You’ve been trying for days, weeks, months and nothing has changed? You have been doing everything correctly- nutrition, exercise, lifestyle but yet have been standing still- hit a plateau.
How frustrating, right?
If you are as impatient as me it can be very frustrating that things don’t happen overnight. Patience is definitely not my attribute. It can be discouraging when we set ourselves goals and they don’t happen overnight or the next day or the day after. First of all you need to look at whether you actually are doing things right.
And let’s be honest with ourselves. A lot of people change one thing: their exercise regime for example and expect that everything else falls into place. But at the same time you need to adjust your nutrition for your change or uptake in exercise.
My big tip if you have hit a plateau is: TRY SOMETHING DIFFERENT.
You’ve been doing a lot of cardio- do weights. You’ve been eating 3 meals but exercising 4-5 days/ week- eat more food. You’ve been eating dry starches like bread and pasta only- try swap them for wet starches like potatoes or rice. You’ve been working out 5 days a week but been drinking a lot of alcohol on the weekend – cut down to one night a week
So before you actually determine whether you’ve hit a real plateau or not; look at your nutrition, your lifestyle, your exercise first. Progress is not linear!
We cannot expect fat loss to be linear. Sometimes it happens quickly, then it seems to be the hardest thing in the world. There are so many factors that play a role e.g. your metabolism changes, you are more or less stressed etc. etc.
I also believe that plateaus are not a bad thing:
√ they make us reassess
√ look somewhere else
√ try different things
√ learn more about ourselves.
Look at it this way rather than stressing about not moving forward as quickly as you would like to.
Once you have your ultimate goal set in mind it is important to persist.
You may go two steps forward and one step back; most things in life work that way.
Keep the vision of your end goal in mind and persist.
Change one thing at a time, one step at a time towards where you want to be.
x
Nina Egenberger
Author