Tag Archives for " plateau "
November 29, 2021
- in solo show , weight loss by allan
How to restart your weight loss and fitness journey when you feel stuck
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From time to time, you might find yourself stuck, flat-footed. Getting restarted seems impossible. On episode 514 of the 40+ Fitness Podcast, we discuss how to restart your weight loss and fitness journey.
Transcript
SPONSOR
This episode of the 40+ Fitness Podcast is sponsored by Organifi.
Organifi is a line of organic superfood blends that offers plant based nutrition made with high quality ingredients. Each Organifi blend is science backed to craft the most effective doses with ingredients that are organic, free of fillers and contain less than 3g of sugar per serving. They won’t take you out of ketosis, if that’s your way of eating.
Your body is an amazing organic machine. The food we eat and drink is information for that machine. This includes adaptagens. These are compounds that balance hormones and help you deal with stress in a healthier way. If you’re feeling tired, these compounds give you a boost of energy. If you’re stressed, they help you return to a natural state of calm. They literally help you adapt to the stress of life.
This is why I’m a big fan of Organifi Green juice with essential superfoods and a clinical dose of Ashwaganda. It helps reduce stress and support healthy cortisol levels. It mixes well with water or your beverage of choice and it tastes awesome! This has become a part of my morning ritual.
Organifi offers the best tasting, high quality superfood beverages without breaking the bank. Each serving costs less than $3 per day. Easy, convenient, and cost effective.
Go to www.organifi.com/40plus and use code 40plus for 20% off your order. That's O R G A N I F I dot com forward slash 40plus and use code 40plus for 20% off any item.
SPONSOR
This episode of the 40+ Fitness Podcast is sponsored by Unidragon.
As the holidays approach, you might be looking for a unique gift that will entertain and delight. Unidragon has you covered. They make high-quality wooden puzzles. But these aren’t like regular puzzles with the standard style pieces. Their unique design is something I’ve never seen before. They’re works of art.
We all know that as we age, we risk a loss of cognitive strength. But with neuroplasticity, we can train our brain and slow decline. Puzzles do just that. Plus these beautiful puzzles are something you can do with the whole family, be it your significant other or your grandchildren.
Each month, Unidragon comes out with a new design. And most of them have multiple levels of depth and difficulty. These make great gifts, but you might just enjoy buying them for yourself.
I received the medium-sized Playful Parrots puzzle. It came a beautiful wooden box. You should have seen my wife’s eyes light up when she saw it. I fully expect to buy more of the Unidragon puzzles for ourselves and our guests.
You have to check them out at unidragon.com and use the promo code 40plus to get 10% off your order. Gift giving problem solved. That’s U N I D R A G O N dot COM and 4 0 P L U S for 10% off.
Let's Say Hello
Rachel was out this week, so we don't have a pre-show hello. She will be back next week.
Episode
Every once in a while, you might find yourself flat-footed without intending to. You've stopped moving. In fact, you might be letting some old habits return. Now this is a little different than a plateau. In a plateau, you're still doing the things that were working. They've just stopped working. But now you're standing there flat-footed and maybe not doing everything that you were doing. And it becomes sort of this feeling of inertia. It seems really hard to push forward and you just feel stuck.
So now this term inertia that I'm using is a kind of a term out of motion. It means motion, and it means no motion. So it's Newton's first law, and it basically says an object in motion tends to stay in motion, and an object at rest tends to stay at rest. And you probably feel this when you're in a car. If you hit the brakes in the car, you don't just stop there's. This tendency for the car to go forward a little bit further until it finally comes to a stop.
And the same is true. If you're sitting still, you have to give it a little more gas, a little bit more RPMs revolutions per minute to get the car moving. Now, once it gets up to a cruising speed, the rpm is dropped back down and you find a comfortable thing because you're not trying to accelerate with the gas and you're not trying to decelerate with the brakes. So realize the braking and the accelerating are kind of giving you the concepts of inertia. And then there's just sometimes you just feel like you're just parked.
You may not put your car in park. You may not think you're in park, but you're basically either in neutral sitting there or you're in park. In either case, you're not going anywhere. So I want to talk about today three things that you can do to get moving again to get going again. These are don't wait, start small and then lean into your strengths. So let's start with the first one. Don't wait. So I want to show of hands who's ever said I will start my diet or I will start my workout program on Monday, or I'll start my program on the first of next month.
It's a fairly common thing, and we see people doing it with New Year's resolutions all the time. I'll start my diet on January 1. I'll start getting in shape on January 1. It's a very common thing. So how many days are there between now and then? What you may be doing is not only that you're going to be sitting still for those number of days you might actually be creating inertia because you start moving backwards, and it's the same problem. An object in motion going backwards tends to stay in motion.
So the longer you wait, the less likely you are to be successful waiting till Monday. Waiting till the first never a good strategy. Now, a lot of times we do this because we think we need to go big. We think I'm going to have to completely cut out everything and do everything at once and that holds us back. That puts that procrastination in there because we want to steal ourselves and it will be easier for me to steal myself on Monday and do this. It will be easier for me to motivate myself over the weekend and through the rest of the month and then start on the first.
We approach them that way because we think we need this huge change, which takes me to the second point.
SPONSOR
This episode of the 40+ Fitness Podcast is sponsored by Organifi.
Organifi is a line of organic superfood blends that offers plant based nutrition made with high quality ingredients. Each Organifi blend is science backed to craft the most effective doses with ingredients that are organic, free of fillers and contain less than 3g of sugar per serving.
In our 24/7 always on world, going without sleep seems to carry a badge of honor. But that’s not how your body sees it. Sleep is when all the wonderful things happen inside your body. Hormones reset, and healing and restoration happens. You know how much better you feel after a good night’s sleep. Getting good quality sleep is a priority for me
This is why I’m a big fan of Organifi Gold juice with ingredients like Tumeric, Reishi Mushroom, and ginger, it’s designed to support rest, relaxation, recovery, and repair. It’s a delicious and nutritious warm, golden tea. I use water, but you can also use milk or a milk alternative. This has become a part of my evening wind-down.
Organifi offers the best tasting, high quality superfood beverages without breaking the bank. Each serving costs less than $3 per day. Easy, convenient, and cost effective.
Go to www.organifi.com/40plus and use code 40plus for 20% off your order. That's O R G A N I F I dot com forward slash 40plus and use code 40plus for 20% off any item.
Okay. The same works for rock slides. One single rock moves and that one single rock starts the rock slide. That can be huge. So which rock is it for you? What is one small thing that you can do today? Or better yet, right now that will get things moving. Perhaps you just need to stand up and walk around for a few minutes right now. If you can do it, you're listening to this and you're not already moving. Consider it. Stand up and walk around. It's one small thing.
Maybe you can get yourself a glass of water next time you want to go for a soft drink. So you go to the machine. You're like, I should really just get a glass of water and you get a glass of water and you cut out one small thing, that's soft drink, which was probably 39 grams of sugar and calories you didn't need because they're not nutritious. They're not helping you. Or maybe when you go out instead of going out to eat or getting your lunch, you can pick up at the grocery store.
So you give them a call and say, okay, I want to order a rotisserie chicken, some veggies, a prerossed salad. And rather than doing pizza night or calling a restaurant or going to a restaurant, I'm going to go buy the grocery store and pick up those things. And that's going to be our dinner. This is not like you're trying to completely change the world at once. You're just trying to make one small movement. That small movement, though, creates the next movement. That glass of water becomes the habit of drinking enough water every day where you stay hydrated and you're not always maybe confusing thirst with hunger.
Perhaps that getting up and walking around gets you more comfortable to say, I can walk a lot more while I'm trying to do other things like listen to a podcast or take a phone call or whatever, and then the picking the food and saying, no, I'm not going to go to the restaurant because it's easy because I didn't do what I needed to do. I'm going to go do a better choice. When I go in, I'm going to go to the deli. I'm going to find better food.
I'm going to go to the produce section, find better food, and I'm going to make better decisions as I go so that I'm not backtracking so that I'm not stuck. So it's this little small thing that can get the ball rolling or the rock sliding that's going to have a big payoff later. So look for the little things just to get the ball rolling later on. You can take that big leap of your big rocks and say, okay, now we're moving now. I can take on a big rock.
Okay. And then the third thing that I want to talk about here is leaning into your strengths. Most of us have this idea that improving our health and fitness involves eliminating something. I have to get rid of sweets. I have to get rid of soft drinks. I have to stop my sedentary lifestyle and not be watching Netflix all the time and doing those other things. And I'm not going to say that can't be a part of your solution. But if you're finding yourself flat footed, that might not be the best strategy.
The easiest and quickest way to get things moving is to do something you know you can do and that you enjoy. So it's a strength and maybe even a superpower, because if you know you enjoy walking and you can do it, just blocking out a little bit of time each day to take a short walk. Okay. We talked about in Tip two something little. It can be a short walk, but just something to get you started. And if you enjoy it all the better. Another example is maybe you enjoy dancing.
And so you say, okay, I really enjoy dancing, but I don't want to go out to the clubs and bars or whatever and do the dancing there, because then there's the alcohol and the friends and everything else. So maybe you go ahead and take a dance class so you can learn more complex techniques in your two step. I don't know. Or you just find some fitness class, like maybe a Zumba class or something like that that incorporates dance and music and you're moving. And so you know, you enjoy it.
You know, you're going to enjoy doing it and you're getting the fitness benefits, the health benefits of doing something or then another one. And this one fits me to a tea. Is I really like cooking. I like cooking big meals. I like cooking things and putting them together. So just sitting down and having a batch cooking session, invite a friend over, say, okay, look, you bring park the groceries, I bring park the groceries. We do a huge batch cooking together. You take half of it, I take half of it, and we've got meals for days.
Okay. It's tying into something that you enjoy, it's tying into something you're good at, it's tying into something that you know you can do. And so it's a strength, maybe even a superpower. And you're just going to lean into that.
SPONSOR
This episode of the 40+ Fitness Podcast is sponsored by Unidragon.
As the holidays approach, you might be looking for a unique gift that will entertain and delight. Unidragon has you covered. They make high quality wooden puzzles. But these aren’t like regular puzzles with the standard style pieces. Their unique design is something I’ve never seen before. They’re works of art.
We all know that as we age, we risk a loss of cognitive strength. But with neuro-plasticity, we can train our brain and slow decline. Puzzles do just that. Plus these beautiful puzzles are something you can do with the whole family, be it your significant other or your grandchildren.
Each month, Unidragon comes out with a new design. And most of them have multiple levels of depth and difficulty. These make great gifts, but you might just enjoy buying them for yourself.
I received the medium-sized Playful Parrots puzzle. It came a beautiful wooden box. You should have seen my wife’s eyes light up when she saw it. I fully expect to buy more of the Unidragon puzzles for ourselves and our guests.
You have to check them out at unidragon.com and use the promo code 40plus to get 10% off your order. Gift giving problem solved. That’s U N I D R A G O N dot COM and 4 0 P L U S for 10% off.
So I know this is a relatively short episode, but this is not a hard thing.
If you can get your mindset around it is that being stuck doesn't mean you're always stuck. Notice that Newton didn't say an object at rest can never be moved, or an object moving can never be stopped. It's just a function that it feels harder. There's an inertia. There's something pulling it or keeping it. And so what you can do within your power today is one start, two, start small, and three start with something. Do something that you enjoy and that you're good at because it'll be easier.
All those little, easy things gets the first rock going, gets the little bit going. And so if you find yourself flat-footed, you've lost your momentum. You feel like you're standing up. Don't beat yourself up. We all get into this place. This happens to every one of us. Every one of us will find ourselves at one point or another, not making the progress that we think we should make. And when we really are honest with ourselves, we know we're not putting in the same effort the same time, the same everything we were doing before we've let some things creep back in, and that's what slowed us down.
That's what eventually left us in this flat footed place. So don't beat yourself up. But know that this is within your power to stop, to start, not stop because you did stop. Let's start. Don't wait. Start small and lean into your strengths. Find something that will get you jumpstarted. Just that one little thing. Do it. Do it now and enjoy it. And that's going to be the thing that gets things rolling. Once you get them rolling, it's easier to keep them rolling. And that's what you do next.
But the first step is the first little rock. Just get it going.
Post Show/Recap
[00:18:30.090] – Allan
Hey, Raz.
[00:18:31.180] – Rachel
Hey, Allan. I really feel the inertia a lot, because sometimes it is hard to get going. And I've been stuck at a plateau. I feel like I've spun my wheels. It's just hard to make a pivot to get moving again. I really feel for people that have this issue.
[00:18:53.730] – Allan
Yeah. And I do want to go back and just kind of delineate the difference between a plateau because the plateau is hugely frustrating because you're saying I was eating this, my TEE says this and that and I'm logging everything and I'm measuring everything. And I'm doing the exercise and every day the numbers on the computer, the app I'm using are saying I should be losing 1 pound a week and I get to the end of the week and I didn't lose anything. And then I got to the end of the next week and I didn't lose anything and you're like, but I'm doing everything right.
[00:19:30.310] – Allan
And it was working so well. And now it's not. And that's just homeostasis. That's just our bodies adapting to what we're doing. So that's a very different thing to be hugely frustrating. And I've talked about plateaus before, so you can go back and you can kind of search and see if there's some shows there. Obviously, I will keep talking about plateaus because we all face them.
[00:19:54.400] – Allan
This is something slightly different. This is where you kind of just get a funk and, you know, you let up, you know, you're not putting on the gas as we talked to Delatoro. You know, you put the car in park or maybe now even into reverse. And so as you're making these decisions and you're doing these things now you have a harder start because you've put yourself in a stopped position.
[00:20:24.160] – Rachel
Yeah. Well, it's hard not to give up. It's hard not to see that progress and get so frustrated that you just what else are you going to do? Obviously, it is what it is and you just want to quit. But it's important that you don't. And it's important that you keep trying and do something different.
[00:20:44.830] – Rachel
But like the three tips that you offered to get out of this funk and to get out of this stopped/parked space. I think the first one is don't wait like you had mentioned. And don't wait till January 1 or Monday, but just do something get started somehow.
[00:21:02.150] – Allan
Yeah. I mean, this episode comes out on a Monday. This episode comes out on Monday 29th. If you're going to wait until Monday, that's a whole week if you're going to wait until January 1, that's 33 days.
[00:21:15.310] – Rachel
Yeah.
[00:21:16.060] – Allan
If you're listing this on the Monday it came out. And so you're just going to give away a month now if you think about it. Yeah. We have 70 years, maybe on average or maybe 80 years on average on this Earth. And then there's twelve times that. So it seems like a lot of months. But the distance between you right now and that 80 years is not that far, not as far, times twelve still seems like a relatively big number. But why give away an entire month?
[00:21:50.010] – Allan
Start something now and the easiest way to start something now is based on the other two tips of something small.
[00:21:57.770] – Rachel
Yes. Like you had mentioned replacing one glass of pop with a glass of water. I mean, you don't have to throw out your whole pantry.
[00:22:06.090]
I didn't call it pop, but…
[00:22:14.350] – Rachel
I'm a pop girl. So we stayed up here in Michigan. But if you just make that one change, some people just want to go cold turkey, throw out all the junk food out of the pantry in the refrigerator, which breaks my financial heart a little bit. But instead of just going cold turkey and just revamping everything and making it such a drastic situation, just start with one thing. I think baby steps are far more effective than going cold turkey and making some drastic change.
[00:22:45.570] – Allan
Yeah. And those little habits stack pretty quickly, you realize? Okay. I went a couple of days without my Pepsi or without my Coke or Mountain Dew or Doctor Pepper or whatever. Your thing is a monster drink.
[00:23:02.110] – Rachel
No. Please don't.
[00:23:04.810] – Allan
So you do without that, you cut out 39 grams of sugar or maybe more per day. That's a big deal. And if you're drinking more than one and now you're drinking none, that's even bigger. And so you start moving down that trail, and then the next step is like, okay, what else? And that's where, again, leaning into something you're really strong at.
[00:23:35.120] – Allan
It's like, I really like playing tennis. Now, maybe at this point, you don't feel confident that you can go get on the tennis court and play. But you could get your tennis racket out and you could go and typically by tennis courts they have the practice walls with the line straw on the concrete. And you literally just sit there and just take the racket, take the ball and just start hitting the ball and jogging around a little bit, hitting the ball and just get into the act of moving. And it feels good. And it's something you love and it's coming back.
[00:24:07.740] – Allan
And now, you know, okay. If I can build up my stamina, then I'm going to be able to get back on the court. If I build up some strength, I'm going to get better. If I build up my speed, I'm going to get even better. If I help build my agility, I'm going to be able to play this sport. And you see it. You go out there and it's like a lot of younger people do play singles. And then some of the older people I noticed they tend to move to doubles or mixed doubles. And then as they get a little bit older, there's pickleball. So I've never played pickleball.
[00:24:42.250] – Rachel
I haven't either. But it does look very fun.
[00:24:44.970] – Allan
Yeah. And it was sort of when I was a kid, they had a golf team on the high school. And it's like, Why would I play an old man sport? Because to me, golf was an old man sport. When I was in high school, I'm like, I'm going to play football, baseball, whatever, and run track and tennis. And so I felt like I'm going to play these more aggressive sports. And then, yeah, now if we had a golf course, I would probably be playing a lot of golf.
[00:25:11.530] – Allan
But it's just one of those things of saying if there's something you really enjoy doing, you might not be doing it at the level you did 20 years ago, but doesn't mean you can't do it at some level, right? Even again, if it's just going out there and doing some practice serves and hitting the ball against the wall and just getting out and being active. Doing something you really enjoy doin
[00:25:35.770] – Rachel
That's exactly it you hit it right on the nose is finding what you love to do and embracing that and finding ways to do it. You had mentioned dancing and cooking, and I know that at my local YMCA, there are drop in classes where you could just take some yoga class or a cardio kickboxing class or something crazy.
[00:25:57.870] – Rachel
Why not try something new? Why not try something you've never done before because you might like it. And then on the other days, you had mentioned walking, if all you do is walk around your block, make it two times around the block or take a walking trip up to the grocery store or the coffee shop like I like to do almost every day.
[00:26:16.990] – Rachel
But as long as you're out moving, that is such a huge thing. And if you start moving now, you're 30 days or so ahead of the game, when New Year's resolutions roll around.
[00:26:28.750] – Allan
And if you're just not feeling it because there's a reason why you probably feel this inertia, there's a reason why you got held back. And now you're in park and to get past that is sometimes as a mental game, but just say, give it five minutes, put on your tennis shoes, put on some comfortable clothes, get out there and just go for five minutes. After five minutes, you're not feeling it. Then come back, shower and you're done even if you didn't bother to sweat. But shower and move on.
[00:27:00.760] – Allan
But most people will find five minutes is easily ten minutes is easily 15. And then you feel like you've actually accomplished something. And then the next day it's easy 15, and then it's 20. Then it's 30, and then you're out 45 minutes, and that's kind of the allotted time you have. So now you're walking a little bit further, a little bit faster. And those are the kind of things that snowball, the rock slide. It's just to get something small going, even if it's just the five minutes, walking is easy. Do it someplace that you love. So you're kind of doing all three.
[00:27:34.500] – Allan
You're not doing it. Now you're doing something small and you're doing something you enjoy, and that just builds on itself.
[00:27:40.960] – Rachel
I think that's absolutely perfect. Those are great tips.
[00:27:44.650] – Allan
All right. Well, Rachel, I will see you and everybody else next week.
[00:27:49.640] – Rachel
Take care.
[00:27:50.690] – Allan
You too.
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Thank you!
Another episode you may enjoy
Less...
Breaking a Weight Loss Plateau
Patreons
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- Judy Murphy
Thank you!
I entitled today’s show “Breaking a Weight Loss Plateau”, but the lessons that I’m going to teach you today can actually be used for any plateau that you’re on, whether it’s a plateau on strength, on mass-building, on losing weight, or even a plateau on improving your diet, because every one of those things ends up in a plateau. I use an acronym called POPP, and I’m going to discuss that and show you how each element of POPP will help you pop your plateau. Let’s first start out with why we end up in plateaus.
It’s one of those things where we’ll start a diet, we’ll change some things and almost immediately we’ll see some reward, some benefit from making that change. I know when I cycle back into ketosis, literally I could lose six pounds overnight. It happens time and time again. If I’m a little bloated, a little inflamed, haven’t been taking care of myself or eating as well as I need to, I start that low-carb, and the next day the weight just washes out of me. I know a lot of that’s water. I have the head to know what’s actual fat loss and what’s just water loss. So I’m not getting all crazy about it, but there is going to be a point, even when you’re doing ketosis, where you are going to plateau. I know a lot of people think, “I’m losing 15 pounds a month. I want to stay in ketosis, but if I keep losing 15 pounds a month, I’m going to dwindle down to nothing.” That’s never going to happen, because your body is really, really smart. It does this thing called “homeostasis”.
Homeostasis is basically balance. It’s a fancy word that scientists like to use and it just means they balance out. So, you’ve gotten your body used to eating a certain amount of food or a certain type of food. Your body has adapted. It’s been using body fat for a while, but then it says, “We’re in a long-term bit of famine here. We’re not getting as many calories as we’re burning. We’re getting some great fat and we’re feeling full. Things are good, the nutrition is great. I don’t need anymore, so I’m not going to be hungry just for the sake of being hungry.” And then your body says, “Let’s stop shedding this body fat, because we kind of like it. We’re going to stay here.”
That’s what I call your body’s “happy weight”. It’s not your happy weight necessarily, but your body is happy with it. So, how do we break this weight loss plateau, or any plateau? That’s where the acronym POPP comes in. So POPP stands for Patience, Other measures, Persistence, and Progression. And I’m going to take a few minutes here to unwrap what each of those means and how you can use each of these and all of these to help you break this plateau.
The first one is patience. You knew this was coming. I’ve taught you already that homeostasis is just something that’s going to happen. It’s going to be there. So, just know that the journey to wellness is ever going. It’s your entire life. You’re always going to be in this mode. The first thing I hope that you haven’t done is that you haven’t looked at this whole process as temporary, as, “I’m going to go on a diet, and then I’m done.” Really to take care of your health for the long term, to include weight loss, which is really a side effect of living a healthy lifestyle.
That’s exactly what you want to do – you want to make it a lifestyle. Is this a way that you can live your life going forward? So, with the patience aspect of this, start exploring the things that are serving you and what are the things that maybe aren’t serving you. This is truly a good lifestyle that you want to maintain. As long as you’re maintaining a healthy lifestyle, then you use patience to say, “I know this is working. I know that I’m doing the right things for my body. If my body is at its happy weight at this point, maybe for the time being I need to be happy with that and accept that this is a long-term process. And over time I’ll probably see some progress, but I’m not going to see it at the rate I was perhaps expecting to.”
So, patience comes in regardless of how you look at plateaus, regardless of what you want to do about a plateau. You just have to recognize you’re going to have one now, you’ll probably have another one later, and another one after that, and another one after that. Before you get to your happy weight, your body’s going to find several of its own set points, its own happy weight, so just recognize this is a part of the game, a part of life. Make your eating choices, your workouts and everything you’re doing – make it lifestyle, make it sustainable for the long term, and you’ll see the benefits over time.
Now, that takes us to other measures. If I am looking at taking care of my health, then I’m going to see improvements elsewhere. So, maybe my skin looks a lot better, maybe your hair looks a lot healthier. Maybe some things that were happening to you before – you maybe had some eczema or irritable bowel problems, other things going on in your life that were making you uncomfortable and unhappy – and now because you’ve made a lifestyle change, you’re starting to feel a lot better there.
Maybe your waist size is going down. If you have a waist size over 40, that’s a strong, strong, strong indicator, direct correlation that you probably are at risk of cardiovascular disease. If you continue to see your waist get smaller, you’re onto the right track. A lot of women will tell me they get into this whole thing, they want to lose weight because they know if they lose 25 pounds, they’ll be able to fit in that dress that’s two sizes smaller.
But sometimes they’re not losing the weight. How are your clothes fitting? They’re fitting better. Okay, you’re getting smaller.
So, you can fit in that dress. Maybe the weight you thought you needed to be isn’t the weight you need to be, because now you’re shedding fat and maybe putting on a little bit of muscle, or maybe now you’re fully hydrated and before you were dehydrated. So, we’re not dehydrated; we’re in a healthy state. We’re seeing a lot of other markers, other health measures, other things going great for us. Turning your focus away from the weight and focusing on these other measures – my waist size getting smaller, my skin looking good, getting good night’s sleep, and maybe I’m not having problems going to the bathroom. All of those things matter. They add to the quality of our life.
Focusing a little bit more on these other health measures that are going your way will let you know that you’re on the right track. That goes back to patience. That’s going to feed your patience, because it’s going to say, “It’s working. I can’t get tied up on what that scale is saying to me right now. If my body’s at a happy weight, but other things are going good for me, I need to take that and accept that and understand this lifestyle is working. So I need to stick with it.”
The next one is persistence, and that’s the “stick with it” part. Sometimes it’s very easy to sit there and say, “This isn’t going to work. It stopped. I’ve lost it.” And many people do. They get frustrated and they regress. So, the persistence aspect of this is to keep going. It’s to not let yourself get deflated that things aren’t going exactly the way you want them to. It’s continuing to do your batch cooking on Sundays, it’s continuing to do your 30 minute walks each morning.
Maybe it’s continuing to keep your sugars as low as you possibly can and making sure that you’re drinking plenty of water. All of these healthy lifestyle changes that you’ve made that are now habits – you just need to be persistent and keep doing them, because they are working. If you’re looking at these other measures and you’re seeing improvement from where you were – that’s work. That’s good stuff. That’s what a healthy lifestyle will do for you, so keep persistently pursuing good health, wellness. Wellness is health, fitness and happiness. So, be looking for joy, be looking for the things that are going to help you. That’s the persistence of constantly taking this and going and moving and doing. Stay persistent in the battle, because it’s working.
And then the final P is progression. We talk about progression a lot when we’re looking at training, exercise, because we say, “I’m going to add an extra five pounds to my squat” or, “I’m going to add an extra 15 minutes to my walk” or, “I’m going to try to run a little bit faster, so my progression is to try to increase my speed.” All of these different progressions basically mean you’re adding a little bit more effort. Typically in training, like I said, it works out as volume. The way we explain it as trainers is your training volume increases, either because you’re working out longer, you’re adding more training sessions, or you’re adding more weight.
Whatever’s making that resistance harder, you’re doing more of that. So, progression is the adding more, and it needs to be done gradually. If you’re doing gradual progression on all the training things you’re doing, it’s time to maybe think about a progression for your food.
And here’s how that looks. It’s an approach I take when I go off of what I call my “seasonal feasting period”. And we’re just now about to roll out of that because we’re approaching Thanksgiving. Thanksgiving and Christmas end up being my feasting period. I’m in my feasting period, so what’s going to happen is I’m going to get into the new year and I’m going to say, “Not a special birthday; I don’t have to worry about it. This year coming up in February.
So now it’s time for me to go in my famine mode.” I’ll start into my famine mode with a very set approach of really, really low-carb, but the foods I like. I make sure I’m now doing my batch cooking and the different things I need to do to make sure I stay on plan. And then I start to shed the body fat. I’ll get to a point where the amount of fat I’m eating and the total calories I’m eating, I plateau. Like you, I will plateau. Now, I am much more focused on trying to add muscle and I’m much more focused on trying to lose fat. I might actually see my weight go up. So my measurement is not weight loss, but it’s the same concept – I’m trying to change my body composition.
Then I need to progress. And what that means to me is, I need to reduce my calories. What I’ll typically do is I will look to my percentages. I’m already fairly low-carb, so typically less than 20 net grams when I start. I look at my protein, and if my protein is where I need it to be and my carbs are where they need to be, then I slowly start trying to reduce the amount of fat in my daily intake. So I may cut another 100 calories off of my daily intake from where I was. Maybe I started at 2,100 calories and I’m going, going, going. I know I’m exercising, I’m going eat back some of those calories. On a given day, I might be eating 3,000 calories. If I had a really tough cardiovascular workout and burned 700-800 calories, I’ll eat those calories back. And then I’ll end up with maybe, like I said, close to 3,000 calories that day.
What’ll happen is I’ll say, “I need to tomorrow get it down to 2,900, or 100 less than what I would normally eat, plus what I would use.” That progression is just 100 calories. You shouldn’t think that 100 calories means that much, but 100 calories over the course of a year, is 10 pounds. So, it is a big number. It just doesn’t feel that big that day, because I’m not looking to say I’m cutting another 500, which I would typically then expect to see about a pound per week. My body’s going to plateau again really, really quickly. My energy levels, I’m not going to be able to do what I’m doing. For me, I just shave 100 off, and that 100 typically is enough for me to start seeing things moving a little bit more, not fast, but I see it, I feel it. It’s happening. That little bit of progression in my nutrition is typically enough to get me there.
The one thing I don’t sacrifice on or skimp on is, I still make sure I’m getting high-quality whole food, and I always try to make sure that I’m getting all of my nutrients. If I feel like my calorie load is not where it needs to be and I’m not eating as many carbs – so maybe I’m not getting as many vegetables or fruits – I may start taking a multivitamin supplement. I’ll probably start, because again, it’s typically in the early winter, late winter time period when I’m going through this plateau.
Often I’m not getting enough sun, so I’ll probably take a vitamin D supplement. I’m definitely taking some fish oil supplements and I’m calculating that as a function of my fat intake. As I look at all this, you can see I’m still making sure that I’m covered nutritionally. I’m only reducing a little bit of my fat calories and I’m trying to tell my body, “If you want that fat you enjoy, you’ve got to get it from the body. You’ve got to get it from me, because I’m not going to give it to you through my mouth.” And my body typically responds to that.
And now you wrap the whole POPP together, and it works like this: I’m patient enough to know that I can do this. I’m patient enough to know that my lifestyle is right and I just need to be there. I just need to have the patience to work with my body to get it where I want it to be – my happy place, not necessarily its happy place. I need to look at other measures to make sure that I’m on track with my health, and not just trying to chase after a single goal.
There was a time when I was training for a Spartan and I really wanted to be ready for that Spartan. So I was going to get stronger and I was working on my endurance. I had a strength coach; his name was Dave. And I was meeting Dave and my strength was just off the charts, going up. My deadlift when I started with Dave, was I think at 410. I was pulling 450-460 after about three months and I was like, “I could get to 500.” Suddenly I got this really, really focused mind on that singular thing, and I just started pushing. What happened was, my strength in my squat went down, my strength in my overhead press went down, and my strength in my bench press went down. My deadlift was going up, but some of the others were plateauing or stopping, and I just didn’t see it. Afterwards I looked at my journal and I was seeing over the course of a month 5% increase in strength in the deadlift, but I wasn’t seeing 5% in the other lifts, which told me I wasn’t balanced, I wasn’t focusing on the whole me. And I needed to be.
Unfortunately, during that period of time, that’s when I tore my shoulder – rotator cuff tore – so, some of the other exercises, like bench press, went down. I just dropped that. No overhead pressing. And I thought I’m still doing the deadlift, but after a while I realized I’m not there, I’m not going to make that 500. And I don’t need to be doing that 500, because now I need to be thinking about this Spartan race, and having a 500 pound deadlift is really not going to help me. I have a problem with my shoulder, and I need to make sure that I can get through this race without hurting myself any more than I need to. So, I got back on track. It took me a little while.
But you can’t get singularly focused on weight loss either. You need to be looking at these other health markers and making sure that they fit your life. Then there’s persistence, which means we should just stick to it. If you have good “stick to it-ivness”, you’ve made this a sustainable lifestyle, you now have the broad perspective of, you’re doing healthy things for yourself. That’s totally cool. Then you can sit down and have a basis for saying, “What’s the progression? If I really want to push myself out of this plateau, what are the things that I need to do to get out of that plateau?” So, you put all four of these together – POPP – Patience, Other measures, Persistence, and Progression, and now you have a model. You have a structure to approach every one of your plateaus with a plan – the last P here. So, have a plan. And that plan has to include POPP – Patience, Other measures, Persistence, and Progression.
The Wellness Roadmap is available now for pre-order. I’m offering it as a Kindle edition at a very, very steep discount price. You’re not going to get this book for this price after the pre-launch and the first few days of the launch. Once the book is live, I’m going to put the prices back up where they belong. But I’m basically giving the book to you. So if you’ll go to the Amazon page, look it up – it’s The Wellness Roadmap book, or you can look it up under my name, Allan Misner. You’ll find the book there.
The Kindle book edition is going to be as low as Amazon will let me put it, so basically as close to free as I could get it. I want it in your hands, and as soon as it goes live, you’ll be able to download it to your Kindle Reader. But I do ask one thing – once you’ve read the book, please do go give me an honest rating and review. Amazon loves those things. Amazon feeds off those things. Amazon will not show my book to anyone not looking for it, unless it sees these ratings and reviews are coming in, that people are seeing substance in the book.
All I ask is when you get the book and you’ve read it and you feel good about it, please do go out and give me an honest rating and review. It’s going to help propel the book and get it where it needs to be, which is in the hands and on the e-readers of people around the country and around the world.
Please do go to Amazon, look for the book The Wellness Roadmap, or search under my name, Allan Misner, and you’ll find the book there. Buy it at the steep, steep, steep discount. Like I said, it’s close to free as Amazon would let me put it. And then boom, there you go. Thank you for that.
Another episode you may enjoy
January 11, 2016
- in solo show , weight loss by julie
Dealing with weight loss plateaus
In a health and fitness journey, there is one certainty. At one point or another, progress will slow and a weight loss plateau may occur. You may be doing all the right things, but the weight has simply stopped coming off. Perhaps the number on the scale is ebbing and flowing. This can last for days, weeks, or even months in a weight loss plateau.
Do a self-evaluation. Evaluate the quality and quantity of your food. Did you stop eating well? Start doing your food logs again. Are you stressed? A cortisol response with stress could be causing your body to store fat. If you’re having trouble being objective, you may consider bringing in a coach for ideas on how to improve.
Don’t overlook the importance of progression and patience. Over time, you will see great progression. At first, you may see drastic improvements—big losses of body fat and advances in strength. But over time, your body will level out in this plateau. You may come out of a plateau, only to end up in another plateau yet again. This is normal. Your body is trying to find balance.
Make sure you’re looking at several different measurements, not just the number on the scale. Check out this free infographic, 7 Health and Fitness Measures That Matter, to consider some other measurements. If you’re not seeing progress in one area, chances are you will see progress in other areas.
The key is to focus on health first. Stay on the plan. Don’t panic and don’t quit. Continue to work on what is showing results, keep progressing, and tweak the plan as you go. Have the patience to stay the course and you will overcome this temporary weight loss plateau.
Music used for the podcast Intro and Outro: http://www.bensound.com/royalty-free-music