The Diet Logs

We’ve all been there: the first five just melt away like chocolates in July; the first ten — no sweat! And then, and then: the dreaded plateau. You diet. You exercise. You suffer. But you don’t lose weight. The secret, according to the people at Weight Loss Help, to getting the loss in gear again lies in kick starting your metabolism level up a notch. The plateau, or a slowdown in weight loss, happens because, “The body lowers your metabolism in an attempt to slow the use of your fatty energy reserves.” What does your body know? It thinks you’re experiencing a famine!

Two recommendations for upping the metabolic rate (how fast your body burns the fat you want to lose) are changing your exercise routine and adding or increasing strength training in your workouts. Simply changing the set of muscles used during your regular exercise will increase the number of calories burned because those muscles will work harder (than usual). This is why more strength training will raise your metabolism as the muscles are called on to do more work, burn more calories. Don’t go overboard, though, the Duke Medical Center warns: “A good moderate plan consists of no more than an hour of exercise a day, including warm-up and cool-down, combined with reasonable calorie intake (no less than 1200 per day for women, 1500 for men.)”

When I hit a plateau, I try to increase my daily exercise, even if that only means adding a little running to my daily walk around the neighborhood.

Georganna Hancock wrote this on May 26th, 2005 and filed it under Diet Logs, Dieting, Exercise Tips, Weight Loss, Working Out |