The Plateau: How to get past it and avoid it
Okay we’ve all had times that we stop loosing weight. Sometimes for a week which is not so bad, sometimes longer.
The problem is that either your body gets used to the diet and exercise you’re doing or you are eating too few calories.
Try changing your exercise so instead of running you are swimming, or cycling or whatever, and for a couple of weeks raise your calories a few hundred so they are still below what you use, but not as far.
If this isnt working then perhaps you need to check what you are eating more carefully. Is it good food? or a lot of take aways?
Do you have all the vitamins you need? or are you missing out on some?
I found usually i get bored with whatever exercise im doing within a couple months and naturally just change it to something else. In the 7 months ive been dieting i havnt really hit any major plateaus yet. My diet changes all the time and the exercise.
However being a female i HAVE noticed that i do not lose weight the week prior to menstration, and i will drop twice as much the week after (probably just all water retention).
Again and again I have heard people saying they were eating really low calories and exercising heaps and still not loosing weight, and couldn’t break the plateau. What it comes down to is kidding and lieing to yourself, or not measuring exactly.
Recheck with scales and measuring items the food, and stop counting your exercise calories so high, i have found most HR monitors seriously over estimate the calories used and inaccurate.
September 5th, 2009 at 1:55 am
Changing your exercise regime and varying your workout will keep your body guessing. Instead of working out at a steady pace try interval training which involves alternating high intensity work with periods of low activity.
January 14th, 2010 at 8:13 am
Hi there,
Im a male and overweight. However, you said males need to eat 1800 cal a day. Too me that seems a lot? I tried working out a eating plan for myself and I included yogurt,eggs,tuna,fruit and veg during the day and my normal dinner at night and it only comes to about 1300 cal…so how am I supposed to eat then. The eating plan I worked out seems like a lot of food for me.
Thanx in advance
January 14th, 2010 at 8:50 am
You do need to eat at least 1800 calories, throw in more protein into your diet. Nuts and healthy oils are a great way to raise your calories. If you don’t eat enough protein then your body will loose muscle mass and not fat (it cant tell the difference), and by muscle mass i’m not talking about just your legs and arms, but heart and lungs etc as well.
There have been a few well publicized cases of people dieing from stupidly low calorie diets ( most recent one ). You should probably be eating at least 100-150gms of protein a day .
January 14th, 2010 at 9:15 am
Thanx so much for the quick response. And thank you for the help you provide, you are truly an inspiration! I guess I should just up my exercise and then eat 1800 cals. I can exercise all I want and still only eat the 1800 cals right? God bless
January 14th, 2010 at 9:23 am
If you are going to exercise a lot then you will want to eat more calories. Remember your body uses at LEAST 2000 calories a day just being alive, larger people use even more. Check out the Daily Calorie Needs Calculator under Tools on the right to work out what you are using and do some number crunching.
April 9th, 2010 at 5:10 am
I agree with Scarlet. You need to change your exercise program frequently. I read in a book that your body can adapt to an exercise program in 3 weeks so you should change your workout every month or so.