5 Things to Bust Through a Weight Plateau

5 Things To Do To Bust Through a Weight Plateau

 

>>>Thing 1: Consistency<<<

 
Consistency rules the game. When my clients aren’t getting results the first thing I ask is how consistent they have been.
 
This means eating consistently & exercising consistently.
 
What does it mean to eat consistently?
 
This may mean different things to do different people but I get my clients to track food in My Fitness Pal. The idea of weighing and measuring food and entering it into an app isn’t sexy or fun, unless you are a data geek like me.
 
It is not something I would expect from anyone long term or forever, BUT, in the short term it is a fantastic awareness tool so that you know what is really going in.
 
So consistency to me means that calorie intake is consistent day in and day out at the very least and preferrably protein, carbohydrate and fat intake is consistent day in and day out.
 
If you are eating calories consistently, perhaps the next step is to really dial in one or all of the macronutrients, for example, hit a protein target or limit yourself to a certain amount of carbohydrates per day (usually 100-150g/day works well).
 
For exercise, consistency is repeating the same number of workouts at the same intensity every week. If you do 4 sessions in a week, then 3 sessions another week and zero the week after, this isn’t consistent.
 
Action: If you aren’t logging food and workouts, it can be a great eye opener and just starting to do this will hold you more accountable and help you be more consistent. If you really want to lose weight you have to know and understand exactly what you are doing, otherwise, sadly, you are just guessing and hoping for the best.
 
 

>>>Thing 2: Increase your caloric deficit<<<

 
The great thing about keeping consistent data on what you are doing is that you then have a baseline from which to manipulate variables.
 
If you hit a plateau and you are consistently eating 1800 calories and weight lifting 4 times a week with 10 000 steps on rest days then all you need to do is either take some calories away (e.g. drop to 1700 calories) or increase energy expenditure by adding in another workout per week.
 
You can also do both, but I prefer to make small changes to get the biggest return for the least amount of effort.
 
Another option I use with my clients is to reduce carbohydrate intake on rest days. This means if you are lifting 4 days a week, on the 3 days when you just walk perhaps drop calories down to 1600 by removing carbohydrates (usually 50g) from the diet. This is a technique known as carb cycling.
 
 

>>>Thing 3: Reduce Calorie Deficit<<<

 
This may seem a little counter intuitive given what has been said above. However, I find this approach can work well in certain circumstances, usually for those who are within 5kg-10kg of their end goal, who train hard and regularly.
 
Dieting culture has led us to believe that less food and more exercise is a winner. And this is true. But when taken to extremes – low carb/calorie and large amounts of intense training – we can miss the mark.
 
I sometimes see with my “over-achiever” clients that they love to take things to extremes and it works against them by stressing the body out causing stress induced inflammation and weight gain (usually around the middle).
 
Gently increasing calories and reducing exercising frequency and/or intensity can work well in this case. Sometimes both can be used together.
 
I normally find there can be a lot of fear when making this suggestion as often we hold on to what has worked for us in the past.
 
Understand that the strategy that gets you from A to B is not necessarily going to get you all the way to Z. As you lose weight and you fitness improves, your metabolism will change. Then you’ll need to adjust your approach to accommodate these changes.
 
 

>>>Thing 4: Address Sleep & Stress<<<

 
When I got back from San Diego last week Thursday my body clock was all messed up (it still is!). I wasn’t sleeping well and was waking in the night taking several hours to fall asleep again.
 
I measured my morning blood sugar after one such night. It was 7.4 mmol/L (morning blood sugar should be 5 or below).
 
On Saturday night I managed to sleep for 9.5 hours unbroken. My morning blood sugar was 4.6 mmol/L, a healthy normal reading
 
Most people who carry excess weight may have a certain degree of insulin resistance. This means that they have a poor ability to use carbohydrates they are consuming and said carbohydrates more often than not end up stored as belly fat.
 
When are blood sugar is elevated, insulin is likely working over-time to deal with that, meaning fat burning isn’t happening. So when I woke up on Friday morning with a blood sugar reading of 7.4 mmol/L how do you think I was burning fat compared to Saturday morning at 4.6 mmol/L?
 
Probably not so good.
 
This hopefully highlights the importance of making sleep a priority if you are not happy with your weight loss progress.
 
Poor sleep is a stress on the body. But stress can also be experienced from over-training and under-eating as mentioned above, but also via a multitude of different avenues. Sometimes we cannot always change what is going on around us, but we can learn tools and work on our mindset and perception of stress so that we can stay aligned with and focussed on our goals.
 
 

>>>Thing 5: Deal with other aspects of health<<<

 
If you head over to my website you will see I have written a whole series on Digestive Health and Weight Loss as well as Stress and Weight Loss. It goes beyond the scope of this email to discuss these in depth, but if I had a client who…
 
A) Was being consistent with food and exercise
B) Had tried manipulating both up and down
C) Was getting 8 hours of shut eye and not living their entire day in a state of stress
 
I would then want to do the following:
 
A) Rule out thyroid problems by running a thyroid panel which included T3 (often neglected)
B) Test adrenal function as from experience a lot of people say they aren’t stressed when they are
C) Explore digestive health by either trialling a gut reset (which I usually recommend is started as a low carb diet) or performing stool testing. I have had clients in the past who explain to have no gut symptoms come up with very imbalanced guts with testing, so you can never be too sure.
 
Those would be my top 3 by there can also be other things going on relating to sex hormones and poor detoxification with high toxic load which can be more complex to address.
 
So I hope that helps shed some light on the matter and perhaps you can already see some things that you could be doing better.
 
And of course, if you want to stop playing the guessing game and have someone tell you what to do and support you to do it. You know where I am…

 

20140912-0593

I run a small Online Women’s Weight Loss Program that offer a personalised nutrition and exercise support to produce life changing and life-lasting results.

If you want to give up the guessing game and have someone just tell you what to do and hold you accountable to actually doing it then this is probably exactly what you have been waiting for.

Life doesn’t get better by chance, it gets better by choice. Now you have a moment where you can choose to take a step towards a very different future and join the community of like minded women who are not just losing weight, but transforming their lives, filling them with happiness and health.

To find out more about how my coaching program can help you, please fill out the application below to book a complimentary breakthrough call and find out out about working with me in more detail.

 

 

 

 

Do you feel like you have tried everything and nothing works? [video 3 of 4]

How do you exercise and lose weight? How do you know if you are doing it right?

Do you need to do HIT? Do you need to lift weights? Do you need to exercise 7 days a week?

This is part 3 of the videos series on I feel like I have tried everything and nothing works!

Here I talk about making some sensible changes when it comes to exercising for weight loss and my own personal exercise perscription.

Make sure you have watched Part 1 and Part 2!

 

20140912-0593

I run a small Online Women’s Weight Loss Program that offer a personalised nutrition and exercise support to produce life changing and life-lasting results.

If you want to give up the guessing game and have someone just tell you what to do and hold you accountable to actually doing it then this is probably exactly what you have been waiting for.

Life doesn’t get better by chance, it gets better by choice. Now you have a moment where you can choose to take a step towards a very different future and join the community of like minded women who are not just losing weight, but transforming their lives, filling them with happiness and health.

To find out more about how my coaching program can help you, please fill out the application below to book a complimentary breakthrough call and find out out about working with me in more detail.

 

 

 

 

Do you feel like you have tried everything and nothing works? [video 2 of 4]

I recently surveyed my mailing list to get an idea of what they were struggling with and how I could direct my knowledge to solve their specific problems.

This statement stood out loud and clear: I feel like I have tried everything and nothing works!

And I thought, yes, I can address that! So this is the second part of the 4 video series! Make sure you watch the first part too.

 

20140912-0593

I run a small Online Women’s Weight Loss Program that offer a personalised nutrition and exercise support to produce life changing and life-lasting results.

If you want to give up the guessing game and have someone just tell you what to do and hold you accountable to actually doing it then this is probably exactly what you have been waiting for.

Life doesn’t get better by chance, it gets better by choice. Now you have a moment where you can choose to take a step towards a very different future and join the community of like minded women who are not just losing weight, but transforming their lives, filling them with happiness and health.

To find out more about how my coaching program can help you, please fill out the application below to book a complimentary breakthrough call and find out out about working with me in more detail.