Why Your Fat Loss Plateaued

Does this sound familiar? You go to the gym and do the same routine (or two) every time. Initially you see great results – your muscles are sore, you lose a few inches, you see more definition etc. Great right? Next what follows is what everyone loves – the workout stops being painful and torturous, you can actually BREATHE as you workout, and the next day you don’t feel like crap.

However…what you don’t know is…this is the potential beginning of your fat loss plateau.Why? Because your body has become used to your workout and is burning fewer calories at every workout. You burn less, you eat the same….you stop losing weight.

There are a few easy solutions to this problem -

1. Change your workout. For me, I think every three to four weeks is the sweet spot. This is actually easier than it sounds. All you need are three workout plans that you really enjoy – simply rotate from one to the next at the end of every month. (I learned this trick from Rachel Cosgrove’s new book “The Female Body Breakthrough.”)

2. Or if you want to keep the same workout routine, you need to make it more challenging. The easiest way is to add more weight. You could add a little weight to each exercise, or choose a single exercise to increase per session. Keep the increase in the low percentage rate to avoid trying to do too much too fast. The idea is to keep doing gradual increase in weight consistently over time.

Some people may suggest that doing more reps with the same weight is another way to add difficulty. I personally do not like this idea as then your workout becomes more about endurance (and less about fat burning.) If you choose to go this route you will have to keep adding more and more reps to add difficulty. This will take you more and more time to maintain results, let alone move forward.

3. For cardio workouts the best way to add difficulty is to switch to doing brief sprint intervals if you are in good enough shape to do so. If not, simply add a goal of doing the same distance as usual, but in less time.

Every workout should focus on setting at least one mini personal record.

I recommend keeping a workout journal if you are willing where you can record various stats like how much you lifted, how far you run in a given amount of time, so you can compare from workout to workout without having to rely on your memory.

Thanks to Nia Shanks for starting the ball rolling…