Nothing can drain your motivation and resolve quite like a weight-loss plateau. When you've enjoyed a degree of success and suddenly you can't lose any more weight, your good habits can lapse as you feel depressed about your failure. Understanding your sudden inability to lose weight and knowing how to jumpstart your weight loss again can help you meet a plateau and overcome it.
Shake Up Your Workout
One of the most common culprits for an inability to lose weight is a lackluster workout routine. When you engage in the same activity day after day, your body soon learns to complete the exercise more efficiently. If you breathed heavily and felt tired through your first run and now can run without becoming winded, your body is burning less calories. By changing your routine, you confuse your body and try something new so your body has another activity to master for higher caloric output.
Change Your Calories
When you first began losing weight, you likely knew how many calories you would need daily basis to help facilitate that weight loss. If you've seen weight-loss success yet continued with the same eating plan, you could be eating too much for your new weight. If you've never seen weight loss, you may be eating too many calories from the start. Alter your caloric intake by 200 calories to see if it makes a difference in your success, so long as you never dip below 1,200 calories for a woman and 1,500 calories for a man.
Rest Your Body
Overtraining your body can become a concern when you're working your body too hard for it to recover from a workout. While personal trainer Stacy Berman tells "Family Doctor" magazine that it's a less common reason for a weight-loss plateau, it can be a real frustration when you're heading to the gym daily yet not seeing results. Give your major muscle groups at least a day of rest after a strenuous workout to ensure that you muscles rebuild stronger than ever.
Drink Water
Small amounts of excess calories here and there throughout your day can add up to a big problem for your weight loss resolutions. For instance, drinking juice, soda or milk when you could be drinking water adds empty calories that you may not notice. Cut out unnecessary calories by investing in a refillable water bottle and keeping it with you throughout the day so you stay hydrated without excess calories and bad habits.
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