The Infamous Weight Loss Plateau

Stuck. That is where I am at the moment. Very stuck. Nine pounds into what will hopefully be a seventeen pound weight loss after having a baby four months ago. Nine pounds down and STOP.

Here’s the thing about weight loss plateaus… if you hit one, you know you’ve arrived somewhere. You’ve accomplished something. When you are in the process of losing weight, there are points along the way where your body wants to put on the brakes. It’s a signal that your metabolism, your muscles, and your mind need a chance to catch up and get accustomed to the new weight.

It is profoundly frustrating, but it should be seen as positive thing, a space for taking stock, recognizing the new body for what it is… a huge accomplishment. It may not be the body you are ultimately striving for, but it is different enough from what you were maintaining before that it demands a moment to catch up. Your body is telling you something. It is saying, “Hold on a second! This is not normal. What does this weight loss mean? Am I starving?? Do I need to protect myself and hang onto the weight that is left?”

The key here is to stay focused and refuse to give up

The first week of a new weight loss plan is usually pretty successful. Dietary changes are consistent and exercises are new and challenging. You are sore. You might drop several pounds of water weight because you aren’t taking in as much sugar and salt. The scale proudly reports that you have lost three pounds in one week, and you feel like you will be able to do that forever.

Week two is a slap in the face. It is often the first mini-plateau. You’ve lost the water weight, and your metabolism is carefully adjusting to the new calorie intake and expenditure. You haven’t built up enough muscle mass to make you feel tight and fit yet or to help you burn more calories during the day. The dietary changes slip once or twice. It’s week two, and it is almost always a disaster. You might lose nothing. You might lose half a pound. You might gain a pound. Anyway, it feels like a failure.

Week two is a maintenance week and should be dedicated to maintaining your behavioral changes, not worrying about the results on the scale. This is the first of several plateaus you will likely face along the way. If you can just keep your head down and keep doing what worked so well the first week, you will keep losing. It might come off slowly, but that truly is the best way to go. Slow weight loss is much more likely to be permanent… and that, inevitably, includes plateaus.

As I wait here, stuck, it is my job to quietly, peacefully reassure my body that I have enough energy to function healthfully and that it is okay to let go of a little bit more extra poundage. In order to do that, I will have to keep up the workout routine and stick to the dietary changes I have made. I should NOT suddenly cut another 500 calories out of my diet or start spending six hours at the gym every day. I want to let my body know that this is a change I can maintain and that it will feel good in the end. Do not panic. Stay calm.

If after a few weeks I am still stuck, I may need to make some subtle changes to what I am doing. I might add some high intensity intervals to my cardio routine or investigate my diet to see if there is a food or a habit I’ve been ignoring that could make a difference.

I need to treat my body and mind like they have just been through a divorce because, in fact, they have just divorced themselves of 8 pounds they were accustomed to carrying around. I need to help them understand that this new unencumbered, lighter life is a huge step forward, not something scary to be resisted.

A plateau demands patience. You can’t rush genius after all, and if you’ve lost five pounds toward a fifteen pound goal or two pounds toward a fifty pound goal, that’s exactly what you are, a weight loss genius. It is incredibly tough to lose weight. You will get stuck, but keep moving forward. Don’t talk yourself out of it. Keep your eye on the prize, and don’t waver.

These last eight pounds I have to lose are pounds I was carrying before I got pregnant. It is the weight I swore I would drop before having a baby but never did. After walking around bloated and bulbous for nine months (and a few months after that), I’m tired of being squishy. I know where I want my weight to be, and I’ve never been so motivated to get there.

I’m at a plateau. My body is telling me, “This is where you were when you got pregnant. Let’s stop right here in the comfort zone.” But that’s not good enough anymore. I need to let my body rest here for a week or two and then give it a kick start to let it know I can be better, stronger, and lighter.

I’m not taking no for an answer.

G-bye Fat Jeans

So... the fat jeans I bought post-pregnancy are falling off. Just thought I'd share. It feels damn good. I think I'll keep wearing them for a while until they get nice and saggy. 3 lbs away from pre-pregnancy weight, 11 lbs away from goal... whoop!

Hold On For Dear Life or Jump?

Pregnancy sucks. Sorry for the lack of sunshiny teddy bear visions, but it does. I am not a fan. The following post is ostensibly about my trepidation over pregnancy because that happens to be the ordeal I am currently facing, but, more than that, it’s about the way we fight the challenges and changes in our bodies and lives… or not. Do we hold on for dear life or jump?

I have spent my entire adult life clinging to my independence and loathing the thought of pregnancy, but seven months ago, faced with a loving husband who would be broken-hearted if he never had the chance to be a Dad, I held my breath and made the choice to get knocked up. I jumped. It could be an adventure, right? I knew that once the deed was done, I would have no option but to see it through and hoped that, once impregnated, the prospect of motherhood might become less terrifying. No such luck.

Now, eight weeks out from my due date, the changes that are coming to my body, my life, and my household ache with palpable inevitability. The physical changes are inescapable, but it turns out that I do have a choice. I can claw and scratch to stay at the cliff’s edge where I easily understand my world, mourning the loss of my old life… childless, freewheeling, and exceedingly happy with the status quo. Or I can release the breath I began holding seven months ago and allow the changes to wash over me like a wave. As the days tick by, I am increasingly aware that holding on for dear life will bring me nothing but suffering.

My growing belly tells me that my body is going to make this transition whether I like it or not. My body is taking the lead, showing me the way forward as usual. “Strength Outside In” is my mantra after all. The body and external behavior patterns are the tangible stuff of life. They are the things that have always moved me forward when my mind just can’t seem to shake itself loose.

At this point, the belly is big, and the baby boy is kicking. I need to release him and myself. I have to let this kid out, get out of his way, and allow myself to become what I need to be in order to help him survive and grow. I am at a loss to know who this upcoming mother-person will be, but I do know that my heart and mind will follow the changes in my external life if I can allow them the space to swell and contract with the ebb and flow of new motherhood. The glimmers of excitement are already beginning to arise, and the more I loosen my grip, the more they show themselves.

As I was reminded by a Pete Seeger documentary on PBS the other day (yes, I’m a nerd), “To everything, turn, turn, turn; there is a season, turn, turn, turn.” I have no doubt that this particular season is going to rip me apart… physically, emotionally, psychologically, and spiritually. But I do get to choose how to respond, and I am choosing wholeheartedly to take the plunge, ride the wave, and see what becomes of me when I wash up on shore in the aftermath. Whatever happens, I have no doubt that I will be stronger for having taken the leap, overcome one of the greatest fears of my life, and welcomed into the world a little guy who, I'm sure, has a lot to teach me.

What cliff’s edge are you stuck on? Are you ready to jump? Consider catching a wave, and see where you land.

Unanticipated Body Love

Okay, I am pregnant.

Hopefully, this explains my silence over the last couple of months. Call it shock, call it a fear of miscarriage... whatever it may be, I was unable to write or communicate for the better part of three months. I am returning to the land of the living now, and I am returning with unexpected lessons learned.

In all of my angst-ridden twenties, all of the years I spent deeply fearing pregnancy, fearing the implications on my body, how much weight I would gain, how I would never get my body back... in all of those years, it never occurred to me that pregnancy might teach me once and for all not to give a flying fuck what people think about my body. In fact, I never considered that it would teach me anything about much of anything, except how to endure seemingly eternal pain, suffering, and exhaustion.

I don't have any interest in being a pregnancy blogger. However, I can't help but share what this strange and bizarrely natural process is teaching me about nutrition and overall health. So far, aside from not giving a flying fuck what people think, which is lovely by the way, I have learned three extremely valuable things that I hope I can carry with me for the rest of my life.

1) Food is for growth and nourishment. I have always understood in theory that food is fuel and should be utilized and valued as such. But somehow it always came back to being about boredom and control, self-medicating and quelling loneliness, a sugar rush and a nice satisfying Serotonin bath. In pregnancy, there is constant awareness of exactly what is needed at the moment, and there are immediate results if I have fed my body the wrong or the right thing. Food is fuel, powerful and necessary, and the body is going to use that fuel down to its most minuscule resource.

2) There is a time for rest, a time to give yourself a break. I am a trainer. It is my job to push people to the limits, to help them break through their boundaries to reach a higher level of strength and endurance. But when the workout is done, in order to build muscle, recovery time is needed. Rest is a crucial part of the equation. In pregnancy, there is no option. A pregnant woman is called upon to rest, and there is no negotiating . She must lie down and close her eyes or people will die: car accidents will happen and baby-daddies will be destroyed. Rest is an imperative for health, pregnant or not. I have learned to take heed, to pay attention when rest is needed and to make time for it. I have learned to let go of the guilt of taking a few moments for rest and to enjoy it, fully and apologetically. The remainder of the day will be so much more productive for having taken it.

3) If you listen hard enough, your body will tell you when the resting time is over. After days or weeks of down time, you will begin to twitch and ache for movement. You will find yourself squirming in your office chair and unable to sleep at night for all of the tossing and turning. If you ignore the call for motion, you will slowly grow lethargic and immovable. This is the moment you must get up and go for a walk, head to the gym, or call a friend to go out dancing. The longer you wait, the harder it will be to get going. Give your body what it needs, and it will ask for it again the following day. The first twelve weeks I was pregnant, I needed rest, plain and simple. Now my body is telling me to move, and I am slowly, tentatively venturing back to the gym and back to the sidewalks with Elvin leading the charge.

I won't call pregnancy beautiful. It still seems kind of bizarre and freaky to me, but I will call it miraculous. It is miraculous that the body knows how to create another human being when called upon (no matter how freaked out the mother). And it is miraculous for me, a lifelong body image cripple, to be free, finally, from trying to fit the mold... instead finding beauty in the urgency of hunger and the clarity of purpose, in the body doing its job: eating and breathing and moving.

I look forward to taking this knowledge with me back to the world of the non-pregnant because the human body is no less miraculous when it is not making a baby. It just took this massive, life-altering event for me to finally not give a shit what the haters in my own mind have to say and put the focus squarely and intently on the wondrous inner workings of my physical body, loving it exactly as it is and allowing it to do its thing.