Ways to Break Through a Fitness or Weight Loss Plateau
2012
At times people actively following a weight loss or fitness program will hit a plateau. You work hard. You’ve been watching what you eat, and putting in the time and sweat doing the workouts, and then suddenly the numbers stop moving and you stop seeing changes. This can be frustrating and disheartening. There are many reasons why this can happen and this is one of the main reasons I like to change up the workouts I do, to avoid plateaus. Here I have listed lots of great ideas on why and how to change your fitness and weight loss strategy to keep making progress.
Ways to Break Through a Fitness or Weight Loss Plateau
Plateaus occur when the body adapts to what it is you have been asking it to do.
Change up your fitness routine. Do something different. Work on different parts of the body and do different exercises. Switching it up will work different muscles and will also boost your metabolism.
Changing the exercises you do and how you do them creates muscle confusion. This is a great way to keep the muscles guessing and from adapting to the same workout routine.
If you are doing the same routine, find a way to change it up at least every 4 weeks. This is approximately how long it takes for the body to adapt.
Lower the weight you are using and do more reps. Doing this will drive more oxygen, as well as amino acids and hormones to the muscle fibers and help them to recover quicker.
Move faster. Also, lifting light weights faster will recruit more muscle fibers to do the work and will challenge the muscles in a different way than just lifting heavy weights.
Add tabata cardio intervals to your workout. Add them before or after your workout.
Find your weakest link and work on it. Whatever it is that you are avoiding, or don’t think you are good at, is probably your weakest link. Start there.
Not only does the body adapt and hit plateaus but the mind does as well. After a period of working out doing a certain routine the mind can get bored. Keep it interesting by finding motivation and getting creative with your routines. If you lose motivation you can lose the effort you put in as well. Keep yourself motivated with interesting workouts and being around motivating people.
Weight loss plateaus happen for the same reasons as fitness plateaus. The body adapts to what you are doing. To move past the plateau change up your diet. Add green smoothies or fresh juices to your diet or try intermittent fasting. Keep it healthy, eat lots of vegetables and smaller portions but change up what you are doing to keep moving forward. Have a goal or find something to keep yourself motivated.
As you become thinner your new body needs less calories so you need to get used to consuming even less. Eating less can take some time to get used to. What your average plate looked like before is not the same as the average plate for your new thin body. You just have to get used to this.
When you are losing weight you may be losing muscle and muscle is a real fat burner. Losing muscle can lower your metabolism, so for continued and steady weight loss (avoiding plateaus) you want to be working out to build muscle, which helps to burn fat even quicker.
A great thing to remember for weight loss is that the harder you train the more calories you burn afterwards, at rest.
To your optimal health!
photo credit to fishki.net
