If you’ve ever dieted before you know exactly what a plateau is. It’s that frustrating stage where you’re certain nothing has changed in your diet and exercise strategy, yet the consistent weight loss you were experiencing the past few weeks has suddenly come to a screeching halt! What happened? How can it be fixed? And how can you prevent it from happening this time around?

No doubt this is a very discouraging event and has caused many a dieter to just give up and say to themselves ‘if doing everything right doesn’t even work, then what’s the point of it all?’

Let me assure you that plateaus are actually a very natural response to calorie restricted diets. I’m sure that doesn’t make you feel absolutely better about it, but know that your body is reacting the way it was made to react. ‘But didn’t I just get done reading that I need to reduce my calories in order to lose weight? Now you’re telling me restricting my calories causes weight loss plateaus? I can’t win!’ may be your reaction. Let me explain what’s happening in your body. Then we’ll discuss how to ‘break’ the plateau and get you losing weight again.

Imagine your body is a car and your metabolism is the engine. When you’re driving your car and have a full tank of gas you may not be so concerned with gas mileage and how far you can travel on that tank of gas. But if you had 20 miles to go until you got to the next gas station and your car’s computer shows you only have 18 miles of gas left, what changes would you make in the way you drove the car? It’s been shown that cars are much more efficient going around 40 miles per hour than they are traveling at 80 miles per hour. Knowing that, you would conservatively slow down to your most efficient speed (40 mph) even if took longer to get to the gas station.

Our body reacts in a similar way. When we’re providing it with adequate calories (fuel) it chugs along not concerned with when it’s going to get its next meal. But when we restrict calories over a period of time, our metabolism senses it is starving and starts worrying about when it will be ‘refueled’. Therefore it slows down, attempting to operate as efficiently as possible. A slowing metabolism requires less calories to keep running. Whereas you may have needed 1800 calories a day to keep running before you began dieting, your metabolism has slowed to a point that it only needs, say, 1500 calories. Now your 500 calorie daily deficit is only a 200 calorie deficit, bringing your weekly weight loss to a halt.

What’s the solution? Well, what would you do to get your car down the road again? Refuel!

‘Wait a minute. Are you telling me to eat more? That seems counterproductive’ you may argue. I agree, it does seem a bit backwards. We are trying to lose weight, right? And a calories in, calories out approach is still the only way to accomplish this. But there is a strategy to this madness. The complexities of the metabolism need to be understood, acknowledged and manipulated for the best results.

So here’s your strategy: You trick your body. Just when it thinks it’s starting to starve from lack of adequate calories you provide a little more than necessary. Everyone is going to be different in how their body reacts to calorie restrictions. Therefore I can’t be dogmatic as to how often and how much to increase our caloric intake. But I have found that once a week works well for many clients.

This isn’t an excuse to throw all caution to the wind and completely disregard the ultimate goal of attaining better health and smaller waistline. Rather, it is a strategically planned meal or day that allows about 250-500 calories over your BMR. This means that if your BMR is 1800 calories and you have been consuming 1300 calories (or better yet 1500 and getting the rest of your deficit from exercise), for this one day you will eat 2050 to 2300 calories, more if you had a great workout that day. This doesn’t only trick your metabolism into speeding up again, but provides a needed mental respite from dieting. And being that I’m all about moderation and enjoying life, enjoy this day and extra calories by having a little treat.

But don’t overdo it! There’s one thing worse than a plateau. Sabotaging an entire week’s of healthy eating with one day of gross over-consumption.

 

 

 

 

Advertisement