You’ve been exercising properly, having a caloric deficit in terms of eating habits, having adequate sleep and you have been rewarded with the satisfaction of your body weight dropping. Now, out of nowhere, you realize that your weight hasn’t been dropping at all even though you have been following the exact same lifestyle routine. Do you fall into this category? Well, this is what we call a Weight Loss Plateau.
Almost everyone whose primary aim is to lose weight will hit a plateau at some point of time. If you’re one of them, don’t be discouraged! This is a perfectly normal phenomenon and you will just need to tweak your routine a little bit. In this article we will talk about the causes of said plateau and how to overcome it!
What causes Weight Loss Plateau?
When you first start on your caloric deficit and proper exercises, your body will utilize a substance in our body known as Glycogen. Glycogen is stored in skeletal muscles and liver cytoplasm. Glycogen is partly made up of water, hence when glycogen is being broken down, it releases water. Therefore, this causes a rapid weight loss known as Water Weight. This usually happens during the initial stages of your weight loss journey.
As you continue to lose weight, you will lose some amount of muscles and fat. This is when muscle mass building plays an important factor. Muscles help keep your body’s metabolism rate up. So as you lose weight, your muscle bulk will also decrease, hence, your body’s metabolism rate will drop. Slower metabolism means slower weight loss.
Now when the calories that you burn equals to the calories consumed, this is where it will lead to a weight loss plateau.
How to overcome a Weight Loss Plateau?
Before we begin this, you first need to ask yourself this, are you satisfied with the weight that you are currently in? If the answer is NO then you will need to tweak a few things in your regular routine.
(1) Reassess Your Habits
Take some time to reflect on your food intake and your daily activities. Have you been breaking your caloric deficit rule? Have you been slacking off with your exercises? Have you been lazing around the house instead of getting up and down doing chores? If yes, then you should adjust accordingly. Come up with a plan and stick to it.
(2) Cut More Calories
After your reflection, you realize that you haven’t been breaking your caloric deficit rule and you’re still not losing that excess weight? Well, that’s because your body’s metabolism has compensated with your regular daily caloric deficit diet. Therefore, in order to break this phenomenon, you will have to cut at least 30 – 40 kcal from your regular diet plan.
(3) Increase Your Workout Intensity
The reason we say this is because when you usually work out, your body will undergo a certain amount of physical stress and a surge of metabolism. Now that after a while when you’re still doing the same workouts with the same reps and weights, your body has become used to the amount of stress exerted onto your muscles. Hence, an increase of your workout intensity, should increase the amount of stress exerted onto your muscles which will then give your metabolic rate a jump start to keep rising!
(4) Pack More Activity Into Your Day
Caloric Expenditure should be a regular thing throughout the day. It’s not just the 1 hour you spend at the gym or the 30 minute jog you have every day. What you do on a regular basis throughout the day matters the most! We need to be constantly having a caloric expenditure in order for us to create a better caloric deficit! Try walking to places near you instead of using your car, doing yard work or even a vigorous spring cleaning!
With all these said, we at Fitnacle know and understand that these things are easier said than done. We know that it’s way easier to get discouraged to continue with your weight loss journey without seeing any results. We have one thing to say, which is to NEVER GIVE UP!
You’ve come this far in your journey! All you need is an extra jolt to achieve your goals. You have the power in your hands to call it quits or to actually Create The Best Version Of Yourself. We at Fitnacle strongly believes in the latter.