Plateaus

[Flir]

I'm curious how some of you deal with weight plateau's.
During my first diet, I had times when I was working my butt off, but the scales didn't budge.
I was told to judge your weight loss by your clothing sizes but sometimes that isn't enough. Are there any other ways you deal and stay motivated? I think the plateau helped to derail my goals last time, and I'm not going to let it happen again, so any ideas would be great!  

[StilettoReject]

I'm battling a 6 going on 7 month plateau right now. It's been hard and the rougher spots have out weighed the smoother ones, but just knowing that I will one day be where I want to be has kept me going. :]

 

[Flir]

Well, I decided to take Groovy Spleen's advice and check out sparkpeople, and I searched around and found their advice for getting though Plateaus so I thought I'd share.
A Plateau is:

Quote:

If you’ve been exercising and cutting calories for several weeks, and you’re no longer seeing the same results that you experienced in the beginning, then you’ve probably hit a plateau. This occurs when your progress comes to a standstill, and can be described as not making any “gains” (such as improving your fitness level or losing weight), but not necessarily moving backward (losing endurance or gaining weight).

As far as I've read here is what I've learned to help you though the hard times. 3nodding

First, make sure you're eating at least 1200 calories a day, if you aren't your body will think it's starving so it will actually hang on to the calories, making it much harder to lose weight. gonk
Make sure your drinking enough water not only does it hydrate you but it helps you build muscle and power your metabolisim. If your dehydrated it promotes the breaking down of muscle.
Have a well balanced snack after you work out, not only will it help you refuel but it will keep you from being hungry.

Second, be sure you are getting enough rest, and not just your regular 8 hours a night. Your muscles need rest after being worked, 1 to 2 days at least, enough for them to stop being sore. If you don't let them rest, instead of getting stronger, you will actually get weaker. eek
On the day's you don't work your muscles hard, it's suppose to be benifical to do lighter intensity exersize such as walking and streching. It also is suppose to help your soreness go away faster, so you can get to the higher impact stuff faster.

Lastly, switch up your exersizes. Your muscles become use to the regular activities and changing up your routine will keep your muscles working, you interested, burn more calories and help you build more lean muscle.
For cardio you can change the type of exersizes you do, the duration and the intensity.
For strength training, change the mode (free weights to machines or vice versa), change the exersizes you do, change your resistance level or amount of repititions.

I'll continue to research this and post what I learn. I hope this helps others as well as myself!  

[StilettoReject]

What's your username for SP?

Mine's Phantasmagorie :3

 

[Flir]

It's Alkalyne.
I'm just starting with it so i'm not sure how to work everything yet. ^^;  

[StilettoReject]

Iiii'm going to add you x3