What Is a Diet Plateau?
A diet plateau is that period during a weight loss regimen when, despite following the same exercise and eating pattern that helped you lose pounds, weight drop doesn’t occur anymore. Before panicking and becoming demotivated, remember that diet plateaus are perfectly normal, and that they happen regardless of the weight loss program you’re following.
Usually, you will hit a diet plateau after a few weeks of dieting. The underlying reason is that, during those first weeks, your body eliminates mostly water, and your metabolism slows down. As a result, after a while, in order to continue to lose weight, you will have to make some adjustments to your lifestyle. You may either increase the amount of exercises you perform, or you may start eating fewer calories, or both.
Atkins Diet Plateau
One of the most popular and effective weight loss programs is the Atkins diet or the low carb diet. As with any diet, when following the Atkins regimen, you will hit a diet plateau sooner or later.
If you realize that your scale is stuck at the same weight for weeks in a row, don’t worry. You may still be losing weight without knowing! How come? Most of the time, when hitting a low carb diet plateau, you continue losing fat. But your scale doesn’t budge an inch because you’re replacing fat with lean muscle tissue!
This process usually takes place especially if you combine the Atkins diet with rigorous exercise training. Therefore, without even noticing, you’re actually becoming thinner. If you want to check that, in fact, your Atkins diet plateau is not actually a stall, try on “skinny” clothes. You should definitely see some progress!
Diet Plateau Busters
But what do you do when you really hit a diet plateau? You go for some tried and tested diet plateau breakers! You start by assessing your current state: how many calories you eat, how much exercise you perform etc. Then decide on the necessary changes!
Effective diet plateau busters are, as a result, cutting more calories, and reinventing your exercise program. You may cut around 200 calories daily, and add an extra day of exercise (if you’re working out 3 days a week, you may decide to exercise 4 days a week!). If that seems a bit too much for you, then simply prolong your daily exercise routine by 15 to 30 minutes. Soon, your diet plateau will become a bad memory!
See also:6 Calorie Cuts for Quick Weight LossHow to Eat Less – Portion Control TipsHome Workout Fitness Tips
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