How I broke my plateau

2 weeks later and I hadn't lose or gained a single ounce...

I knew about plateaus and I was hoping it wouldn't happen to me this time around, but the plateau came sooner than expected. What is a plateau? Well, after about 2 months of losing weight, my weight simply wouldn't move. I was eating well (hadn't change anything about my diet), I worked out every single day, but nothing happened, no gains and no losses. For two weeks straight. Frustrating to say the least, especially being a slave to the scale, like I am.

I had taken pictures before and after those 2 weeks and saw a difference, I got smaller but damn it, why wasn't the scale moving?

I knew some tricks to break a plateau but I needed to refresh my mind and read up about it. There are a few reasons a plateau occurs:

1. You are not tracking calories and they are slowly sneaking back into your diet.
2. You are not eating enough; your body goes into starvation mode, storing all the fat, because it needs the fat for energy (as it is not getting any calories for energy).
3. Your body is getting used to the exercise routine. You're getting better at it, so your body is not challenged anymore.

I knew number one wasn't true, because I kept track of my calories all throughout those months. If anything, I was trying to limit my calories. That takes us to number two. Yes, guilty as charged... We always underestimate the amount of calories we need. There is something called your BMR, which is the amount of calories your body needs just to get through the day. We burn thousands of calories just by doing our daily activities.

So why has 1,200 calories become the norm for people that try to lose weight? Because it is a quick fix and we like to see fast results. Me being one of them, even though I knew better. But I also knew, that plateau is going to come and I will know why. I consumed between 1,200 and 1,300 calories on a daily basis. And that was easy for me, I was never hungry.

1,200 calorie diets were used in starvation studies. Scientists would put focus groups on 1,200 calorie diets to see what the effects were. Starvation. So when you stick to 1,200, at one point your body is going to go: "hey, feed me?" and if you don't, it'll go all "alright, bitch, I will hold on to your fat. Muahaha!" There is a more scientific explanation, but this blog is about keeping things simple.

So what did I do? I simply upped my calories. I know, terrible right? ;) I added 300 more calories. I also switched up my routine. I quit my 90 day program (on like, day 77) and decided to do Insanity - a program that challenged me more than the other program did. And lookey what happened - after 1 day of change, my weight dropped 1 whole kg (that is about 2,2 lbs!).

Breaking your plateaus is all about keeping your body guessing and feeding your body enough so your metabolism will keep going and you will burn fat along with the calories.