Don't let a plateau take you out of the weight loss game How many of you have reduced your calories and fat consumption substantially, or increased the frequency and duration of your workout sessions all to no avail?
You check your scales for accuracy and find out they are calibrated.
You’re doing everything right, but two weeks go by and nothing happens. Those two weeks turn into a month and you begin to realize that you’ve hit a weight loss plateau. This is one of the most frustration yet inevitable consequences of weight loss.
To add to all this drama, your muscles are sore, you are physically fatigued, and you’re juggling too many things at home and at the office. You wonder, “ is it worth all this?” Here are a few tips to help jumpstart you back into action.
Getting up is a success unto itself. Getting out of your office chair and onto the floor for some pushups, because that is all time will allow, is a success.
Doing some stretches in a hospital waiting room, because you have been there day and night at the side of a loved one, is a success.
You are getting up from your setback and onto a modified track.
Success is never easy. It remains up to you whether you will give up, or fight through the tough battles to earn whatever it is you want.
Get a workout partner. Find someone who has similar goals and try to work out with this person at least twice per week. This allows for some form of accountability. Amazing things start to happen when you work out when you don’t feel like working out. You increase your internal strength and dedication, and it slowly starts to catch fire.
Join a fitness gym. There are many runners and walkers clubs, charity walk events etc. Find one that appeals to you. The camaraderie and scheduled activities will be something you look forward to. You may just find yourself leaner and more athletic -- with a few more friends as well.
Plateaus are all too common because the body adapts easily to diet and exercise and becomes very efficient burning calories. It requires less energy and sometimes more calories to handle its new demands. In a way this is good news because it means that you’re in better shape but in order to start losing again you will have to make some dietary changes and introduce some variety into your exercise routine in order to challenge your body again.
You have the tips you need –now put them to work. Don’t let an exercise plateau beat you at its game. Fight back and win.
Thoughts to ponder:
We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence,
therefore, is not an act but a habit. Aristotle
What is important is not what happens to us, but how we respond to what happens to us. Jean-Paul Sartre
Christine
Smith is an Extension Agent in the department
of Family & Consumer Sciences with NC Cooperative Extension, NCSU. Information on other services available
can be found online at http://wayne.ces.ncsu.edu/
Christine W. Smith