What Causes A Weight Plateau?

-
If you’ve ever experienced a weight-loss plateau, you know the disappointment of stepping on the scale after another week of eating well and exercising only to see the same exact number as the week before. For days, or sometimes even weeks at a time, your weight may not budge, which can make your efforts to eat well and move more seem, well, like a waste of time.
The truth is, weight-loss plateaus happen to almost everyone trying to lose weight — even those go-getters with plateau prevention plans. In order to overcome one, it’s important first to understand why they occur. Here are three contributing factors that can lead to a stalemate with the scale:
Before you read on, I'll give you a one sentence answer. As you lose weight your body needs less calories and most people never reduce their calorie intake as they lose pounds, so after a few weeks of weight reduction you stop losing weight. Continue reading and learn how to adjust your diet and exercise plan to overcome these plateaus.
1. WATER WEIGHT LOSS RETURNS
A rapid drop in weight is normal during the first few weeks of weight loss, but what you may not realize is that a fair amount of this initial weight decrease comes from water loss as the body uses up carbohydrate stores in the form of glycogen (sugar). As carbohydrate intake fluctuates day-to-day, it’s not uncommon for some, if not all, of that water weight to return, which can offset fat loss and cause a plateau.
2. YOUR BODY DOESN’T JUST BURN FAT
The downside to losing weight is that your body doesn’t just burn fat for energy — it breaks down muscle, too. Unlike fat, muscles burn calories, so losing muscle will slow the rate at which you use up energy from food. This, of course, impacts weight loss, and is part of the reason why cutting too many calories can work against you because your body will break down muscle at a faster rate. For tips to offset this, learn why protein is good for weight loss and how to optimize your carb, fat and protein goals.
3. WHEN YOU WEIGH LESS, YOU BURN LESS
As a smaller person, you expend less energy moving around than you did at your heavier weight. Thus, the same number of calories that produced an initial loss may now just maintain your current weight.  In other words, as you lose weight you also have to lower your calorie intake. With every 10 pound loss, you have to evaluate your calorie needs. To continue losing, you’ll have to increase the calories you burn through physical activity and/or reduce the number of calories you eat. For up-to-date calorie need estimates, be sure to update your nutrition goals in MyFitnessPal every 5–10 pounds or so.
Remember, it’s completely normal for weight loss to slow or even stall on occasion, so don’t get discouraged. Now that you understand the main causes of weight-loss plateaus, you’ll be able to devise a plan of attack if and when the number on the scale stops dropping.
Remember that you can't just keep cutting calories, at some point you have to step up your workout and burn more calories to continue losing weight.
You can contact my on LinkedIn.
I write several blogs and e-books, check out some of my other sites.


If you really want to lose your body fat than look for my e-books at the websites listed below. You'll get information on Healthy eating, exercise, and diet. Instead of spending hours on the internet reading dozens of posts, you can save time by picking up one of my e-books.
There are two e-books. “How Bad Do You Want To Lose Weight?” is available at all the online bookstores selling for $1.99. Go to any of the websites below and search the title to find my e-book. This book gives you all you need to lose weight without spending money on gym memberships, diet plans or meal plans. Look for my book. at Amazon.com, B&N.com, iBooks, Kobo.com, Scribd.com, or Gardner Books in the U.K.

My new e-book is available on Smashwords.com, just type “getting to a Healthy Weight” in the search box at the top of the home page. I’ll give you a discount coupon you can use at checkout. (PJ42H) not case-sensitive the price is $1.99 w/coupon

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

What's the Mediterranean Diet?

-
Image
The Mediterranean diet is based on the traditional foods eaten by people living in the Mediterranean region, especially Greece. It's loaded with healthy foods and research findings suggest following this diet may help reduce some of the risk factors for heart disease.  According to the Oldways Preservation & Exchange Trust, the Mediterranean diet was introduced in 1993 by Oldways, Harvard School of Public Health and the World Health Organization.  The diet includes: Olives and olive oil Whole grains, mostly in bread and cereal rather than pasta Very little red meat Fish and seafood Some cheese, but less milk Lots of vegetables and fruit Plenty of legumes and nuts A little red wine The Mediterranean diet is high in fiber and antioxidants from vegetables, legumes and nuts, far greater than the typical Western diet, and low in saturated fat. Very little red meat is eaten in this region, and milk consumption is limited as well, exc...
Read more

Changing Your Life To Lose Weight

-
Image
I can let you in on the ultimate secret for successfully making a change in your life. A century’s worth of psychological research reveals an interesting paradox in who we are. On the one hand, once we reach adulthood our basic personalities remain unchanged for the rest of our lives. We keep doing the same things—and feeling the same ways—over and over. But, on the other hand, every day we change our behavior drastically in response to different environments. Most of us are one person at work, for example, and another person at home. It is easier to change our environment than to change ourselves. So, if you want to change yourself, change your environment. Said differently: Whenever possible, don’t try to fight temptations – avoid them! The easiest way to make a change in your life is to modify the world around you in ways that will naturally drive you toward making, and maintaining, the change you want. There are many ways to change your environment, but let’s focus...
Read more

Cancer and High Protein Diets

-
On the Fox TV Network the other night, one of the big stories was about high protein diets. A new study has shown a link between the over consumption of animal protein and how it can stimulate the growth of cancer cells. It seems we all have cancer cells but they don’t normally grow, unless we consume too much animal fat, dairy or fats from processed foods. Before I continue I want to explain about the link to cancer. After all, Man has been eating red meat for millions of years, right. That's true but todays red meat is not the same. Most red meat that we buy in the supermarket comes from Steers that have been raised in feed lots on a grain diet that is full of hormones and other chemicals that shorten the growing time and put more fat on the animal. These hormones and other chemicals stay in the meat and what you're buying will contain the chemicals that the animal ate. Normally a grass feed Steer that lives on the range in big herds will take 18 to 20 months to grow to ...
Read more