“I haven’t lost any weight in a few weeks and I’m getting frustrated with my program, why is this not working?”
This is a question that comes up from time to time with clients that you may relate to. It can be very frustrating to be on track and hit a plateau with progress in the way that you want. Addressing this question requires a step back and learning to understand what is happening with a plateau.
Think of your health progress as a line on a graph, it is increasing (getting better/easier) and then suddenly it goes flat, not increasing, not decreasing. This flat part is called a plateau, your progress has hit a block, or become stagnant.
A possible reason for this occurring is that the level of exercise you are doing or the amount of food you are eating is at a place where your body adapts to it and your metabolism slows down. This makes it difficult to see progress, despite training and eating “healthy”.
In order to move past this plateau, something needs to be tweaked. A few examples are:
- Exercise type
- Exercise intensity
- Protein and fiber consumption
- Sleep
How to keep Progress – Exercise type
This involves strength training, cardiovascular training, HIIT, pilates, etc.
Doing any sort of exercise is a good thing. Doing a form of exercise you love is also important for retention and keeping motivation to exercise.
If you primarily do cardiovascular exercise, consider adding one or two strength days into your routine. Building strength and lean mass can promote a better metabolism.
If you primarily do HIIT training, try adding in pilates or other lower-impact exercise to your week. Sometimes high impact and high heart rate workouts can be too much stress for the body. Doing low-impact exercise (still a great workout) can be what your body needs to get back on track. High intensity does not always mean it’s the best.
Exercise intensity
Occasionally a set exercise routine can become monotonous, the work you are doing becomes easier or not intentional anymore. Changing the intensity levels can help get your training back on track. Like mentioned earlier, sometimes intensity needs to come down a notch, other times it needs to go up a notch.
Progressive overload is a principle that many trainers and fitness enthusiasts use to avoid the monotonous routine. It slowly increases reps, sets, weight, volume, time and frequency.
The pattern I follow is increasing reps, sets, weight, reps, sets, weight. This allows the body time to push itself, get used to the weight (become stronger) and then push itself again.
Protein and fiber consumption
Switching gears to nutrition, increasing protein consumption has been shown to help maintain lean mass, even when weight loss occurs. If you remember from earlier lean mass promotes a better metabolism.
Adding more fiber to your diet can also aid with digestion and absorption of nutrients, allowing your body to receive all it needs in order to perform well
How to keep Progress – Sleep
Getting too much sleep and not enough sleep both can create stagnancy with progress, along with quality of sleep. One tip to help is to track your sleep cycles, learning your sleep patterns can help with understanding when you should fall asleep, how long you stay asleep, etc.
Another is to try keeping bright light out of your eyes at least an hour before going to bed, and using red light or red screens, these can help give the signal to your brain that it is time to sleep and can help with relaxation. These two tips can also apply to waking up. They can help give your brain and body time to adjust to being awake.
The last tip is to learn what temperature you best fall asleep at. Sleep optimizes when body temperature drops 1-2 degrees. Changing your environment in that way may be what you need to sleep better.
Conclusion
All of these tips may seem bombarding or too much. Changing something little by little and learning what your body does best with will be the ultimate game-changer! Give it a try and see your progress transform!
