THE WEIGHT LOSS PLATEAU.

THE WORST. THE ABSOLUTE WORST.

K so it’s February. You started a new #healthkick in January and everything was going great. You were losing a pound or two a week, you were feelin yourself.

Then the scale stopped moving. I mean, it LITERALLY has not moved.

But you’re doing all the same things……soooooooooo this makes NO SENSE.

You start blaming yourself. You start cursing your metabolism. You start beating yourself up.

“It was probably that extra serving of mashed sweet potatoes 2 nights ago! YOU IDIOT!! PUT DOWN THE POTATOES!”

First of all, I can promise you that it was not the extra serving of potatoes unless you ate, like 14 potatoes. All at once. Then maybe. But if you can consume 14 potatoes in one sitting you should be less worried about weight loss and more worried about why you’re not entering eating contests bc there’s some real money in it (I think – I actually have no idea – anyways get back on track, Megan.)

There are some pretty concrete reasons why your body stops losing weight – it’s not a medical mystery. Let’s dig in.

1. Homeostasis.

Remember that word?! If not, then maybe you should have paid more attention in science class mmmmhmmmmm.

Your body always wants to be in a state of equilibrium. It’s why your pH and body temperature always remain the same (as long as you’re healthy). It’s why you pee out fluids that your body doesn’t need. Even if you didn’t like your prior weight, your body did. It likes consistency (same). Hates change (same).

So it’s going to fight you. Does that suck? Oh, 100%. Does it feel a little better knowing this is totally normal and it’s not just you and that you don’t suck and that it wasn’t the mashed potatoes? It should. Because you can and will still win this battle if you do it the right way.

2. You’re not eating enough.

Listen. If your strategy for losing weight is to go on a low-calorie diet, you WILL lose weight inititally, but here’s the deal. Your body doesn’t know if you’re sitting on the couch watching This Is Us and eating 2 oz of chicken for dinner or if you are in the middle of a desert having no clue where your next is gonna come from and you just found and killed your own desert chicken.

Our bodies are sooo smart but also sooooo uninformed sometimes.

If you want your metabolism to burn like hot fire flames, you have to feed it. If you want your tank of gas to take you 300 miles, you have to put gas in your damn tank.

3. You’ve lowered your metabolism.

This is what happens when you don’t eat enough. Your body says, “holy sh*t, Karen isn’t eating enough, SLOW EVERYTHING DOWN TO PRESERVE ENERGY!”

This might seem like a major dick move, but I promise you, your body is always trying to just keep you alive. It cares. A lot. You’ve gotta eat – and you’ve gotta eat the right foods that fuel you. This is a balancing act (too much food? too little?) but keep reading – we’ll get to a solution.

4. You’re doing the wrong workout.

I’m going to be super blunt here. If you are trying to reduce your body fat and you’ve hit a plateau, you absolutely need to be lifting weights. Not 3 lbs dumbbells. But something that is going to challenge you and help you build muscle.

The more muscle you have, the more calories you’ll burn by sitting in the hot tub reading a book. Each pound of muscle = 50-150 more calories burned/day.

5. You need to switch it up.

This goes back to our bodies not loving change, and the solution here is to shock it into something different.

This goes for both your eating and your workouts. Been running 10 miles a week? Stop cold turkey and hit the weights for a week instead – see what happens. I dare you. Been doing oatmeal and a green juice for breakfast every day? Try a smoothie with almond butter, chia seeds, almond milk, protein, and a handful of blueberries instead and see what happens.

Try intermittent fasting for a couple days/week.

Try doubling your water intake.

There are a ton of little metabolism-busting hacks I want you to try before you just give up. You WILL power through that plateau – I swear.

And if you’re reading this thinking, THIS GIRL IS SPEAKING TO ME RN, then I think you should highly consider joining myDietitian. Because nutrition should feel second nature and really, this isn’t about whether or not the diet you’re on is “good enough” to help you lose the weight you need, this is about whether or not your metabolism is working optimally.

If it’s working optimally, you will absolutely get the results you want.

Have such a fun weekend –

xxMegan