How to Break Through a Weight Loss Plateau

Few things are as frustrating as hitting a weight loss plateau. You’re doing all of the right exercises the right way, disciplining yourself to stay clean on your diet and cutting back on the amount of food you eat each day. Still, your weight on the scale won’t budge. If only you could figure out a way to restart your fat loss journey! Well, we’re here to help. In this article, we reveal the most common reasons that people get stuck on their weight loss journey and what you can do about it. 

Your Meals are Too Large
Instead of two to three large meals, you should be consuming 4-6 smaller more frequent meals per day. Smaller meals eaten every three hours accomplish the following:

• It provides a constant supply of nutrients such as amino acids to your muscle tissue throughout the day.

• It keeps down your insulin levels so you’re less likely to add body-fat.

• You don’t overload your body with a lot of extra calories that it doesn’t need and that will consequently be stored as excess body fat.

You’re Gaining Muscle
It’s important to focus on losing fat, and not just weight. If you’re exercising with weights at the same time that you are dieting, you could be gaining some muscle weight at the same time that you’re burning off unwanted fat pounds. The added muscle might be off-setting the pounds of fat that you’ve lost and the scale, consequently, not budging. That’s not necessarily a bad thing. Muscle tissue is metabolically more active than fat tissue. It’s also common knowledge that the more muscle you carry, the more fat you’ll burn, and the leaner you’ll look, regardless of how much you weigh. 


You’re Doing the Wrong Type of Cardio
If you are trying to lose weight by focusing on slow steady state cardio, it’s time to mix things up with high-intensity interval training (HIIT). HIIT training involves performing short bursts of high-intensity training followed by even shorter rest periods. This is repeated for a number of rounds. The original form of HIIT training was based on what is known as the Tabata protocol. 

The Tabata protocol involves doing an exercise at maximum training intensity for 20 seconds, followed by a 10 second rest. This is repeated 8 times. For example you might do 20 seconds of burpees, rest for 10 seconds and then repeat these sequences for a total of 8 rounds. 

High-Intensity Interval Training will not only burn a lot of calories during the workout, it also brings on what is known as the Enhanced Post Exercise Oxygen Consumption (EPOC) effect. This means that your body’s oxygen demand increases significantly for between 24-36 hours after your session so that you have higher metabolic demands. The result is that you will be burning more calories, even as you watch TV hours after your training session is over! 


You’re Not Supplementing Correctly
Once you’ve got the fat loss fundamentals mentioned above firmly in place, smart supplementation can fast track your path to getting lean. Smart supplementation means reaching for a formula that crushes your appetite and provides an energy boost without the jitters that come with too much caffeine. 


Summary
Losing body fat, as opposed to raw weight, consistently is a challenge. Try implementing our weight loss plateau hacks to keep the fat loss going.