Discouraged With the Scale? How To Outsmart Your Body: TIP 1
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You think, I’m hardly eating anything and the scale stays the same. What am I supposed to do?
Weight loss plateaus are real and a natural part of the weight loss journey. With a little information and support you can develop a mindset to love your body and keep you from getting discouraged.
Weight plateaus can be discouraging though!
I noticed this especially after I hit menopause myself. I was eating like we talk about: healthy high fiber foods, enough protein and I was active but I have had to learn how to work with stubborn scales. Even though I’m a dietitian and health coach I struggle to work through these same stalemates but I have found the secret even beyond a good mindset that works to break the stalemate!
To begin, we have to be willing to experiment and not let the number on the scale dominate our life. What the scale says is only one piece of information in managing our health and achieving the healthy body.
TIP 1: Your Body Adjusts to the Weight Loss Process
What helped us lose that first 5 or 10 pounds doesn’t stay working because our body accommodates to our routine.
When you cut your calories and increase your exercise, your metabolism adjusts and slows down for a while to prevent your potential starvation.
The hormones that regulate your appetite and your sense of fullness change with weight loss. Your fat cells are shrinking with weight loss so they do not produce the same amount of hormone that makes you feel full. Your stomach produces more hormone that stimulates a greater desire to eat. Likewise, the circulation in our brain changes with weight loss, not triggering that part of our brain as strongly that helps us register restraint!
Do you want to scream yet? Our body is used to helping us navigate times of starvation/food deprivation by not demanding as many calories with slowing our metabolic rate and to trigger us to want to eat more when food becomes available.
Solutions for today:
Keep the mindset that weight plateaus are a normal part of the process and your body will take a second wind and resume the weight loss process if you stay in the game.
First, if you have not had a physical, you might consider one to determine if your thyroid is not under active. Usually, if that is the case, you would not have had much initial weight loss. Just rule this out with getting your labs done with your primary physician if you are already due for a physical.
Mix it up: break out of your routines!
Next, mix in a little more protein into your meal. Most people, unless they have slowing of the kidneys, need about 1.1-1.3 grams of protein per KG of body weight. That’s, about 3-4 ounces of lean meat, eggs, cheese plus 1 cup of milk per meal.
Change your work out routine to include a burst of cardio and then pick up some 3-5 lbs weights to use 2-3 times per week. This gets your muscles more active metabolically, so they goggle up fuel.
Tip 1 for adding protein to a meal
Eat your protein and non-starchy veggies first. When protein hits your system first, it decreases the hormones that stimulate you to eat.
Veggies first in line, can keep your blood sugars from increasing as much from the meal, which can cut food cravings and increase sense of fullness.
