How To Bust Through A Weight Loss Plateau

Are you experiencing a weight loss plateau? Read this article to learn how you can start losing weight again.

So you have lost a significant amount of weight then all of a sudden you stopped losing weight. You’ve evaluated your nutrition and exercise habits to see if there was something you were not doing right, but everything looked okay.

Welcome to a weight loss plateau, the most dreaded place for Fit Friends.

But you don’t need to panic because there is a way out. Stay with me, and I’ll show how to bust through the plateau.

First, let’s talk about the potential causes, and after that, we’ll talk about the solutions.

The three potential causes of a weight loss plateau

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3 Ways Your Mind Can Help You Lose Weight

As humans, we are always faced with many choices, but how we respond to the choices we face is what determines the outcome we get. When it comes to weight loss, some people only focus on the nutrition and the fitness part things. But food and fitness decisions are not always made in isolation, the mind plays a role in the decision-making process.

In this article, I share the three ways your mind can help you lose weight.

Three ways your mind can help you lose weight

Don’t do what comes naturally to you

We all have our default responses to things. Your default response is how you react to a stimulus or a trigger. It is your first choice of action when you are faced with a particular situation. It is what comes naturally to you.

For example, if you like akara and Agege bread, there are chances that you’d stop to buy anytime you drive, or walk by the akara seller. Why is that? Because that is your default response.

When your eyes see the akara, a thought flashes in your mind that says “I want to eat!” If you react by default, you are going to buy and eat to satisfy the urge. And 15-20 minutes later you’ll regret your actions and feel bad, and depressed that you have lost it again. Sounds familiar?

A better way to deal with the situation is to choose your response. When the stimulus (akara and bread) is pressing your button, DO NOT DO WHAT COMES NATURALLY TO YOU. Exercise control for a few seconds and follow the next tip.

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How To Turn A Negative Experience Into An Advantage

Our experiences influence our beliefs. That is why one negative experience can shape your perceptions about a thing forever. Let me illustrate by sharing a personal story.

I had a terrible experience with a particular fish when I was about 12 years old. I can’t remember the name of the fish again, but I had a horrible stomach upset after eating that fish, the pain was so bad it scared me from eating fresh fish.

Before that experience, I could eat any fish whichever way my mother cooked it. But after that one experience, I stayed away from fresh fish.

Don’t allow a negative experience from the past prevent you from trying new things

My childhood experience with fresh fish is an example of how just one unpleasant experience can create fear in us and stop us from trying new experiences. If your past experiences with weight loss programmes have not been very positive, they will influence your perceptions about nutrition and fitness, and if you have had positive experiences with weight loss programmes, they will reinforce your commitment to nutrition and fitness.

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You Don’t Need Exercise To Lose Weight

Truth moment…You don’t need exercise to lose weight!

When some people think of exercise, the first thing that comes to their minds is weight loss. Somehow they have come to believe that exercise is something you do when you want to lose weight.

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How To Overcome Food Temptations

You see a picture of what you desire your body to look, and the first thing that comes to your mind is, “this could be me, but my relationship with food is sabotaging my effort.”

Everyone faces food temptations. Once in a while, a healthy eater will find herself faced with bad food choices.  Some people believe that fitness/health coaches have superhuman powers that keep them immune to food temptations. They assume we eat perfect 100% of the time. That assumption is far from the truth. It happens to all of us.

For most people, exercising 4-6 days a week is not a challenge. In fact, some of us can work out for Africa. But as the saying goes “you cannot out-exercise a bad diet.”

You can live in the gym if we like, but if you keep falling flat on the food side of the equation, it’s going to be hard to reach your weight loss goal.

How To Overcome Food Temptations

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This May Be The Reason You Are Not Losing Weight -Part 2

Exercise is just one part of the weight loss equation. What you eat and how much you eat are important too.

Consider this typical scenario: you got serious with exercise because they told you it would help you lose weight. But after 30 days of continuous, and sometimes gruelling workouts, you haven’t noticed any change. In fact, the scale has just shown that you have added some kilos.

In part one of this series, I explained what you should do to maximise the benefits you get from your exercise program. In this concluding part, we will look at the food part of the weight loss equation because this is where many people get it wrong.

Let’s dive into it!

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This May Be The Reason You Are Not Losing Weight

Not losing weight at the rate you have expected can be discouraging. You are exercising and eating right (at least to the best of your knowledge), but the scale isn’t moving. Or worse still, the number on the scale is going up. Why are you gaining weight instead of losing weight? Why is your effort not yielding results?  Should you continue with the “eat less, move more” advice?

I have mentioned this in some of my posts but I think it’s worth mentioning again, the fact that you exercise doesn’t mean you’re going to lose weight. Think about it, if losing weight is only as a result of exercise training, then many elite athletes should be underweight.

A lot of people who are trying to lose weight are not getting the energy balance equation right. Some people think they don’t eat much, but when you sit down to evaluate their eating habits, you will realise they are eating more than they think.

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How To Reach Your Weight Loss Goal

Arriving at our destinations in life requires that we know exactly where we are going. That is why experts always advise us to set goals.

Goals are like a compass; they point us in the direction we need to go. Our goals inform our actions and determine our associations. But as important as having a goal is, it can also become a trap if the goal is too intimidating and seems far out of our reach.

When it comes to reaching your weight loss goal, you have to be willing to take baby steps. Many of us want to make giant strides, but life’s successes are in the small victories we win daily.

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