Getting stalled

There's nothing more frustrating than finding a method of losing weight that works for you, only to find it stalling after awhile, or even reversing! Yet it happens for virtually everyone who deliberately undertakes a weight loss plan of whatever sort.

Hitting a plateau can be demoralizing and make you feel as though you've failed somewhere, or that you should just give up since you're doing everything correctly and it seems to have stopped working. Don't give up!! Here are some things to bear in mind if this has happened to you:

• Weight loss isn't steady. Some weeks it will chug along, right on schedule, and other weeks nothing will happen at all. Don't rely too much on the number on the scale! It can be very misleading, partly because a lot of weight loss has to do with losing water weight. Don't dismiss this as "just" water weight, either; this water is bound to our cells in a way that makes it very difficult to shed way other than a deliberate weight loss strategy, and it's important to lose it. This is a big part of the process. Some days, particularly if you're a woman (it would seem!), bodies retain more water than others. That's going to affect the scale number and has nothing to do with what you've been doing with your plan. Don't panic. It will shift eventually. A former student of mine is a crossfit devotee and told me when I first started my own weight loss process that her plateaus have sometimes lasted up to two months! The point is to look at the overall pattern, not the day-to-day changes. Personally, I like monitoring what's happening from one day to the next, but if you're finding that it's making you obsessive or despairing, perhaps check the scale less often. Once a week or so should be fine!

• If you can find something in your routine to change, change it! If your main source of exercise is jogging, try pilates or swimming or a different sort of aerobic work-out. If you're a faster, like me, change up your fasting protocols. A lot of people seem to get stuck in a plan that's become very popular, known as OMAD (one meal a day). If you're only eating one meal per day, your body will very quickly adjust to that as its new normal and start compensating by burning fewer calories doing the same tasks you've always done before. I wouldn't suggest OMAD as a daily protocol. Every other day, sure. But try a longer fast, 24 or 36 or 42 hours. If you're following one specific way of eating, try to change the elements of that. Variety is key! Don't let your body settle into a routine. 

Overall, don't panic, and don't give up! Have confidence in your plan and just keep trucking. :) I've just had a stall myself and found it incredibly frustrating. I'm going through a bout of something called costochondritis, which is severe inflammation of the sternal and intercostal cartilage. It's incredibly painful to breathe, I get tired very, very quickly, and it hurts to sit down and especially to lie down. My usual routines of swimming and walking are out as long as this is on, and it could last up to two months, evidently. I managed to break through a two-week stall (which I see as a direct result of this!) by taking on a longer fast again (72 hours) and finally on the third day of it, the scale is moving in the right direction again. The pain has also made sleeping rather difficult, and between the lack of sleep and the stress of my imminent move, I wasn't all that surprised to find it taking a toll on the rest of this process. This post is as much as reminder to myself as it is to any of you reading it: just keep going; you'll see results eventually!