How Do I Get Over A Weight Loss Stall?

3 STEPS TO BREAK THROUGH YOUR WEIGHT LOSS STALL

I’m hoping you’ve found this post because you’ve been on the ketogenic lifestyle for a little while now and have so far experienced some amazing and rewarding progress.

First of all, take a minute to really congratulate yourself for taking your first steps, showing up and really committing to a healthier life with weight loss success. It’s SUPER important you celebrate your wins, even the small ones!

Now, let me define a ‘ketogenic weight loss plateau’:

It’s typical on the keto diet to experience a big initial weight loss, this is usually water weight that was retained for glycogen stores, as these stores deplete and then they release they’re not going to be filled back up again, you experience what has been coined in the keto world as a ‘fat whoosh’.

If after you have experienced this and then weight loss slows right down, but you are still losing even 1lb each every seven to fourteen days – this is still a weight loss! There are a number of reasons, based on; age, gender, metabolism, hormone imbalances (insulin, leptin, thyroid etc.), that could be causing you to lose weight at a slower rate than maybe others, but it is still a loss in weight!

Something else to note; just because the weighing scales isn’t giving you much direction, doesn’t mean you’re not losing body fat and inches. Try to see how you’re feeling in your clothes, measure yourself and keep track taking photos.

YES SOPHIE!! I’ve been doing everything right, I’ve been eating the macros you recommended, I’ve been measuring my waistline, I’ve been taking photos, nothing is happening and it’s all making me feel worse!! Ok, so you’ve lost a little hope and you’re starting to question whether this lifestyle is right for you… let.s talk!

STEP 1 – THE COMPONENTS TO HEALTHY WEIGHT LOSS

• Nutrition
• Stress
• Sleep

These key components go hand-in-hand when it comes to your weight loss success, as they can all affect each other. Obviously, the nutrition is all based around the ketogenic diet, however, without enough rested sleep your body won’t get the recovery it requires; deep sleep is the most physically restorative sleep, where the bulk of growth hormone is produced which helps repair and rebuild muscles as well as tell the brain where to distribute fat and glucose.

REM sleep is the mentally restorative sleep, where your brain moves information from your short-term memory to your long-term memory. Your brain is taking all the information you collected during the day, filtering out the unnecessary stuff and then organising the pertinent information for retrieval later. Then we have excessive stress, which most people find implementing de-stressing practices to be the hardest lifestyle change for them to incorporate.

Some of us only have two settings: go and sleep. However, excess stress relies on cortisol levels, and repetitive whipping of your adrenals, to get you through the day. This excess cortisol promotes fat storage, as well as sleep, and then as it continues and worsens it will deplete your body of certain vitamins and minerals, leading to other hormonal imbalances (affecting the thyroid etc.)… but that’s a WHOLE other post in itself for another day!

There are numerous scenarios I could delve into, but lets take a look at these 3 key components first and get those pounds budging again.

Nutrition

• Macro nutrients (80% Fat, 15% Protein, 5% Carbs to start with)
• Micronutrients (potassium, magnesium, sodium, zinc, chloride, B vitamins etc)
• Essential fatty acids (omega 3 : omega 6 ratio, inflammation)

Stress

• Home stress (financial issues, new family member, arguing with partner)
• Work stress (new boss, new job, new promotion, new project, busy period)
• Exercise stress (overtraining, beyond 10% caloric restriction, insufficient recovery, guilt due to not exercising)

Sleep

• Difficulty falling to sleep, overactive brain (working late, on your phone until late, phone beside bed, watching TV until late)
• Interrupted sleep (light sleep, noises, too hot/too cold, restless sleep)
• Sleep duration (less than 8 hours of sleep each night)

STEP 2 – LET’S GET HONEST: WHAT’S YOUR WEAKNESS?

From these 3 components outlined, I bet you have a pretty good idea on what’s going on for you; where you may be lacking and what you’ve got locked in. I’ve had many people ask for my help with their macros due to a weight loss stall, shifting the focus when really, they’re super stressed about a new demanding project at work, so they’re working late into the night, which is then disrupting their sleep. Do you see where I’m headed with this?

Ok, do not fear, we can move passed this, but I’m going to need your co-operation.

Start by closing your eyes and taking 5 deep breathes, slowly. Do it now.

Feels freakin’ good doesn’t it!?

Right, let’s say your goal might be to lose another 30 lbs, you haven’t lost any weight in the last 2 months, what do you do now? I hear you ask.

We’ll start by reverse-engineering your goal (setting up a time-frame and working backwards from your goal’s end date to the current day). It’s SUPER IMPORTANT that we now set up ACTION-ORIENTED GOALS for you, this will simplify the process in order for you to take steps in the right direction and make progress.

You want to lose another 30 lbs. Decide on a realistic timeframe that you feel you can achieve this? For this example, we’ll say 3 months.

You’re aiming to lose 10 lbs each month which is around 2.5 lbs per week – this is a result orientate goal, whereas we want to switch your mindset to ACTION ORIENTED GOALS.

Now time to get real honest with yourself. What is the ONE THING that’s standing in your way? You’ll most likely find this to be the most difficult part of this process.

For me… I couldn’t get away from the screens in the evening; laptop, phone, TV. By the time I stopped scrolling through social media to turn my bedside light off to go to sleep.. My mind was buzzing. The more frustrated I got with not being able to switch off my mind, the more active and awake my mind would become. It would take me forever to get to sleep and resulted in interrupted sleep throughout the night too. So I implemented a rule; no technology after 9pm. I bought an alarm clock so I could leave my phone outside of my bedroom, and between 9pm and 10pm I get ready for bed; either an epsom salt bath, bedtime yoga stretching routine, reading and always, at least 10 minutes of meditation.

What’s standing in your way? Write it down.

How can you achieve this ONE THING that’s standing in your way, in this next week?

The only way you will overcome this is to tackle it head on. I’m not by any means saying this is easy, it’s not, it’s super hard! But YOU CAN DO THIS! I TOTALLY BELIEVE IN YOU!

Once you’ve tackled this, you’ve got the ball rolling and YOU FEEL AMAZING FROM IT! – Well done!!

Now it’s time to find the next thing, and then find the next thing, and then the next! You’re hopefully finding a few difficult barriers that are challenging you. Doing this will get your body to push passed its comfort zone, instead of focusing on the end result, you’ll see clearly the challenges you’re face with and you’ll set out to overcome them, one by one – until there are none left, and your jigsaw puzzle finally starts to fit together!! It’s an amazing feeling, trust me!

So, when it comes to losing weight, instead of hunting for that magic pill that you think others seem to have found… You’ll shift your focus to finding that hurdle and overcoming it. It’s down to hard work – get in, do the work, and get out, the results will show up and you’ll absolutely love yourself for it!

STEP 3 – CONSISTENCY IS KEY

Or, consistent growth is key. People tend to get a bit muddled up with this one. Being consistent to succeed doesn’t mean doing the same thing over and over and over again, until you grow tired and want to give up. Like eating the same darn food erryday because that’s exactly what your friend eats and she said it’s working for her, and it worked for you too in the beginning. Now it’s stopped, because it was bad advice, and well, all bad advice comes to halt one way or another.

To be consistent means to dedicate yourself fully to a task, goal or activity. To not get distracted but to stay fully engaged and commit yourself to a sustained effort of action, over a period of time, up until the moment you’ve achieved your goal. During this period, you’ll hold yourself accountable for the daily choices you make, you’ll listen to your body, gain feedback from your actions, measure and adjust results, inline with what you’re trying to achieve. That, in essence, is the difference between success and failure in any field of endeavour.

TO SUM UP…

Head back to ‘Step-1’ and see how you’re weighing up with your nutrition, stress and sleep, all being in balance.
Get real honest with yourself in ‘Step-2’, find what your obstacles are, overcome that fear and make the jump! Don’t think, just do. Ask your friend to keep you accountable.

Then when you’re on the track to leaping over your obstacles, keep in mind true consistency. Reverse-engineer your goals, make them action-orientated, listen to your body, tweak your results and keep pushing forward with your progress – whether it be big or small – you can do this!! And most importantly, enjoy the journey and everything you learn about YOURSELF on YOUR path to vibrant health and happiness!