If on the one hand you tend to lose weight very quickly in the beginning, on the other hand sometimes it seems that it is impossible to lose more after a certain level.
This inability to lose weight is known as a weight plateau or stagnation – and going through a plateau can be quite frustrating and disheartening.
However, several strategies can help you start losing weight again.
We talked about some of our favorite strategies for the first time in a video we shot at Parque da Biquinha, in Sorocaba, which you can see below.
What is a Plateau
In summary, a plateau is nothing more than a “plateau”.
That is, if your weight was decreasing week after week (or month after month), the plateau would be a point from which it would be very difficult to decrease the weight further.
It is as if your weight is “stuck” at that value.
In other words, it is as if your weight loss has stalled, and is no longer happening continuously.
Of course, we would all like our weight loss to happen every week, as in the chart below:
Source: The Weight Loss Worksheet
However, sometimes our weight will drop, and we may feel frustrated and unmotivated.
So, the tips below are to help you keep losing weight and eliminating fat, even when your “weight hangs” but you seem to be doing everything right.
Before that, just a warning: people often think they are on a plateau, when in reality what happens is that the weight just doesn’t move in a linear way.
That is, throughout your weight loss journey, you will probably alternate between “wow, I didn’t miss a thing” with “wow!”
And this is completely normal.
So much so that we even talked more about speed of weight loss before.
So, a plateau is not simply “a week where your weight doesn’t drop”.
It is a prolonged period during which you really dedicate yourself to the diet and still seem to have no results .
Now that we have explained what a weight plateau is, let’s see how to get out of it.
Mr. Tanquinho’s 4 Strategies for Leaving the Weight Plateau
In this first part of the article, we will focus on our 4 favorite strategies to get off the weight plateau for those who want to succeed on a low-carb diet .
Especially because this is a very common question that we always get from our readers, both by email and by comments on our social media.
So today we decided to share these personal tips with you.
However, first of all, it is important to point out that the plateau is often just a “weighted” plateau – as the person continues to lose measurements, continues to feel the loose clothes.
So we don’t even consider it a plateau, just because the number of the scales has stagnated.
We even mentioned in this text that you should not only have the weight marked on the scale as a parameter for weight loss.
Even so, we will focus on these 4 strategies that can help this number to start moving again.
So let’s go to them:
Tip # 1 to Get Off the Weight Plateau: Practice High Intensity Interval Exercise (HIIT)
The first strategy is the high intensity interval exercise, HIIT .
In fact, any type of exercise can help you get off the plateau, because after all you will be inserting a caloric expenditure in your day that you did not have before.
However, there are some types of exercises that are more effective for weight loss .
This in addition to improving blood flow, which can happen many times depending on the type of exercise you practice.
But, in this case, we are talking about HIIT.
Because, even for those who already do some kind of physical activity, HIIT will be an excellent exercise for burning fat.
Another big advantage is that HIIT workouts are generally very short.
So you can practice HIIT for a very short time – for example, 15 minutes a day and still reap results.
(After all, we know that there are a lot of people who complain about not having time to train.)
So, for these people, this is an easier strategy to follow.
Another exercise that we also really like is weight training.
And again, because in this sport it is possible to achieve high intensity with relatively short workouts.
We talked more about the 3 best types of exercises to combine with a low-carb diet in another text .
But here we are going to focus on the exercises that we like best to get off a weight plateau – and for that reason we only focus on HIIT and bodybuilding.
Tip # 2 to Get Off the Weight Plateau: Decrease Your Carbohydrate Intake
Another interesting strategy that we can use is the decrease in carbohydrate intake.
Many people already feel some benefit from following a low-carb diet because they have reduced carbohydrates a little.
However, several times there is still room to reduce further.
Perhaps even reaching the point of inducing ketosis through a very low-carb diet such as ketogenic .
This can help people to lose weight even more.
It is also a fact that many times people think that they are cutting carbohydrates a lot but end up ingesting this macronutrient from sources where they had no idea.
In this case, the tip is as follows: keep a diary of food eaten by computing the net carbohydrates eaten at each meal.
An easy way to do this is through applications like FatSecret ( we even teach you how to use it correctly in this video ).
Even because of that, we wrote a text with the nutritional table of the foods that most raise doubts in the low-carb diet .
The decrease in carbohydrates can even lead to some period of ketosis that will help to optimize this fat burning.
And that brings us to the third tip.
Related: Discover our menu for 147 days of low-carb diet + cookbook .
Tip # 3 to Get Off the Weight Plateau: Make a Trash Day
When you have been on a low carb diet for a long time, your body starts to slow down the production of some essential hormones.
And it is precisely to counteract this decrease in the level of hormones such as leptin and ghrelin – that many people experience when they stay on low-carb for a long time – that you can do a carbohydrate feedback or even a day of waste .
That garbage day can last from a meal to an entire day.
On this day, the idea is that you eat everything you want, especially foods with high carbohydrate content, such as potatoes, sweets, pasta, breads …
There is no rule: you can eat as much as you want, as much food as you want, in a whole day or in just one meal.
You decide what you think is best for you.
(Especially because some people suffer psychologically when they feel that they are restricting their food choices too much. So the day of trash brings this psychological relief too.)
Each person gets to know each other better and prefers to do it one way, or even not do the trash day .
Because some people have a hard time returning to the diet after such a free day.
There are still those who prefer to do this feedback with a focus on more Paleo foods , even more natural: like potatoes, roots, fruits , and maybe a little honey.
Being that we talked more fully in another article about how to make a day of paleo garbage .
While other people live up to the name “garbage day” and end up eating a lot of wheat, gluten, things they don’t eat often but miss.
Related: Learn more about the harms of wheat
In our case, we also love to have a beer that day – since for 90% of the time (or more) we avoid this type of food that we know is not ideal for our health.
Tip # 4 To Get Off The Weight Plateau: Follow Some Intermittent Fasting Protocol
Finally, the fourth strategy that we would like to talk about is intermittent fasting .
Intermittent fasting is nothing more than eating during some periods – and not eating at others.
In addition to all the benefits that intermittent fasting can present, it can also help you get off the weight plateau on a low-carb diet.
We even talked about the benefits of fasting during low-carb here .
One way we really like is the Leangains method, which is actually 16 hours of the day when you are fasting, without consuming calories, and in the other 8 hours you distribute your meals as you prefer.
It can be 2 meals, one at lunch and one at dinner, for example.
Or they can be 3 meals (the previous two plus a snack between them ).
In that case, you’re basically going to skip breakfast .
Pretty simple, isn’t it?
However, this is just one of the possible ways to do intermittent fasting.