Hitting a plateau

I would first take a look at your food. What kinds of food are you eating? What does your over all diet really look like. How detailed are you when it comes to tracking fats, carbs, and proteins? Do you drink sugary drinks instead of water? Things like that. If your working out 3-5 times a week, ya you'll want to be in a caloric deficiency while working out, but you also need to be eating enough to fuel your body. second take a look at your workouts. Are they vigorous enough? Are you doing strength training or just cardio? These are just a few things I would start to look at when I hit plateaus. I've hit them before, and they suck. Don't let it get you down. Keep your head up and stay strong. One thing I've done recently is, I've started following Mind Pump. They are a fitness podcast. They have a lot of great information about working out, eating right and the overall fitness industry.

Best of luck! If you want to reply with more details about your current struggle I can't try to help; but I'm not a dietitian, or a trainer. Just speaking from experience.

How long have you been on this plateau?

Sometimes you actually need to increase your calories to see a loss.. confusing but it works.

It sounds like you just need to make some adjustments in your eating or track your calories more diligently now that you've cut off some fat. Being accurate with your calories becomes more important as you lose weight. Do you actually weight your food and, if so, how? Are you just guesstimating or using the package weights? When I hit a plateu, I just evaluate what I'm doing and then adjust how much or what I'm eating and your body can't help but break through the wall. If you've been eating out a lot, many prepared foods have a lot of sodium and that will make you retain water. If you're a female and are having your cycles, you will retain fluids and bloat. I'd cut back on the processed pre-packaged or retaurant foods and drink a lot of water. Maybe then you'll start to see a difference.

Lift weights. If you can only do a 2 day program. There is a book called "New Rules of Lifting" by Alywn Cosgrove he details his plan in there and you can customize it to how many days a week you can workout. It takes less than an hour to complete a workout.

OP, I don't know enough to give you workout advice, but it never hurts to tighten up your logging and make sure your calorie goal is still appropriate. Sometimes when you've been at it for awhile, you start to take for granted that you know what you're doing and get less precise! My personal opinion is that your diet affects your weight loss more than your exercise, so make sure that's on point, and good luck!

jham2017 wrote: »

Ive lost 34 lbs and am starting a plateau. Any advice? Was doing two a days but stopped as to not let my body adapt to that much excersize while decreasing my food intake a lot. Is this a good course of action?

What does starting a plateau mean? If it's only been 1-3 weeks since you lost weight last, that's not a plateau. That's a natural part of losing weight.

But generally, losing/not losing all comes down to what you are eating. And it doesn't matter how "clean" you are eating. All that matters is if you are getting in fewer calories than your body burns during the day. Candy is just fine if you log it and you are still under calories. But if you are logging poorly and actually eating more than you think, you won't lose weight. But it seems highly probable you just need to be patient and wait a few more weeks.