Breaking the Dreaded Diet Plateau
April 26, 2009
If you’ve been following my blog for any time now, you know that my husband and I have made a commitment to live a healthy lifestyle. Along with that has come a sizable weight loss; as of the first of April, I had lost 30 pounds.
While I love the fact that my body size is shrinking, my ultimate goal is to be healthy not skinny. For me, being healthy means that my blood pressure, blood sugar, cholesterol, lipids, etc. are all in the healthy range. To get there, I have been focusing on a healthy eating plan and regular exercise. A great side benefit of this healthy lifestyle is a shrinking waistline.
I started my new healthy life on November 11, 2008 and have made remarkable progress including a 30 pound weight loss. But then sometime around mid-March, I stopped losing weight. I had hit the dreaded plateau. Or had I? In retrospect, I realize that I had become a bit lazy — I was still eating very healthy but my portions and meal frequency had increased slightly and my exercise had decreased.
In the past, when I was “on a diet” this was about the time I would give up. After all, if I wasn’t losing weight, why live through the misery of a diet? This time was different though. I realized it was my choice to not exercise as much and to eat at a maintenance level rather than a weight loss level. Funny enough, it didn’t bother me — I was quite pleased that I could maintain my weight for an extended period of time. I also thought about my lifestyle change and realize that losing those last few pounds isn’t something I have to do overnight — I’m going to be eating healthy the rest of my life and am not on any timetable to shed pounds.
About 2 1/2 weeks ago, I started increasing my exercise and brought my meal portions back in line and whadda ya know, I got on the scales this morning and I’m down 5.5 pounds. There’s no real mystery to healthy living or losing weight — just some good old common sense. Exercise more and eat moderate meals and you can lose weight.
If you have hit a weight loss plateau, I encourage you to take an honest look at your lifestyle. Are you exercising as much as you should? Are you eating healthy foods in moderate portions? Are you limiting your splurges? Chances are, if you look closely, you will find the reason for your plateau and with just a few small changes you will be able to break through. Or, you may decide you’re OK staying where you are for a month or two. Remember, it took many months or years to put the weight on - focus on being healthy first and losing weight second.
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2 Responses to “Breaking the Dreaded Diet Plateau”
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That is great losing all that weight. I lost 25 pounds almost 2 years ago, then hit a plateau and have been stuck there forever. I can lose maybe 5 pounds in a week, and over the weekend it goes back on again. Off and on most weeks. It’s so hard to keep exercising and also eating right when you get cravings, and also when either the events of the day or the weather demand that you eat something that isn’t as healthy as it ought to be.
Right now I am hopefully in the right direction again and heading down…
Tony -
Thanks for the kind words. I feel so much better without the extra weight as I’m sure you do too.
I would offer a bit of a different perspective on your plateau. The positive side is that you have been able to maintain your lower weight over the past two years. OK, maybe you didn’t lose any more but you also didn’t put it all back on. When you’re ready, you’ll find the motivation to make the necessary changes to lose more (sounds like you’re there). In the meantime, you are learning the valuable skill of maintaining your lower weight — that deserves a big CONGRATULATIONS! Statistics show that most people would have put the weight back on.
Feel free to drop me an email if you’d like some additional tips to deal with some of your problem areas (cravings, unhealthy situations).
Thanks for stopping by — hope to see more comments from you in the future.
Cheryl