The Secret to Busting Through Your Plateau, Part 1

Case Study #1 is a 40 year old woman attempting to lose weight. Let's call her Mrs. T. Two years prior, Mrs. T hired a personal trainer to design an exercise program for her. An absolutely fantastic program, it helped her maximize calorie burning while giving her a total body workout. She also developed a nutritional plan that she follows in precise detail, logging her diet each day and ensuring she maintains caloric balance while eating healthy, natural foods.

Mrs. T is a very busy person. She has 3 children and works as a restaurant manager. When she's not working out, she is at full speed with her career and family, and often finds herself having panic attacks during traffic jams and long lines at the supermarket. She works late into the night on her computer at home, and typically goes to bed around midnight, then is up at 5:30am to eat breakfast and hit the gym before a long day of work.

Despite her active lifestyle and good diet, Mrs. T has not lost weight in 8 months. Actually, she's gained 7lbs of fat. She also has low energy levels, poor focus, and often has to grit her teeth to even begin her exercise program. She doesn't mind eating healthy, but is becoming depressed that her perfect diet is not working for her.

Case Study #2 is a competitive young triathlete named Flash. A collegiate swimmer, Flash has competed at the multi-sport level for 6 years. Due to his superior swim technique and physical dedication, Flash did very well for his first 4 years of competition. He trains 2 hours a day, allows himself adequate rest and recovery, and keeps his energy stores high with consumption of endurance athlete carbohydrates like bagels, toast, pasta, bread, and sports drinks.

But the last couple years have been different. Despite a good training regimen, Flash has plateaued, and can't seem to add any speed to his workouts or races. He's not overtrained, but simply feels like he's reached a plateau that he can't overcome.

Guess what? Both Mrs. T and Flash have the same problem.

They lack syngery.

Huh? What's synergy? I define synergy as balance - a proper balance of lifestyle, activity, and nutrition. When these three components are perfectly dialed in, there is absolutely no barrier to achieving your performance, weight loss, or health related goals. But even if you're perfect in one area, or even two, if you don't have all aspects of synergy in place, you will fail. And most people fail.

Nearly every person that walks into my office, e-mails me, or phones me for help is doing *something* right. Most have decent exercise programs. Some have healthy lifestyles. A few have acceptable diets.

But it's strange - I have never, NEVER in the history of being a wellness advisor and coach, come across an individual who has all synergestic elements in place, but still needs help. These individuals do not exist because they have discovered the secret to achieving their goals. Everyone else, on the other hand, must be empowered with the knowledge to lock in place the three components of success. After that, any goal that they have will become a reality.

Next week, I'm going to spill the secrets on how to take the three concepts of synergy, and apply the nitty-gritty details to your personal goals... this is going to be the magic element to busting through your plateau!

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