Excerpt #4 from my new book, Friends with the Scale.
When the scale won’t move
“Friends with the Scale,” pg. 131
Mary Ann had a great walking routine.
At 6:30 every morning, she laced up her workout shoes and headed out the door. She followed the same route every day and walked at a moderate pace for exactly 30 minutes.
She also stayed on a healthy diet plan, and because she was a creature of habit, she ate almost the same thing each day for her meals.
But after two months of not seeing a change on the scale, she was furious. “How can this not work?” she asked. “I’m doing everything right!”
And she was. When I reviewed her food records, I could tell she was averaging between 1200 to 1400 calories a day.
She’d already lost 45 pounds, so her plan had been effective for some time. But she was still 30 pounds away from her goal, which I thought was a realistic one.
I suspected that her body had completely adapted to her daily exercise and eating patterns. So we decided to make some changes in her routine to wake up her metabolism and push her body to let go of weight again.
We started with her exercise plan because it was the easiest thing to change. Instead of a daily walk, we switched things up by having her ride her bike some days, then use exercise equipment at the gym on other days.
On the days she did her walks, I suggested she alternate a fast, hard pace with a slower, gentler one.
It worked! Without making any changes to her food plan, Mary Ann was able to shake up her body, and she began to lose weight again.
The new approach helped her stay motivated and optimistic, and within a few more months, she reached her goal.
Switch Everything Around
If your scale has stalled or you can’t seem to budge off a plateau, you may have slid into a similar pattern.
Your body has an amazing ability to adapt to a routine, and eventually it stops giving you the results you got in the beginning.
When this happens, you probably don’t need a different program or a new personal trainer. Sometimes simply changing a few parts of your workout is enough to kick your body back into weight-loss mode.
Don’t delay! Buy this book today.