How to Avoid Plateaus During Weight Loss

Plateaus discourage up to 95 percent of dieters at some point during their weight loss efforts. Plateaus can either discourage the dieter to give up completely or encourage that same person to stay focused on weight loss. You don't have to be one of the ones who gives up. Try the following steps to avoid plateaus during weight loss.

Instructions

Difficulty: Moderate

Things You’ll Need:

• An Exercise Plan
• A Healthy Diet Plan

How to Avoid Plateaus During Weight Loss

1. Determine your target heart rate (THR) and monitor your heart rate during exercise. Target heart rate is fairly simple to calculate. Subtract your age from 220. Multiply that number by 0.6 and 0.9. Exercise keeping your heart rate in that range.
2. Minimize muscle loss through strength training. When you lose muscle your metabolism will slow down and this will sabotage weight loss efforts.
3. Increase the intensity of your current exercise program to burn more calories. As you become more fit and your workout becomes easier it becomes necessary to work harder and faster to achieve your target heart rate.
4. Add additional activities to your existing exercise program. This will keep your body from adjusting to your current workout and stimulate weight loss.
5. Rev up weight loss efforts by restricting calories. It is imperative that we adopt a healthy diet that we can actually live with day to day but it all began with a strict diet. As we see the weight come off we tend to relax a little. If your weight loss efforts have plateaued then give it a little jump-start by going back to the diet you began with for a short time.

Tips & Warnings

• Adopt a healthy diet plan that you can live with on a daily basis.
• Severely restricting calories for more than 72 hours at a time will cause your metabolism to slow down.
• Medications can effect your heart rate and your target heart rate. Discuss this with your physician before beginning or increasing an exercise program.