Even after a great weight loss or fitness journey, those last few kilos can seem impossible to shift.
Read on to explore some reasons for this plateau, and ideas to nudge things on!
1. No calorie deficit
On approach to your goal weight, you need to increase your efforts to burn the same amount of calories and shift that weight.
One of the biggest misconceptions with this is that as you are leaner, you can introduce MORE calories to your day, as you will burn it off just as quickly.
Here’s what the trap looks like in practice:Â you complete an awesome workout, burning lots of calories, you feel great about it and sit down to a calorie overload as a reward.
Not only does this push your calories way over for the day, but your body never gets to work on those last few kilos specifically, as there is no real deficit in place.
Also read: 11 Simple Tricks to Stop Overeating ImmediatelyÂ
2. Drop in focus, willpower and motivation
Having the magic number in sight can often lead to taking the foot off the gas and encourage a more relaxed approach food and exercise.
If you’ve been working diligently on your weight loss journey, there’s a chance that the light at the end of the tunnel is providing a comfort zone. Stay focused!
3. Getting slack with portions and snacking
With a less-than-focused routine and some complacency, comes the odd bit of snacking or loose portion sizes.
Meals get less controlled with overall size, ratios and ingredients, which of course was probably what contributed to a little weight gain before the process of losing it began.
4. You’re over or under-training
Finding a happy place with your exercise is imperative, as losing your mojo with intensity is an obvious factor to hinder results, whilst going too hard can bring about less-than-desirable results with symptoms of overtraining.
Taking a look at where you can change things up with your exercise routine.
5. Your body ‘set point’ has been reached
Our bodies are always doing their best to keep us healthy, and research shows most of us will have a weight ‘set point’ which our bodies deem optimal (even if this is clinically overweight).
It takes patience and persistence to recalibrate your body’s set point and shift those last few kilos.
6. You’re not getting enough sleep or hydration
Adequate hydration assists with metabolic rate, while sleep can impact your results with your body composition from losing body fat, to muscle growth and recovery.
Sleep regulates the hunger hormones, so get your shut eye for less pangs!
7. You’re stressed
Stress increases the production of the hormone cortisol, and this is never a good thing.
High levels of cortisol can be associated with carb cravings, anxiety, inflammation, sleep disturbances, insulin resistance and well.. STRESS.
Being stressed is simply not helpful when trying to reduce body fat.
