Top 10 Tips to Break Through a Weight Loss Plateau

People spend weeks or months steadily losing weight and one day the scale stops moving. That day turns into weeks and still no improvement.

They’ve hit the plateau. Almost everyone hits the weight loss plateau and it can be frustrating, but anyone can overcome it.

The human body is a master of adaptation. When it gets used to calories and exercise regimen, it can reach homeostasis where everything equals out.

Dieters can jumpstart their metabolism and be on the freight train to weight loss again if they follow these 10 steps to overcome the plateau.

1. Drop the Carbs, Drop the Weight

Diets tend to lower a person’s metabolism over time. They reduce the caloric intake, so the body lowers the metabolism in an effort equalize what a person puts in with what they use.

Carbohydrates are notorious for causing weight gain. They turn into sugars in the body.

When people lower their carbohydrate intake, it puts the body into a state of ketosis. This accelerates the metabolism.

In fact, this is the foundation of the ketogenic diet. If a dieter wants to pass the plateau, cut out the bread, pasta, and other carbs.

2. Increase Exercise Intensity

As we said before, the body is good at adapting. When a dieter follows the same exercise routine, the body gets used to it and soon they’re not losing weight.

The key is to change up the exercise routine and increase the difficulty and intensity as the body gets used to it. This means lifting heavier weights and running longer and faster.

It keeps the body guessing and continues to build muscle. This is essential for burning more calories.

3. Stress Out and You’ll Plateau

Everyone deals with stress. It’s part of life, but it can get worse when they’re trying to lose weight. There are too many balls to juggle and then a kid gets sick or their job gets more difficult. Stress causes many things to happen in the body.

Some people are stress eaters and one bad day can see their diet go out the window. Stress also increases the hormone cortisol.

It causes the body to increase fat storage. Weight loss is hard enough without stress turning the body against you.

Lower stress through relaxing, meditating and controlling what a person can in their life.

4. Protein is Your Friend

When people want to lose weight, one of the first things they generally do is cut out meat and stick to veggies.

Veggies are good for the body, but protein helps burn more calories. Lean proteins like chicken and fish help build muscle when dieter’s exercise. It also takes more to digest, causing a 20 percent increase in calorie burning.

That doesn’t mean go out and start chowing down on fried chicken and bacon. People still need to watch your calories.

5. Know What They Eat

How well does the average person track their food? Do they have a general idea of how many calories they take in everyday or are they laser accurate? It depends on the person. When they don’t track their food, the dieter could end up taking in more calories than intended.

A good diet isn’t about changing what they eat, but how much of it too. If they’re cutting out that morning macchiato, but still drinking four cups of black coffee with creamer, they’ll still take in a lot of calories.

There are plenty of resources to determine the exact calories of a specific amount of food. Dieters should use them to determine exactly what they’re eating.

6. Skip the Alcohol

It’s surprising exactly how many carbs are in the beer a person drinking. The flavored vodka drinks they had the night before were likely loaded with sugars. When they drank a little too much, they threw their diet to the wind and took down an entire large pizza at 1 a.m.

A shot doesn’t seem like much liquid, but it can put the whammy on weight loss. Alcohol intake leads to slow weight loss and plateauing. Cut it out and drink water instead. It’s much better and doesn’t create a hangover.

7. Leave the Weight Loss Plateau With Water

Many people think drinking juice is better than other sugary drinks like soda. This isn’t always true because many juices have as much sugar as their favorite soft drink.

The three best liquids to drink are water, coffee, and tea. Water and cause an increase in metabolic function. Coffee and tea have caffeine for a natural energy boost.

It doesn’t mean filling them with sugar, creamers or thinking a Frappe is the same thing as straight coffee.

8. Sleep Your Way Thin

People don’t get enough sleep. The kind of sleep where they wake up full of energy and ready to take on the day. Sleep loss lowers metabolism, messes up hormone levels and increases hunger and fat storage.

The body needs sleep. People won’t want to exercise and are a bear to be around when sleep deprived. Make sure to grab those 40 winks every night.

9. Don’t Just Sit There

Every movement a person makes in the day burns calories. Every time they use the stairs instead of the elevator or choose to stand instead of sit, they’re burning calories.

Rocking in a chair at work, spinning a fidget spinner and tapping their feet to music, burns calories.

Many people have a sedentary work environment. Small changes can help them escape the weight loss plateau.

10. Don’t Weigh So Often

It’s nice when a person starts losing weight. They likely check the scale every day. Keep in mind that muscle weighs more than fat. Exercising builds muscle.

They could lose three pounds of fat and gain four pounds of muscle and the scale will show a 1-pound weight gain.

Instead, they should weigh every month or every few weeks and look in the mirror to see changes.

They’ll notice the stomach getting smaller and muscles getting bigger. It’s not that a person can’t lose weight, they’re more muscular.