“What do I do once weight loss plateaus?”
Basically, in a nutshell and to simplify things – in order to lose weight and to shred fat we need to be in a negative energy balance and by this, I mean we need to be burning more calories than what we are consuming. This is plain and SIMPLE how we as humans lose weight.
Now our bodies are smart though. Once our bodies are in a negative energy balance and we start to lose weight our bodies catch on to what we are doing, the metabolism speeds up and our weight loss plateaus. Now this can be extremely frustrating. We are putting in the work, staying disciplined with our food but we don’t seem to be seeing any further results. If we aren’t educated on this, it can be the sole reason WHY some people may fail or want to quit as they stop seeing those results. When we see results this helps us stay motivated but without that motivation now what happens? We quit… Plain and simple!
What I want to do is help stop this from happening. I want to help you guys on how to handle this and what to do in this instance.
So, when weight loss plateaus and we stop seeing results we can do several things:
1. First and foremost, what I would do is increase your energy output. What I mean by this is BURN MORE CALORIES than what your body is use to. This can be done in a variety of ways. You can add more cardio into your weekly regime, add another weightlifting session all together, add more working sets to your CURRENT weight lifting sessions, lift heavier weights, decrease the rest breaks between sets, increase your daily steps what ever you can do to ensure you’re burning more calories than what your body is use to is what I would do FIRST.
2. Second and after that what I would do NEXT is slightly decrease your calories. This is why it is so important to track your daily food intake. For more information on why you need to track your calories please read a blog article which I wrote a while back on this topic:
What I would do first when it comes to lowering your food is, I would lower your fats first. The reason I would drop your fats first is because they are easy calories to drop that don’t have a lot of volume attached to them. What I mean by this is for example you can drop some avocado, or nuts or olive oil etc from your plan as they are high in calories but not high in volume meaning it won’t drastically affect your hunger levels. After that I would then drop some carbs through-out the week maybe around 10% so it’s not too drastic as remember this isn’t healthy just enough to help get you back in a calorie deficit. And always aim to keep the protein number the same that way you are still hitting your daily protein targets in order to build lean muscle. This is crucial!
3) Now, the third thing I would do when weight loss stops and plateaus is do a combination of both of the above. After you have completed step 1 and got some results form it then you move to step 2 and get some further results. Now once fat loss stalls again I would then combine them both. I would again add a little more exercise into your week and slightly drop the food again until you reach your OVERALL goal. Once your goal has been reached (whatever that might be) you then maintain it from there.
Ok so in summary TEAM…….
Losing weight is achieved from having your body in a negative energy balance. I don’t care if your vegan, vegetarian, pescatarian, intermittent fasting, keto, IIFYM, clean eater or whatever your preferred eating method is – every single person on earth achieves weight loss via the simple equation BELOW:
BURN MORE CALORIES THAN WHAT YOU CONSUME
Plain and simple!
Now as mentioned, the body does catch on to what we’re doing though and when it does it’s time to implement the above changes that way our results continue which only helps keep us motivated and driven for more rather than dropping off, getting frustrated and quitting all together.
Hope these tips help team if you do need any further email just shoot me an email: simon@sqfitness.com.au
