How to break through a weight loss plateau

Fitness expert Chris Freytag

Maintaining a healthy body weight is important for optimal health and disease prevention.  Several of the Get Your Rear in Gear Ask the Doctor panelists point to good exercise and nutrition habits as important elements in the prevention of many cancers, including colon cancer.  But weight loss can be a challenge.  Recently, this reader contacted us during her journey to get fit.  Her efforts to lose weight have hit a plateau and she contacted Ask the Trainer fitness experts for advice.

Get Your Rear in Gear reader: I started working with a personal trainer in April.  My first assessment was in June.  I lost 4.7 fat and gained 4.7 lean.  Today, in August, my assessment revealed that I lost 4.3 fat and gained 4.3 lean, worse than my assessment in June.  I have only lost 9.6 lbs.  I work out five days per week and weight train.  Instead of resting, I run ladders or run laps or jump rope etc.  I sweat like crazy yet I am not losing weight.  My diet is good. At  breakfast I eat oatmeal, and  scrambled egg whites, for lunch, baked chicken with brown rice and steamed broccoli, and for dinner baked chicken or fish and broccoli.  My snacks are fresh almonds or cottage cheese.  My diet is pretty good.  Why am I not losing weight?  I hope you can give me a clue of what I am doing wrong.

Chris Freytag: Hmmm – sounds like you’ve hit a plateau.  Plateaus are as inevitable as rainy days and just about as welcome. A plateau simply means that you’ve reached a state of equilibrium and balance is usually a good thing…except when it comes to weight loss.

A plateau is your signal to change it up.   Although I don’t know how much weight you had to lose or how much more you have to go….these two strategies usually will help you get weight loss back on track:

1. Try a new exercise routine:  Your body is used to your routine.  Try adding more cardio for a while to burn up calories.   Change up your strength exercises.  Try a few group fitness classes.  Add in circuits or intervals.  Bottom line – you need a change and you probably would benefit from a surge of intensity for a few weeks.
2. Portion control. If the scale isn’t budging, your portions may be to blame. Sounds like your food choices are healthy.  Just make sure that the overall portions aren’t out of whack.  I’m always surprised how much I’m eating when I measure my servings.  On the flip side, if you aren’t eating enough, that can back fire too. Journaling is always the best way to figure out what’s really going on.   Most of the time we can’t remember every single thing we ate and often the calorie counting in our head isn’t always correct.   Documenting the facts supplies the truth.

So, if you’ve hit a plateau, don’t get discouraged.  Just change it up to re-ignite your weight loss.

Chris Freytag is a nationally known fitness expert on NBC-TV, the fitness expert for Prevention magazine, and author of 3 books. Chris holds a BA in Journalism and is a certified Group Fitness Instructor, Personal Trainer and Lifestyle and Weight Management consultant.  Visit her website for more information about her products or exercise DVDs.

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