Plateaus

Do u fit bit?

Hi Brenda, a plateau is perfectly natural and expected, it happens to all of us, whether you are loosing weight or building muscle.
First thing to do is step back and look at your diet plan: are you eating enough to fuel 6 workouts a week? This is important as eating too little will cause your body to hold on to fat and water, its called starvation mode. Maybe you need to eat more? Dont be afraid of good fat or complex carbs they are your friend not your enemy, too little fat in your diet will act against you, to few carbs and you cannot fuel your workouts or your brain properly.

Secondly - how are you working out? I will not make assumptions as to how you are training, just generalities - Long steady state cardio such as running, cycling, cross trainer etc are not effective in the long run for fat loss! Your body adapts very quickly to the stimulus and it gets harder and harder to lose fat and you need to keep running longer and longer and longer for little to no results. Best advice (if you are not already) is HIIT - Hight Intensity Interval Training, short bursts of 100% effort followed by rests i.e. Sprint for 20 seconds, walk for 60 seconds, repeat 8-10 times and thats it. Quick, powerful and torches fat whilst helping to build and maintain muscle mass. The most important element of HIIT is the so called After Burn where your metabolism is reved up for up to 48 hours compared with the average 4-6 hours from steady state cardio.

Most importantly for training- hit the free weights!!!!!!! no more girlie weights, no more machines, lift some iron, the effect on your fat loss will amaze you!

Thirdly - You may be right about over doing things, 6 days a week is a lot and you may be over training, take another day off and see if that helps.

My last pointer would be meal prep, if you arent prepping your meals yet, then start now - Fail to plan then plan to fail. I cook all my meals and snacks for the week on a sunday, tupperware it all up and pop it in the fridge, then you are 100% ready and acountable and can use this site to track every calorie.

I strongly suggest getting on websites such as Bodybuilding.com, muscleandstrength.com
They may appear to be just for bodybuilders and gym rats like me but there is expert advice and a great community of people who know better than anyone else how to change your body, no one knows fat loss like bodybuilders and competitors.

Phew....
Hope this is useful?!