5 Ways to Break Through a Plateau
Plateaus. They’re never fun. But they’re a natural part of any fat loss journey. Humans have been evolving for millions of years, so in order to continue to survive we’ve got intricate systems designed to slow down fat loss.
Below are 5 ways to break through your plateau. I suggest making one change at a time rather than pulling all triggers at once.
- Drop your cals
Not by a drastic amount, just by 50-100 depending on how much you’re willing to spare. When we’ve been dieting for a while (over a month or two), it’s common for us to experience metabolic adaption. Where the calories that were once a deficit for us, have now become less of a deficit so we may need to increase the deficit.
- Get that body movin!
Increase your energy expenditure girl! Creating more of a deficit for us can come in many forms, such as decreasing cals (energy going in) and/or increasing exercise (energy going out). There’s so many little things you can be doing, for example adding an additional 1000 daily steps or getting in some cardio after your session. HITT sessions are also a great way to burn calories efficiently in a short amount of time. If you’re stuck on how you can get in some cardio, check out my e-book here!
- Sleep, stress and PMS
Being a woman definitely has its highs and lows (literally) as our period can affect what the scale says and how our body looks, which might be a little bit watery and puffy. Making us feel unmotivated and defeated. However, this is only temporary, taking a reefed or diet break might be exactly what you need to get over this hurdle (which I’ll talk about more in the next point.)
Sleep is also a huge one, some of the biggest scale drops I’ve seen have been after a massive sleep. Your sleep might also be affected as it’s directly related to our stress.
If you’re stressed you might want to think about implementing some de-stressing protocols such as a nature walk, getting a massage, journaling, mediating and breath work especially before bedtime.
- Take a refeed or diet break
A reefed and diet break involves bringing the calories back up to maintenance to mitigate any metabolic adaptation we’ve experienced, like we talked about earlier. You’ll find an optional refeed day in your TWS meal plan on the 8th day.
But taking a refeed or diet break isn’t a magic tool that will make everything better but it can help reduce the stress of dieting on the body, which can then reduce water and inflammation, and it will also help in adhering to the diet.
After the refeed, try dropping your calories a little bit if possible.
- Patience is a virtue
Is this really a plateau or are you just being impatient? A real plateau is more like four weeks, so before you jump to making any of these above changes, ride it out for longer and be consistent and honest with yourself. Make sure you’re tracking accurately and hitting those gym sessions and daily steps.
Remember that tracking your progress comes under a number of methods, not just scale weight. Consider taking photos, tape measurements and how your clothes are fitting.
At the end of the day, your diet is only as good as your ability to adhere to it. If you’re following something restrictive and unenjoyable the likelihood of you maintaining your results long term is slim! Trust the process and enjoy it because everything will be all worth it, I promise!