8 Tips to Beat Weightloss Plateau!

Why is my weight stuck, after losing those 4 kilos? Why am I not able to achieve my dream goal of 7 kilos weight loss? I am doing everything right. Everything seems to be in place. Then why is that stubborn fat not burning?!!
These and similar questions would be lingering in your mind once you have achieved the initial weight loss and your weight is now stuck for the last 1–2 months!
This is called the “Weight- loss Plateau” or more appropriately the “Fat loss Plateau”.

We have some super tips for you to overcome your fat loss plateau…

1. Focus on Quality of Foods
Concentrating only on the no. of calories eaten in a day may not be enough when you aim to overcome your plateau. Focus on nutrient rich foods. Eating colorful and fresh vegetables, eating healthy fats present in nuts and oilseeds, fatty fishes, whole grains, whole fruits is great for health and will also help you with improving metabolism and coupled with exercise and healthy lifestyle may help you lose those stubborn fats.

Nuts and oilseeds and fishes also contain protein which are absolutely necessary for the body to maintain muscles and bone while you are in the process of burning fats.

2. Modify your Exercise Regime/Physical Activity Pattern
if you do only cardio-vascular exercises include weight training exercises in your routine. If you do only weight training, include aerobic activities such as brisk walking/cycling/swimming. Also, changing your routine completely, for example doing Zumba, power yoga, playing squash or any other sport activity of your choice (with moderate intensity) will give your metabolism that boost required for moving

3. Get good Sleep
Believe it or not, but getting a good night’s sleep is really important not only for good health but also for healthy weight loss. Not getting enough sleep is linked with weight gain. That is something that you certainly would not want at this stage of fat-loss plateau for sure. Disturbed or less sleep may nullify your effort of losing fats and thus may lead to stuck weight or weight gain!
On an average getting 7–8 hours of sleep in a day for adults helps.

4. Drink Enough Water
Do not ignore this humble yet vital nutrient!

Being hydrated have many positive effects on your body. One of which is weight loss. Sometimes, your brain is not able to differentiate between the urge for thirst or hunger. Hence if you drink enough water throughout the day, you know that the physical hunger you feel is for food only and not water. This may avoid overeating that has been happening due to a lack of water. Thus accelerating the required weight loss/fat loss.

In addition to this, studies suggest drinking plain water can enhance your metabolism. A study reports that the metabolism may be raised by 24–30% for about 1.5 hours, post consumption of a 500 ml helping of water.

5. Increase your Muscle Mass

Doing resistance training activities such as weight training, squats, push-ups, pull-ups, burpees, suryanamaskars and other such activities improve muscle mass and strengthen muscles. Muscles are metabolically active tissue and thus improves your metabolic rate that may in turn support burning of body fats.

6. Eat the required amount of protein everyday
Protein is very important as far as sustenance and maintenance of the body is concerned. For example it is an absolute essential to build and strengthen bones, muscles, preservation of healthy skin, hair; all hormones and enzymes are protein in nature and thus protein is essential for overall growth, development and breakdown of various required nutrients and components in your body.
Eating the required amount of protein on daily basis and a bit more to make up for the earlier losses, if any, is important. Various kinds of enzymes are necessary carry out bodily processes which are responsible for the production and burning of calories as well.

7. Decrease the amount of Salt you consume
Excess salt in your body cause extra water retention. Hence one may get this feeling of bloating and even if you have reduce fat from the body, the excess body water won’t let you know whether you have lost fat from the body or not since the weighing scale won’t budge or may show more than your actual weight.

8. Re-evaluate whether your Weight loss Goal is a realistic one?
Sometimes you may aim for too high a goal to achieve. It is not healthy to go below your ideal body weight. Going below the normal range of body mass index is considered underweight or undernourished.
Also, if you are doing weight training or muscle strengthening activities, you might be losing fats but gaining muscle mass and hence the change in total body weight may not show on the regular weighing scale. Hence aiming for only a lower no. as far as total weight is concerned will not be a practical solution. If you want, you can check the various body composition parameters on the specialized body composition scale and then decide whether or not you are losing fats from the body and gaining muscles.

Please Note
HealthDekho Healthcare is an NABL certified lab that offers complete body & other health checkups at affordable prices in Mumbai.

To know more, visit us at www.healthdekho.com or call+91 99200 75151.

References
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/17519319

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/14671205

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4258944/

https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2017/05/170522081109.htm