Believe it or not, your body is able to adapt to new things very easily. In fact, your body will start to require fewer calories to get the same amount of work done. This is the plateau, and everyone wants to know how to get past a weight loss plateau.
Anyone who has tried to lose weight knows about the plateau. A weight loss plateau is when your diet that has worked for weeks or months stops working. The plateau happens when your body adjusts to the new diet and workout routine.
Once you’ve learned how to get past a weight loss plateau, you may find that weight loss becomes even easier.
Adjust Your Diet
The first and most important thing you could do is to adapt your diet to your body. Your body has adapted to the diet, and that means it won’t be as effective anymore. It is time to adjust your diet to fit your body’s needs.
The best way to figure out how many calories you need to take in is with a metabolic test. This test will tell you how many calories are burned while resting. You can find this test at many dietitian offices or at some gyms.
Another method would be to just start adjusting the calories you take in daily. Cut 100 calories each day until you start seeing a difference.
How to Get Past a Weight Loss Plateau | Jump Start The Weight Loss
Eat a cheat meal. Cheating on your diet isn’t always the best idea. However, if you’re wondering how to get past a weight loss plateau, cheating may be a great idea. As we lose weight, our body uses fat as a source of energy.
But when there is less fat in your body, your brain will begin to conserve calories for later. When the brain goes into conservation mode, you will stop losing fat as fast as you once did.
Some research indicates that by eating a carb-heavy meal, you trick your body into thinking it doesn’t need to go into conservation mode at all. A burger is all it takes, and while it should work, if it doesn’t, at least you got to eat a burger.
Workout Through It
This option is for those who are healthy enough to do it as it will require time and effort. Simply increase every aspect of your workouts. If you’re lifting weights, lift more. If you’re running laps, run more.
High-intensity interval training or HIIT is also a great option. HIIT is a set of very intense workouts that last only a couple of minutes. However, string those exercises together for a full 20-30 minute workout, and you have HIIT.
If you’re working out regularly already, add in an extra day or two per week and work your way off of the plateau.
How to Get Past a Weight Loss Plateau | Increase Protein
This option can be done in conjunction with the last one, simply increasing protein intake. Protein is known to boost the metabolic rate. Even just digesting protein can boost calorie burning by 20-30 percent.
Protein will also help protect muscle mass during the weight loss process. In a study done with young women, 30 percent or 15 percent of calories from protein on two separate days.
The metabolic rate of these women increased twice as much after meals on higher-protein days.
Don’t Believe the Scale
A scale is used to measure the weight of an object. But your body is made up of many different objects, all with different densities. Muscle is more dense than fat; think memory foam pillow vs a feather pillow.
A memory foam pillow could be the same size as a feather pillow but will weigh more. We prefer the memory foam pillow in most cases, just like we prefer muscle over fat. If you’re working out regularly and gaining muscle, you’re gaining weight.
But you’re also losing fat. The scale won’t be able to tell you the difference. If you want to know how to get past a weight loss plateau, first, make sure that’s the problem. It could just be that the fat is being burned, but the muscle growth is causing a misreading on the scale.
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