Bust That Plateau

Monday evening, I had the pleasure of speaking on the Ultimate Homeschool Expo show. If you missed it, you can still purchase tickets to the expo and hear over 100 speakers. Much more affordable than a regular conference and you can wear your pajamas! Woot!

During the call, I had an interesting question asked by Cindy Rushton. She asked, “What do you do when someone hits a plateau?” It’s an important question because plateaus are common and can be rather de-motivating for someone trying to lose weight.

Before I tell you what I do for clients that hit a plateau, let me explain what it is. Our bodies are so wonderfully made that it works hard at keeping the amount of energy consumed in balance with the amount of energy we use. So, our bodies do not like to lose weight.

Some of the things that cause plateaus:

1. Lowering calories too much!

If you get your calories too low, your body will simply slow down your metabolic rate (burn fewer calories). Your body does this in order to continue to function correctly. You will find yourself hungrier, lazy and tired so that you do not move as much. Smart, huh?

Never lower your calories more than 500-700 below your maintenance level.

2. Loss of Lean Body Mass (muscle)

Your muscle burns 8 times the calories than fat does. So, if you are losing muscle you will lower your metabolism and fat loss will stop.

Make sure you are resistance training, eating supportively and not doing hours of slow, steady state cardio work. The Fit Homeschool Moms Transformation Guide provides you with an excellent resistance and interval training program that gets the fat burning fast.

3. Adaptation to Your Exercise Program

Your body makes many changes internally to adjust to your daily workload. Each of these activities burns calories, however, once your body is no longer repairing itself from the exercises you are doing, the amount of calories your body burns during the activity decreases. In other words, your program no longer causes enough caloric expenditure.

Make sure you are changing your exercise routine every 4-6 weeks. Never stay on a fat loss/weight loss program longer than 12 weeks before taking a week off.

4. Overtraining

Just like undereating, overtraining will decrease the amount of calories you burn. There is a point where an increase in exercise energy expenditure is negated an equal decrease in non-exercise energy expenditure. So the additional work you are doing is negated until there is an increase or decrease in calories.

Be sure you take a week break every 12 weeks or so. When you start back up again, continue with a new program. Your metabolism will reset and you’ll be back on the road to fatloss.

The way to fight off a plateau is to boost your metabolism, NOT decreasing your calories.

One other thing I want to note, is that you are NOT in a plateau if you have not been eating supportively by skipping meals or eating junk food, missing workouts or are no longer challenged by your workouts.

So, make an effort to challenge yourself everyday, eat supportively and you’ll keep plateaus at bay.

Hugs~~