Reaching A Plateau

I think it has happened to us all at one time or another. We are going along, doing everything right, when suddenly, everything stops!

Last year I was going along, doing very well. I was using my 19 pts efficiently, and moving around pretty well outside. Then, from the last week in September until the last week of October, nothing moved! In fact I gained little bits of weight each week! What was this!

I was getting worried that I was doing something wrong. That, or the plan was not working at all. One of the ladies who weighs me in, suggested I journal carefully and bring my journal in to the next class. She also suggested that I change what I was eating.

I went home and thought about it. Yes, I had been eating the usual things for months. My day had become fairly predictable. So that week, I tried eating different meals each day.

By this, I mean that I avoided my daily snack of light popcorn, and substituted fruit or vegetable snacks. I ate more chicken and fish and limited my beef to 2 meals a week. At lunchtime I would have a small salad and use the Pepperidge Farm Deli Flats, with some thinly sliced turkey.

I also moved more. I actually walked my dogs and I ran up and down stairs at every opportunity.

I logged everything. The next week I gathered my journal and went off to class. I was ready to sit down with our leader and go through it all, sure I was committing some terrible error in my eating, that I just wasn't seeing.

Instead, I had a good weight loss, and I was back on track.

Plateau's happen. They are your bodies way of slowing things down so that you don't lose too much too fast. No one likes them, but everyone has had them.

So if you reach a point where you are stuck, shake up your foods, eat new things, move around a little more, journal and most of all, be patient.