Plateau

Any recommendations for getting past a plateau?

Makparis, I feel your pain. I just went through one for a little over 2 months. I'm sure it could have been shorter (had I made the right changes). Here is a link that I found. I hope it is helpful. Also, I have a Metabolism Information Group here on FS and I always post tips and links regarding plateaus, metabolism boosting, etc.

Weight Loss Plateau: Diagnosing & Overcoming a Weight Loss Plateau

Sorry, the link is: http://www.answerfitness.com/208/weight-loss-plateau-tactics-overcoming-weight-loss-plateau/

My daughter is a personal trainer. Very high fiber and lots of water for 3 days. I don't know if it works, but it is what I will be trying when the inevitable strikes.

Also, I've heard switching up routines or foods, kind of "shock" your body... like if you eat a lot of packaged foods, go out and get a fresh meal to cook, or maybe if you've been eating a lot of certain fruits and vegetables, try a day where you focus on eating more proteins or fibers. Same with exercise - if you switch up your routine sometimes you can shock your body into "getting moving again"...

I've been stuck on a few plateaus, so I know your pain! Don't worry you'll get through it!

Do a different diet. I rotate diets to keep losing - from atkins, south beach, weight watchers, weight loss for idiots, etc. Also change up your exercise routine. Your body gets accustomated to the same movements. Do one week of high activity, and one low week, off and on.

I was on Yahoo home page and came across this article; thought it was interesting and may help, also-perhaps see if you're eating to support your metabolism and your intake is allowing for a 1-2lb weight loss..not more than that. i.e. if you weigh 160 (Resting metabolic rate: 1600 and you may need 1800 without exercise to maintain your current weight). So with cardio 3+ days a week and strength training 2-3 days a week you could eat 1900 calories and still lose weight because now you've added exercise...or you could go down a bit i.e. say you burn 300 calories working out and decide you want to eat 1700 calories, on these days you're creating a deficit of approx 500. Each time you lose 5 lbs you should recalculate, so say you our example above went down to 155 (now their RMR becomes approx 1550)and their maintenance calories may also be different; either higher or lower depending on their lifestyle. to elaborate on this example...i am currently on vacation from school and I don't work. so my activity level will lower and that means the amount of calories i can eat to maintain the same weight will decrease unless I work out like crazy to supplement the calories that I am not burning as when school was in. Therefore if I continue to eat and exercise the same as when my activity level was higher I would gain weight. perhaps in addition to re-evaluating your nutrition/exercise, you may want to re-evaluate your lifestyle and see if anything that was making you more busy and more active has been dropped. Also I would encourage you to research whenever you can..while some places online do not provide accurate information, the more you read the more likely you are to separate the truth from the false info. Okay...longer than I expected...check out the article below.


6 Weight-Loss Tricks That Don’t Involve Dieting or (Much) Exercise
By Deborah Kotz, USNews.com

The advice for losing those stubborn extra pounds seems so simple: Eat less, and exercise more. But as anyone who's ever tried to lose a few pounds knows, putting that advice into practice is very tough. Cut back on calories too much, and you're overwhelmed by hunger and your metabolism may slow. Exercise like crazy, and the hunger pangs you feel a few hours later may trigger you to eat back all you've burned off-and then some.

And let's be honest, no one really wants to keep track of every bite of food. My teenage daughter, while reading this U.S. News article on restricting calories to live longer, asked me how many calories I ate each day. I told her I had no idea-though probably more than my body needs. Truth is, despite having ghostwritten a slew of bestselling weight-loss books in my previous life as a freelance writer, I've never actually been on a diet; I know my lack of discipline at sticking to a prescribed eating plan would make me fail miserably. Still, I'd like to shed the 10 pounds that I've gained over the past decade, and I'm wondering if there are a few tricks that can help me along. I asked Adriane Fugh-Berman, a physician and associate professor of complementary and alternative medicine at Georgetown University Medical Center, to give me some tips that have been backed up by solid research. (She previously helped me decipher the ingredients in QuickTrim, a weight-loss product being endorsed by the Kardashians.) Here's what she recommends:

1. Eat hot soup before a meal. Research suggests doing so before lunch or dinner helps people eat less. "That's probably because you can't eat hot soups fast, which gives your digestive tract time to send satiety signals out to your brain" before you begin the next course, says Fugh-Berman. She recommends eating a soup that is not cream based to save on fat and calories.

2. Don't eat heavily just before bed. Sure we've all heard the credo that body weight is all about calories in, calories out, but it turns out it may also matter when you eat. Fugh-Berman says she has seen preliminary research suggesting that taking in sweet, high-fat foods (ice cream, anyone?) right before bedtime appears to decrease calorie burning and increase fat storage during sleep. "Consuming that same snack earlier in the day doesn't appear to have the same effect," she says.

3. Live like a city dweller. People who live in cities weigh less than those who live in the suburbs probably because of "incidental walking," says Fugh-Berman. "Those few blocks that you walk to grab lunch or run an errand really do add up," she says. Plus, the daily activity is incorporated into your life so it doesn't feel like exercise. It's easy to do and not like a workout that you can skip or quit altogether. Don't live or work in a city? You can mimic the effect by parking a few blocks away from the drugstore, dry cleaner, or post office. Fugh-Berman says she has a slim friend whose only exercise is using the stairs instead of the elevator to get to his office on the ninth floor. Going up and down once or twice a day gives him a fairly good calorie burn.

4. Try a dash of chili pepper. If you can stomach it, try a chili-laced appetizer right before your meal. It "appears to have appetite suppressant activity," says Fugh-Berman. "One study found that those who ate a chili-pepper-spiced food right before their meal ate less at the meal." Mix a teaspoonful of chopped chili pepper into mashed avocado, or sprinkle ¼ teaspoon of chili powder into chopped tomatoes for a predinner dip.

5. Limit caloric beverages. Drink 260 calories in a Starbucks grande caffè mocha (or a smoothie, or any other sweetened beverage) before lunch, and you'll still eat the same number of calories at your meal. But eat a bagel or handful of jellybeans containing 260 calories, and you'll actually consume less at lunch, according to one study. It's not clear whether our stomachs actually feel fuller from solid food or whether we trick ourselves into thinking that we haven't actually "eaten" if we're drinking calories rather than chewing them, says Fugh-Berman.

6. Weigh yourself once a day. This certainly helps me maintain my weight because I make a point to cut back on snacks if I've gained a little. And research backs me up. A 2006 study from Cornell University found that college freshmen instructed to weigh themselves every morning gained almost no weight during the school year compared with a 7-pound gain for those who weren't given a scale. Though I'm not sure how much the scale helps me personally. I find that every time I've lost a few pounds, I give myself a little permission to indulge-and the pounds come right back on.

source: http://health.yahoo.com/featured/86/6-weight-loss-tricks-that-don-t-involve-dieting-or-much-exercise