How To Fix A Fat Loss Plateau

Can you relate to the following???

It’s been a couple months of going strong with your workouts 4-5x/ week, nutrition is dialed in since you have cut calories to down to 1,200/ day, you drink lots of water, get enough sleep, yet your results have STOPPED…

“Maybe it is just a phase” you think. So you stay the course and after another month, there has been no change. SUPER FRUSTRATING RIGHT???

Have  you ever experienced this or are you currently experiencing this?

Where no matter what you do, it seems your results have stopped??

The good news is that this is a common issue that can be easily fixed. I’ll explain why it happens along with what you need to do to fix it.

First, if we haven’t officially met, my name is Benjamin Jones and I am the owner of Fit Body Boot Camp Arizona where we have helped 1,000’s of our clients break fat loss plateau’s. I went to college to be a dietitian receiving my bachelors in Dietetics and Nutrition with pre-med emphasis from Arizona State University (Go Sundevils!) and hold multiple personal training certifications.

Post college I was working in oncology genetics and have further specialized in hormonal bio-hacking through nutritional therapies to help our clients see unbelievable results.

Before I tell you HOW to break your plateau, you need to see a handful of our Arizona clients from Gilbert, Mesa, Queen Creek, and Tempe that have achieved amazing results doing what I’m about to teach you.

 

Pretty amazing transformations right???

These are just a few of our clients who have used the strategies I’m about to discuss to help you break through your plateau. The reason I show these is that I need you to know that this works since the strategies I’m about to share might seem counter- intuitive.

HOW TO BREAK YOUR FAT LOSS PLATEAU

First, understand that your body is an AMAZING machine that is constantly adapting to it’s environment and stimuli. This is important to understand because we are either growing or going backwards… there really is no maintaining.

In order to keep your body adapting and changing, it is important that you KEEP CHANGING WHAT YOU DO!!

Plateau’s happen when you keep doing the same thing in your workouts and nutrition because your body has adapted and is no longer responding to that stimuli!!!

Think about it like this. For fat loss, if you cut your calories to 1,200 calories per day as a woman, you will lose weight! However, after about 6-8 weeks your body adapts to this decreased amount of calories and goes into a kind of starvation mode.

While in this mode, your body does everything it can to hang onto fat reserves and try’s to burn muscle as fuel since muscle consumes much more calories than fat.

This is why after being on a long term calorie restricted diet, you body hits a plateau!

It is the same thing with your workouts… If you constantly use the same weight’s, go at the same pace, and don’t challenge/ push yourself, your body will adapt and stop responding.

So if you’re having issues with any of the above, follow the below 4x steps to break your plateau. 

1. METABOLIC RESET: As mentioned above, if you have been in a long term caloric restriction, your body has adapted to this and gone into a semi-starvation mode. In order to fix this, you need to increase your calories to at least your Basal Metabolic Rate (BMR)  which for most women will be around 1,500-2,000 calories per day. Once you have increased your calories to your BMR, stay here for a week.

Then, on the next week increase your carbs by 100 calories (25g of carbs). Keep doing this each week for another 2-4 weeks. By the time the metabolic reset is done, your total daily calories should be around 2,000- 2,500 calories per day consuming 250-350 grams of carbs per day.

You will also notice a few things start happening… You will at first feel like you are having to gorge/ force-feed yourself with so much food. After a week of feeling this, you will then start feeling like you are hungry ALL THE TIME!

The latter is a good sign because if you’re eating 2,500 calories per day as a woman and still hungry, it means you have increased your metabolism so your body is now adapted to consuming more.

For men, this range is typically 3,000-4,000 calories/day with carbs in the range of 350-450g/ day (this is very broad though).

At this point, you return to cutting calories and your body will start using fat stores again.

2. PROGRESSIVE OVERLOAD: The next thing that holds many people back is their workouts and not challenging themselves. To fix this, you need to ALWAYS do more which is what progressive overload means.

The opposite of this is during a workout, you go for the same set of 5lb or 10lb dumbbells’ because they are easy and you can do a bunch of reps… THIS IS DOING ALMOST NOTHING FOR YOU!!

Just remember this which is something I like to say when coaching “Easy doesn’t get results!”

In order for your body to adapt and grow (i.e. build muscle and burn fat) you need to do things that are difficult and your body has to adapt to overcome. This is why you get sore from workouts and when you stop getting sore, your body has mostly adapted.

So the simple tip here is always try to do a little more. You did 12-15 reps with the 10lb dumbbells’? Great!

That means next time go for the 15 pounders and see how you do. Maybe even go for the 20’s and see if you can get 6-8 reps.

The ultimate goal is to push your muscles to fatigue and failure which means you cannot physically do another rep because your muscles give out.

3. HORMONES: Maybe you have done all of the above and still not seeing results? There are a lot of ways to change your workouts and nutrition as everyone responds differently to different strategies. But lets say you are dialed in and still seem to be hitting a plateau… This is where you could be dealing with some hormonal issues.

If your thyroid or testosterone hormones are low for example, this can greatly hinder your results. Since the subject of endocrinology is vast and complex, for the sake of this article the big action item would be to get your hormones checked by a doctor who specializes in this area.

4. LOOSE SKIN/ TROUBLE SPOTS: Lastly, what if you are lean, have definition, and STILL have some of the saggy skin/ trouble spots that just won’t go away??

Sometimes despite our best efforts and work, this still happens!

While there are several items you can do for this, one that does not require surgery is called Cryoskin Toning through our community partner Coldfront Cryotherapy. It’s a simple procedure that does not require surgery where your stubborn fat is LITERRALLY frozen and kills the fat cells. These dead fat cells are then flushed out through your lymphatic system.

As an FYI, fat cells never go away through diet and exercise. They simply get smaller as you lower bodyfat percentage OR they grow bigger if you are gaining weight.

That’s why on some people those trouble spots never go away as that is just where you store bodyfat. The only way is to have plastic surgery or to do a procedure like Cryoskin. Check out an example of a mom at Coldfront that did nothing else but cryoskin below:

If you’re interested in Cryoskin, make sure to contact our community partner Coldfront Cryotherapy and mention this article.

They will give you a $250 voucher towards a package and setup a Cryoskin Body Consultation to ensure you are a good candidate for the procedure while answering all questions. Go to www.ColdFrontCryo.com to learn more and setup your cryoskin consultation.

NEXT STEPS FOR BREAKING YOUR PLATEAU…

While the above seems simple in practice, you may not know where to start. If you are a current Fit Body Boot Camp client, this is where you need to tell your coaches that you’re stuck and you need their help!

They can help you in the workouts to challenge you more or give ideas on how to make exercises more difficult.

Your nutrition coach at your location can schedule a nutrition consultation to map out a meal plan for you.

FBBC is here to help so utilize what is part of your training membership!

If you’re not part of our Fit Body Boot Camp family, then next steps for you would be to apply the above on your own OR, let us help you be one of our success stories. 

If you are ready to stop going at it alone and find out what our Fit Body Family is all about, go to www.FitBodyArizona.com to learn more and secure a free week of workouts + one hour nutrition strategy session at one of our 8x southeast valley locations.

Here is to breaking plateau’s and crushing your goals this week!

Your Coach,

Benjamin Jones-BS, FAS, CPT | Owner |www.FitBodyArizona.com 

P.S.- Was this article helpful? If so, make sure to follow me on instagram for more info, videos, nutrition/ fitness give away’s, and hormonal hacks you haven’t heard of (because no one is talking about them) to optimize your results. CLICK HERE to find me!