Weight Loss Plateaus

Plateaus are a very frustrating thing when losing weight. It's a struggle to get over those humps. I've hit a few along the way, but the current one seems to be the worse. I think it probably gets worse the further along you go. I've been paying close attention to my body and my eating routines trying to see how each affect my body anecdotally.

I've found that my metabolism slows down quite a bit from fasting. This doesn't mean that I'm going to stop fasting. I'm just thinking that I need to be aware of that and adjust my fasting routine to see if it can be improved. Earlier this week I did a 42 hour fast and my weight wasn't affected by it tremendously. I think over the next few days I'll see more results, but I'm trying to make a decision on how I approach the next few days in terms of fasts. Would it be more beneficial for me to eat and potentially increase my metabolism?

I'm not sure. I can say that I've noticed that some food increase my metabolism. Some of those foods were cut out of my diet due to high carb content. Perhaps carbs aren't terrible after all. Well, high fiber carbs aren't bad at least. I hate to use the term common sense but perhaps some of this "diet" stuff goes back to common sense. It doesn't make sense to eat nothing but sugar all the time. It doesn't make sense to eat nothing but meat all the time either. All of these fads seem to cut out something from your diet that you may need.

For instance, if I eat all veggies, I'm going to miss out on a ton of protein that I really need. So I'll keep eating meat. I've cut out all bread and rice because of their carb content, but there's plenty of asian cultures that live on rice as a primary source of nourishment and they don't suffer from near as much obesity. It all really goes back to the old idea of eating whatever you want, but not overdoing anything.

The plateaus may be good points to evaluate what we are doing and test new ideas. Plateaus also test our resolve. Losing weight/fat is already challenging enough. I check the scale every day and see that I'm up or down a pound or so. I chart it all and watch for trends. Plateaus make me want to try harder.