and when I hit one while dieting, believe me I want to jump! Ugh, so
totally frustrating, right? There you are doing everything you're
supposed to be doing, humming along with something to celebrate once
a week and wham, that bloody scale gets stuck!!!! Well when you lose
a lot of weight like I did, you learn there are options besides jumping and
fortunately I never did...jump.
It's kind of like the stock market. Have you ever heard all those talking heads
say that the market's "made a correction"? So it's run up and up and then
investors decide to take some of their paper profits off the table and put them in
their pockets and the market pulls back, sometimes dramatically. Well, it's kind
of like that when your body drops, drops, drops and says, "Whoa, wait a minute I
need to catch up here and rebalance everything." So what do you do when that
stubborn reading won't budge?
First of all stick with what you're doing - it really does not mean it's not working. It means you're a tad delayed in the forward move but that's because it's catching up on the microscopic level. [Believe that - it will help...and no, I have no idea if that's true - it's just what I told myself when I was stuck!] The first week when it happens you're tempted to give up but just make sure you're drinking the water and doing everything you're supposed to including moving and stretching and staying away from excess carbs. If it's still stuck at week 2 you're almost there...it will break and soon. Sometimes if I've been ultra good between week 1 and week 2 and it still hasn't budged I take that as a sign my nutrition engine needs a jump start. So I'll eat some extra protein for a day if I'm really hungry or sometimes - please take this as rarely - I might eat a little more of a regular healthy meal for dinner; just enough to re-assure my BMR that we're not starving here and there's more where that came from. Now typically the plateau breaks after week 1 but this is if you're really stuck and you're really doing it all the way you're supposed to. What I also found should cheer you though because sometimes after a really stubborn plateau the next drop was bigger! And believe me you'll feel like you deserved that if you power your way through. The important thing is to hang in there and stick to your plan. DO NOT GIVE UP. If you want to a week after your plateau breaks then ok, but not during plateau week, ever, okay?
The other thing you need to deal with is cravings! These are not just for pregnant women unfortunately although I had problems with them then too. Ask my husband how many times he had to go get me a hamburger at 10:00 PM! So if they're striking once a week, they're probably not cravings, they're probably your bad habit trying to re-assert itself. But every once in a while I'd get a hot fudge sundae stuck in my head. The mistake I made was to eat things instead. So after eating everything I didn't really want and still wanting that ice cream I'd finally give in and go get one. So if you're truly having a craving and can't distract yourself out of it, go get it, get it over with and move on. One slip, no problem but multiple slips means you're off your plan and that's self sabotage so just don't!
By now you've probably encountered the opportunity to go out for meals. Next time we'll take a brief look at the traps inside different restaurants and how to navigate them with your head in the game. Trust me, you don't have to stay at home forever but you do have to have your brain engaged if you're going to sit down in the seductive atmosphere of waiters, candle light, food you don't have to prepare yourself and alcohol.
Until then, don't jump unless it's with a jump rope and keep going on your changes for health! You'll be glad you did. Let me know how it goes!!
HV - 13
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