What To Do When The Weight Loss Stops

Have you ever started a weight loss program, made great results at the beginning and then everything fell apart? You started a resistance training routine, you were eating right, doing your cardio and lost on average a pound or two a week You finally found the answer to succeeding at weight loss, or so you thought. Now a couple of months later, the scale refuses to budge. You were doing everything right. So what happened?

Well, this is another case of something very simple that can be corrected easily. Its something you may have never put into action though if you didn't take the time to seek out answers from someone who knows a little bit more about weight loss and exercise then you do. Here is a big pat on the back for having a problem and doing some research to look for a solution.

Let's take this step by step so you understand exactly what might have happened. First, look back and see when and where you WERE getting results. It was at the beginning. This is because at that time, the weights and exercise were a challenge for you so your body had to change and adapt. These factors are what caused your body to lose weight. This is called S.A.I.D. to personal trainers. S.A.I.D. is and acronym for Specific Adaptation to Imposed Demands. This basically means that when your body runs into a physical stress that it is not used to, it will change so that what you are doing will not be so hard to handle the next time you run into it.

Its normal for results to slow down or stop if you are not on a weight loss program that changes things up either in the actual routine or the stresses that it causes to your body. Changes in your weight loss program bring back the intensity. Intensity is what causes further changes to your body.

Intensity in your weight loss program can be caused by using more weight, using the same weight but completing the routine faster, or using the same weight but making each repetition take longer to complete. These are just some examples.

Often when I train females, they believe that using heavier weights will make them get too muscular or that they will get bigger. This belief keeps them from taking the actual course of action that would bring them quickly to their goals. In actual fact, because of the hormonal differences between men and women, muscle gains do not come extremely fast for women. What happens is that they increase their metabolism, lose a lot of fat and tighten up the saggy parts, leaving them with a very toned body. If at any time the amount of body fat lost is too much, it is very easy to cut back on the weight or drop some fat burning cardio in order to soften up a little if that is what you are after.

This is a simple truth that has been show to work over and over again in countless numbers of my female clients where weight loss was the goal.

The intensity factor also applies to your cardio. You must increase how hard you work on that every couple of weeks also. Again, the intensity can be from doing the same distance in less time, doing more incline on the treadmill or simply changing the machine or activity that you like to do. Remember that in order to lose a pound of fat a week, you should shoot for burning off 3500 calories over a 7-day period. 3500 calories is how many calories are in a pound of fat. When you crunch the numbers most people are shocked to realize that they don't burn around 500 calories a day in exercise. This little fact is one of the many that when changed can quickly get you back on the path to becoming one of those weight loss success stories you always read about.

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