I lost 88 pounds in 13 months. I’m down to my last 44, and now it’s going much too slow. Any suggestions on what others have done when hitting a weight loss plateau?
I lost 88 pounds in 13 months. I’m down to my last 44, and now it’s going much too slow. Any suggestions on what others have done when hitting a weight loss plateau?
Answers ( 6 )
I was told to intensify my exercise routine… like do 20 min of elliptical and then an hour training circuit it will kick start my metabolism back and get me to lose the weight faster during a plateau. You don’t do it every day but do it three times in a week to reboot ur metabolism. It works great for me I do it every couple of months when I start to plateau.
Take a month off and maintain weight in that month without trying to lose. When you start up again, it should start going down again. It’s like a reset to my body. We do this with omnitrition -after the dropping phase of 3-6 weeks, we have a 3-week “maintenance” where we try to stay within 2 pounds of our last dropping weight. Then we can start another dropping round if we need to lose more weight.
Do not buy into products you don’t need them when you’ve gotten this far! There are a lot of factors to consider! Water intake, are you getting enough sleep? Have you changed up your workout routine (your body needs variety in the gym or it can plateau)? Have you tried lemon water or apple cider vinegar? Are you taking a high-quality multivitamin to rule out imbalance?
I do believe you’re right. I’ve lost almost 100 pounds with nothing but hard work and diet. I know for sure I am getting enough water intake. I drink about a gallon a day. But I have not changed my exercise regimen. It’s strictly cardio. And I am taking a multivitamin.
Sleep profoundly affects weight loss as well and maybe check your multivitamin as the chemist ones can hinder weight loss! Also, have you thought about adding in weights to your workouts? I LOVE weights. Muscle burns more calories than fat at rest as well (don’t worry weight lifting won’t bulk you up).
I’ve heard that. And yes, I bought some 5 pounds weights and did a few weeks, then I stopped. I’ve not developed a habit of it as I’d like to. I find it so hard as I’m sure others do as well. So, I’ve just become addicted to sticking to what I know has given me results, cardio. But now I’ve noticed that the weight has become stagnate for the last few months.
You don’t have to start out using weights 🙂 in fact, try starting out with body weight resistance. Not sure how often you workout but say it was five days I would start with two days a week doing a full bodyweight workout and the other days as your cardio.
Yup, I have resistance bands as well. I know I need to switch it up. Several ppl have now told me that. I am literally addicted to my bike. But I am going to try again tomorrow. Lift weights and a workout video.
So, in order to break through a plateau, there are a few things you can do. Firstly your body adapts over time to anything new and will eventually stop responding (AKA a plateau). So if you’ve cut calories or are exercising or both, unless you make a change to one of these, your weight will stay the same.
So, you’d need to look at either cutting back on calories or (and this is my preferred method) add in some exercise, or if you’re already doing some, you need to increase the intensity. If you’re just doing the same workouts over and over again, your body gets used to this and will stop responding in the way you want (weight loss) if you increase the intensity (make it harder) you’ll break through your plateau. What exercise (if any) are you doing? What is your diet like?
I do 2 hrs of cardio a day burning no less than 1000 and more than 1500 calories a day. I drink 2 slim fast shakes a day as well and heavily monitor my sweets.
Try weight lifting. Do less cardio and pick up weights. You will tone better cardio, will burn lots of calories but does not continue after your work out like weights. Strength training is needed to help improve muscles. You need to change your routine, and because you focus on cardio, the best thing you can do is pick up some weights.
Seriously don’t be afraid to do it, women don’t bulk up from weights as some say. I know some women who compete in muscle sculpting and for them to “bulk up”, it is all in their diet, not how heavy they lift. What else is in your regular diet?
Its pretty low. I drank slim fasts for breakfast and lunch. And heavily monitor my sweets. I’m not nor was I ever a big eater so I have a hard time feeling energized some days. I do take a multivitamin. I’ve just hit a big rock, I know I need to change it up, that’s pretty much what I’m hearing.
What kind of cardio are you doing? I think your problem is this: doing 2 hours of cardio is a waste of your time and is exactly why you can’t break through your plateau. While you do burn lots of calories when you do cardio, you generally burn fat calories. Which, on the surface, seems great.
However, it’s the long term effects and how your body burns calories AFTER your workout that is more important. There are two ways you can change this:
1) HIIT training – which is just 20 minutes of intense cardio intervals, or
2) Weight lifting. HIIT training works because, even though during your workout, your body in burning carbohydrate for fuel, your body is burning calories at a much higher rate for up to 3 hours afterwards.
Weightlifting is effective because muscle requires more calories to operate than say, body fat. So if you have more muscle in your body, your base metabolic rate will be higher overall, meaning you’ll be slimmer, for life :).
I think you might need to look at your nutrition as well, sounds like you do not eat enough. I struggle when I am working nightshift to eat but I force myself. The type of food you eat is more important than how much. But if your energy output is 1000 cal your diet needs to be higher in good cal intake.
Example – my cal intake is 1600 of complete clean food. I dropped 5kg (11pound) in 3 weeks because I focused on diet. Your body might be in a constant starvation mode which will not allow for weight loss because your body has adapted to not enough food so it holds onto whatever it can.
Weight loss is 80% nutrition and 20% activity, so look at your cal intake work out how much you are eating and make sure it is over 1200 cal of clean food or your body will be scared of losing weight as it needs to store due to not enough food.
So do you think slim fast shakes are not enough?
To be honest. The best advice I can give to lose weight (body fat) is a combination of a bit of a calorie deficit, HIIT training and weight lifting. Honestly, this is the plan that cannot fail.
If you like slim fast and it’s convenient, then carry on with that. The only issue with things like shakes, teas, pills, a very low-calorie diet and so on is this: you can’t live on shakes, pills or a low-calorie diet for the rest of your life.
So once you go back to regular eating, you’re likely to gain the weight back. Your body is always trying to get back to its original weight (I won’t go into why). This is why it’s far FAR better, to create a calorie deficit with a combination of (the right exercise) and a small calorie deficit.
At the end of the day, you’d be doing yourself a favour to continue to lift weights and HIIT train for the rest of your life and it’s perfectly do-able. This means you’ll stay slim (as long as you increase the intensity regularly) but you can’t be in a calorie deficit or drink slim fast for the rest of your life. The benefits of a good workout program far outweigh having to starve yourself half to death and never being able to eat the things you love
If your intake is good clean food, you will have no problem losing weight. Your body requires food to fuel it. Seeing results from the slim shakes is great, but they really are not good for long term use. I tried them for a while and found that I couldn’t keep the energy levels for my weight training.
I changed diet just over three weeks ago, and this is where I have seen my results in 4 years of going to the gym and working out I didn’t see enough results, yes I was stronger and fitter but no difference in weight or size.
I eat 35g of quick oats for breakfast with a tiny bit of raw honey — 1 banana for a snack and my usual white coffee with one sugar. Lunch is 100g basmati rice, 80-100g of pan-fried chicken breast diced, steamed 50g broccoli 50g snow peas 50g beans which are about 350calories and I eat the same for tea I add a sprinkle of salt and pepper to add some flavour to it. I will usually have a few coffees throughout the day.
If I still feel hungry, I have 30g of raw almonds to snack on. Because when I am eating all clean foods, I have seen the change. I couldn’t believe it when I dropped 3kg (6pound) in the first week just from not eating anything that comes out of a packet, no sauces, no dressings and cutting back to 1 sugar in coffee.
The most important thing you can do is eat enough of the right food and exercise. But you can’t just do the same exercise as your body goes into a memory mode. You have to try new things, move in different ways always keep your body guessing.
You prob shot your metabolism a bit! Not an issue though. You should start taking smaller & frequent meals of earth grown nutrients! Also, muscle has memory, so it’ll quickly get used to your systematic approach to weight loss. For your body to respond in the ways in which you’d like it to, switch things up. When it comes to cardio, GO EXTREME for 2 weeks. Add more weight. Push your body and mind through the pain you never thought you could work through. Because on the other side of pain is a success.
My husband has been a yo-yo dieter all his life however as he has gotten older, his weight has plateaued and was harder to shake. I got him on an all natural plant-based supplement that is sugar-free, lactose-free and gluten-free. He had so much more energy, was digesting good clean supplements and lost 44 pounds in total but the stubborn last few pounds came off a lot quicker whilst he was on the natural supplements.