Best 4 Solutions To Overcome Weight Loss Plateau

Highlights:

• A weight loss plateau occurs when the calories you eat equal the calories you burn.
• To continue losing more weight, you need to increase your physical activity or decrease the calories you eat. But, there’s more to it than just that.
• To bust through a plateau, learn how to eat less overall while eating more sometimes. A zig-zag method may help.
• There are ways to jumpstart your weight loss, but going hungry can work against you.
• Rotate your exercise routine to break through a plateau
• Little things add up to significant changes in lifestyle. Check out these tips.
• Almased: The great breaker of the weight loss plateau

So, you’ve shed those unwanted pounds and made great strides on your weight loss journey. Then suddenly, ongoing progress comes to a screeching halt. You find yourself stuck – before you’ve reached your ideal weight goal. This is known as the weight loss plateau, and it occurs when you’ve dieted, had some success, but hit a wall and can’t lose any more weight. Hunger kicks in, we become lethargic, and our metabolic rate slows.

You’ve come so far by doing all the right things. You expected your progress to continue. What went wrong? You’ve already made impressive changes in your life.

Should you fast regularly? Perhaps that new ketogenic diet went well, but it only went so far. Can you be in ketosis and not lose weight? What are the best foods for weight loss, and what is the best diet? ¹

It’s easy to say: “eat less, move more,” but breaking a plateau is more than calories coming in and energy going out. As you lose weight, your metabolism plunges so your body needs fewer calories to sustain the new-sized you.

Hitting the brick wall of a weight loss plateau can be dispiriting.

1. Avoid the Famine Reaction

The famine reaction occurs because our body defends our weight. When you start losing too much weight or too quickly, the body brings on this defense mechanism to protect you from wasting away.² Starving yourself is not the best way to lose weight.

When Your Body Thinks it is Starved, it Compensates By Slowing Down Your Metabolism

This adaptation has been shown to happen even in overweight and obese people after losing as little as 6% to 12% of body weight.³

The best way to lose weight and break your weight loss plateau may be the intermittent approach of eating less overall but sometimes eating more. This can improve the efficiency of weight loss and may also reduce the drive to consume large amounts when you’ve lost some weight. So, the good news is: You don’t have to go hungry!

2. Determine How Many Calories You Need to Consume Each Day

First, determine just how many calories are required to lose weight. Revise your calorie goal about every 10 pounds or so to match your current needs for weight loss.

Research has shown that people often underestimate how many calories they eat and overestimate how many calories they burn during exercise. To better approximate your caloric needs, use the BMR calculator to discover how many calories you burn a day if you did nothing but rest for 24 hours.⁴

Use your basal metabolic rate as a benchmark to subtract the approximate number of calories burned during activity. Keep in mind that the number of calories burned during exercise can vary.

The Calorie Calculator can be used to estimate the number of calories one needs to consume each day.⁵

How to Jumpstart Your Weight Loss

Can you lose weight by eating one meal a day? Likely not without triggering the famine reaction. Oddly, it might be a matter of reminding yourself to eat more.

That’s just one reason why The Almased Figure Plan is one of your best and easiest tools to help you maintain the vital nutrition necessary to avoid those hunger pangs and the lethargy associated with the weight loss plateau. Plus, it’s a great way to jumpstart any weight loss plateau.

How long does a weight plateau last?
A plateau can last from as little as a few days to a few months.⁶

3. Understanding calories

For some people, a weight loss plateau may be due to lack of calories; for others, it could be too many calories. How do you know which is which?

Consuming too few calories could be recognized through hunger or constant cravings during the day or even disturbed sleep at night due to hunger.

Those who need to lower their caloric intake would experience feeling satisfied in general and are doing the same diet or exercise every day yet do not see a weight change. This would mean the body has adapted to the diet or exercise routine, so now needs some tweaking.

One technique worthy of battling a weight loss plateau is the zig-zag method. For two or three days of the week, eat the same number of calories as usual. On the remaining days, eat more calories. ⁷

How to break a weight-loss plateau on the Almased Figure Plan

If you hit a plateau while on the Almased Figure Plan phase 2 or 3, consider staying with your usual number of calories for two or three days. On the remaining days of the week, incorporate more calories into your diet.

One way to do this is to increase calories in your shake by adding oil, fiber, or nuts. Or, at one meal eat between 500 to 700 calories. You could also achieve it by including one or two small snacks each day of about 150 calories each. Just be careful not to overdo.

4. Exercise, lifestyle & little things that mean a lot

When the calories you burn are equal to the calories you eat, your exercise routine may be stuck in a rut.

Rotate your exercise routine

If you’ve been slugging away on the treadmill for the past four months, it’s time to upgrade your workouts. Muscles become familiar with the “same old, same old,” and over time, this makes your routine less effective.

To see a change in body fat, get outside of your fitness comfort zone.

High-Intensity Interval Training (HIIT) has been shown to burn body fat effectively. Try doing speed work at the track, a boot camp class at the gym, or alternate walking and running intervals. Progress slowly and deliberately when incorporating high-intensity exercise into your routine. Doing too much too fast can leave you too sore, tired, or even injured.

Want to burn more calories at rest?

Follow a strength-training program to build muscle. Lifting heavier weights increases muscle mass. The more muscle you have, the more calories you burn, and the more body fat you’ll shed.

Since protein has the highest thermic effect of food, eating more protein burns more calories during digestion. Protein also contains an amino acid called leucine. Numerous research studies have identified leucine as a potent catalyst for burning body fat.

Little things can mean a lot, too!

When you’re so close to hitting your stride, don’t disregard potential gains from modest changes. Choose that parking space that’s a bit farther away. Use the stairs instead of the elevator, even if just for a few floors. Isometric exercises can be done unobtrusively at your desk.⁸

Be on the lookout as you go through your day for some creative ways to exert just a bit more effort for only a little time.

Lifestyle changes include tending to your sleep quality.

A full, uninterrupted night’s sleep is vital to losing body fat because it resets your hormones. Even a little sleep deprivation can lead to increased cortisol, a stress hormone. Elevated cortisol levels can lead to body fat accumulation around the midsection.

Symptoms of dehydration are much like symptoms of hunger.

So, it’s easy to confuse the two. Flush with fluids to keep your hydration in check since the body will often crave food when you are even mildly dehydrated. Aim to drink 80-100 fluid ounces (2.35 liters) of water per day plus additional fluids lost during activity.

Put these tried and true tips into action, and soon, you’ll be saying, “What weight-loss plateau?” If you’ve been watching what you eat and exercising more, and your weight is still not budging, consult with your doctor to rule out any underlying medical conditions or medications that could make it difficult for you to lose weight.

Almased: The Weight Loss Plateau Breaker

If you want the fastest way to lose weight (safely), check out the Almased Figure Plan. Even with low metabolism, the Almased Diet helps you lose weight.

Our Almased Figure Plan guides you through the 4 phases of the Almased Diet and explains how to use Almased shakes for optimal weight loss results. This is supported by over 15 years of scientific research.