In the previous blog post I talked about why we hit plateaus in our weight loss. In that blog, I talked about the two main causes. The first was not appropriately sticking to your diet. And the second reason simply has to do with the fact that our body likes to adjust to what we are doing. In this post, I want to address what not to do when you stop losing weight.

Two Big Don’ts 

In my experience, I see two major mistakes people make when they hit their plateau. The first is psychological, namely discouragement. The second mistake is attempting is to be supper strict with your diet or workout plan.

Discouragement 

It is easy to get discouraged when you hit a plateau. Particularly when you are doing everything right. But the truth is stalling out in your weight-loss is, as far as I can tell, universal. It does not matter how good the diet is, or how strictly you are following it, at some point it will stop working. And by stop working, I mean that your weight-loss will either slow down or stop altogether. I do not mean that your plan will stop being healthy, rather what I mean is that your body will adjust and you will stop losing weight.

In light of this, there is no reason to get discouraged. Like I mentioned above, stalling out is universal. We all go though it.

Also, discouragement does not help. In fact, It leads to self destructive behavior. Those who stay discouraged for too long eventually fall back into old habits and gain back all the weight that they have lost. This is a story I have seen and heard too many times to recount. Don’t get discouraged. There are things you can do to get off of your plateau.

Super Strict 

If the cause of your plateau is that you have not been following the diet correctly, then being more strict is the answer. However, like I wrote in the last post, even those who do a low-carb, paleo, ketogenic diet correctly, will still stall out. It’s easy to think that you just have not done the diet correctly enough. It’s easy to think that all you need to do is dial it down more on how many carbs you eat. As a result of this kind of thinking I see many people eating nearly no carbs at all. This is a big mistake.

Going supper strict is not the answer to your problems. In fact, you are just setting yourself up to prolong your plateau and more discouragement.

So now we know what not to do. This leads us then to ask: What can I do to re-start my fat-burning hormones? This will be the subject of our next blog.