Breaking Through Plateaus

This can actually be very difficult depending on your genetics and dietary habits. Everyone’s body wants to carry a certain amount of fat and will resist strongly going below that level.

This does not mean everyone is born to be fat, but the difference between a healthy 15% body fat and a wash board six pack at 9 to 10% is pretty hard to achieve – unless you are disciplined and have a good plan.

If you are already getting down into the teens (body fat percentage wise) but can’t seem to get where you want, try some of these tricks:

Reduce your WEEKLY caloric intake:

Rather than eat less on all days which could provoke your body into slowing your metabolism and defeating your efforts to burn fat, try alternating days of fewer calories – the days off from the gym or workouts, for example. If you need 2,000 calories to keep alive and feed your exercise program, try going for 1,600 on your day off. You can do this two or three times a week. This should trigger a further fat loss, but you may suffer in your ability to do resistance exercise.

Increase your cardio routine to burn an extra 500 to 600 calories per week:

This means an extra 100 to 200 calories per work out – this is by no means trivial. For example to burn the 600 calories, you may need to add an hour to an hour and a half per week. You should already be doing 30 to 45 minutes 3 to 4 times per week so you will need at least one extra workout.

Increase the intensity of your work-out. Many fitness experts claim this is the real key to burning fat. You can add sprints, increase the resistance on the machines you use or just go at it harder. This has the added benefit of making you stronger and triggering muscle growth, too.

Mix the two:

Use both strategies to a lesser degree – extra cardio and fewer calories. This is probably the best bet, but it can be hard to control due to the small difference in the number of calories you take in – you will definitely need to control your portion sizes very carefully – a food scale is needed.

Whatever your method, don’t look for split second results. You can hurt your whole program by going too far, too fast.

Take your time and look for results on a monthly, not weekly basis. Any success you have with short term “crash” programs will only come back to haunt you later and will be proven to give only very short term results – at best.

Watch out for the “miracle” supplements that are supposed to make your goals easier to reach. These things not only don’t work, but are expensive and sometimes even dangerous.

Start out by wanting, then visualizing, then planning – that will help when the time comes for the execution.

Don’t worry about a step back or two – nobody’s going to notice but you. Keep on keeping on and you will get to your goal – just never give up!

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