutrition

For a successful fat loss journey, you need to track everything. What is measured, isn’t managed. If you aren’t tracking your calories, start NOW. You can’t successfully lose fat if you have no clue what you’re putting in your mouth every day. Tracking your calories can be the kicker to get weight loss moving again. It also helps you monitor when you are cutting your calories too much and your body getting into a starvation response. The best app my clients use, is, yep, you guessed it, My Fitness Pal.

Simply spend a week tracking your calories – eat as you normally would. You may be surprised to find you are over consuming on calories with foods that you didn’t even realise were so calorie dense. Alcohol is a big one for many people and it’s very easy to pack away 100’s of calories with just a few drinks.

After a week, you have a good snap shot of where those extra calories sneaking in….that extra knob of butter, that ‘tablespoon of peanut butter’, that big dollop of mayonnaise….it all adds up over the course of the week, and could be the reason that your weight loss has stalled.

Be meticulous. Weigh and measure everything. I started by weighing a handful. That way, I don’t need my scales for everything, if I know what a handful weighs, I can just work it out from there.

2. Cardio

• If you aren’t currently engaging in any cardio: get started right away. Remember what I said about minimum effective dose? If you aren’t doing any cardio, doing just something is going to kick start your weight loss again.
• If you are doing some cardio: you need to increase the intensity or the length of time that you do it. I don’t recommend the latter – unless you want to spend hours grinding away in the gym. However, if you aren’t ready for high intensity stuff, just increase the length of your cardio session
• The best way to increase the intensity of your cardio workouts to maximise fat loss and break through your plateau is with HIIT training. You can find a full article on HIIT training by clicking here.
• If you are already doing HIIT training for weight loss: then all you need to do is increase the intensity – either make the intervals longer, or the rest periods shorter or both. Using a different piece of equipment can also help: if you normally run, try using a rowing machine instead.

Do I have to do cardio training? It depends, how badly do you want to lose the weight? How badly do you want to fit into those nice Levis?

It is possible to lose weight without doing any cardio, but you’ll see changes much quicker if you do do it. You can also reap the benefits of maybe not getting heart disease, or experiencing a life changing stroke. It’s a win win. You lose weight AND you don’t die.

3. Weights

• If you don’t currently do any resistance work: get started. If you are currently doing no body weight training or weight lifting, then anything is better than nothing. Building muscle and having more of it will increase your metabolic rate – meaning you’ll burn more calories.
• If you’re doing body weight training: Increase the intensity by adding more resistance – use resistance bands, dumbbells, kettle bells, or a TRX – basically anything that will make the exercise harder. You can also increase intensity by adding more repetitions, speeding things up, or adding volume by working out for longer.
• If you’re already weight lifting: Simply ensure that you are increasing the amount of weight over time to continue to build strength and muscle. Remember, the more muscle you have, the higher your metabolic rate will be. Think Rocky drinking a billion raw eggs, just to preserve his mass.
• Do I have to do resistance training? A combination of HIIT training and weight lifting is the ultimate combination for weight loss, but also for preventing plateaus – as long as you continue to increase the intensity over time.
• “If you do what you’ve always done, you’ll get what you’ve always got.”

The bottom line

1. Check your compliance – are you really doing everything you can?
2. Start with the minimum effective dose.
3. Hang onto muscle. Don’t cut your calories too much, too soon or your body will start shedding muscle as well as fat.
4. Nutrition: Track everything that goes in your mouth, including drinks, sauces and condiments and make a small calorie deficit – depending on how active you are. Use My Fitness Pal to help you.
5. Cardio: Get started right away and increase the intensity over time. If you don’t know how to start, click here.
6. Weights: Start with body weight exercises and increase intensity by adding weight and eventually move onto a weight lifting program. Increase the amount of weight lifted over time.

This guide was designed to be short, sweet and to the point. If you have further questions, feel free to hit me up by clicking here.

If you’re fed up of guessing your way through your fat loss journey and you want a solution that works for you, click here to work with me.

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