Ep. #490: How to Break Through Weight Loss Plateaus

A quick bit of exciting news before we start. My sports nutrition company, Legion Athletics, is going to be holding its biggest sale of the year in a couple days starting on Wednesday, the 27th. This is our annual Black Friday and Cyber Monday sale. And what that means is that for a few days, you’re going to be able to save up to 30% on everything in our store over at legionathletics.

com. That’s l e g i o n athletics. com, including our protein powders, our protein bars, our pre workout and post workout supplements, fat burners, multivitamins, joint support, and all the rest. And as you will see, come Wednesday, everything in the store is going to be marked down five to 15%. And then, when you enter the code FRIDAY19, numerals 1 9, at checkout, you’ll get a You’re going to save another 15%.

So if you like what I’m doing here on the podcast and elsewhere, and if you would like to help me do more of it, if you’d like to help me help more people get into the best shape of their lives as well, then please do support Legion Athletics this Wednesday when our big Black Friday sale kicks off. Hey, Mike here and welcome to another episode of Muscle 4 Life.

This episode is a little bit different than the usual. This is a chapter from the new third editions of my flagship books for Men and Women, Bigger Than You’re Stronger, and Thinner Than You’re Stronger, this chapter is in both of the books, and what you’re about to hear is specifically from the men’s book, and in the women’s book, it’s the same basic fundamental information, but it is customized to be specifically for men.

women, but for women listening, this information again is going to apply to you just as much as it is to guys, even though it is from the men’s book. And the reason why I wanted to publish this chapter in particular is it’s a good topic, something that I get asked about a lot, breaking through weight loss plateaus.

And I realized that I hadn’t recorded anything. on it and that I have everything that I have to say about it really in the audio book of Bigger, Leaner, Stronger and also Thinner, Leaner, Stronger. And so that’s today’s episode, how to break through weight loss plateaus. And if you like what you hear in this episode, then you will definitely like the rest of the audio books.

So if you listen and you like it, go check out Bigger, Leaner, Stronger, the audio book. If you’re a guy, you’re And thinner linear stronger if you are a gal. And of course, those books are also available as eBooks and paperback books. And you can find them online wherever you buy books. Most people though just buy on Amazon.

So of course you can find everything on Amazon and the audio books are on Audible and Amazon and iTunes. All right, let’s get to the episode. Chapter 32. How to break through weight loss plateaus. Quote, Hard choices, easy life. Easy choices, hard life. Jersey Gregorick. What’s the most common gripe among dieters everywhere?

Easy, not losing weight. They feel like they’re doing everything right and following all the rules, yet the scale flashes the same scowling, mocking number at them every morning. You’ve probably experienced this yourself. This plight extends to our more enlightened perspective of monitoring body composition as well.

You can carefully apply. Everything you’ve learned in this audio book and suddenly stop losing fat. In fact, you can count on this happening. Fortunately, while the human metabolism is incredibly complex. Breaking through weight and fat loss plateaus isn’t. You simply need to widen the gap between energy in and energy out.

To do this, you first need to ensure you’re accurately measuring and recording everything you’re eating and drinking. Remember in Chapter 7 where you learned how to eat healthy. Easy it is to mess up calorie counting if you’re not paying enough attention to the details. You also need to ensure you’re not making any of the cheating mistakes we discussed in Chapter 20.

Once you’re certain you’re not making any energy balance blunders, the easiest way to break through a weight or fat loss plateau is to eat less. That said, I recommend maxing out on exercise first, Because this is better for staving off the negative side effects associated with calorie restriction. In short, I’d rather you move more before eating less.

There isn’t a Clear scientific answer as to how much exercise you can do while dieting before it becomes unhealthy and counterproductive. But it’s more than many people think. I’ve worked and spoken with many thousands of people and here’s what I’ve learned. 4 to 5 hours of weightlifting and 1. 5 to 2 hours of high intensity cardio per week will maximize fat loss while minimizing unwanted side effects.

And that’s exactly what I recommend you work up to as your exercise ceiling when you’re cutting. What happens when you exceed those numbers and exercise even more? Some people’s bodies are particularly resilient and do fine with more exercise. But in my experience, many don’t. If you take it much further than I recommend, it’s more likely that hunger and cravings will kick into overdrive, sleep quality will decline, energy levels will plummet, Once you’ve reached your exercise limit, and it appears you’re no longer losing fat, it’s usually due to one of the two following scenarios.

1. Fat loss is being obscured by fluctuations in water weight or bowel movements. Water retention can vary wildly when you’re cutting. Sometimes, you can go for two. Two or even three weeks without losing weight and suddenly overnight drops several pounds through frequent urination, the whoosh effect bodybuilders often talk about.

This overnight flush often occurs after a cheat meal or diet break because increasing calories and carbs in particular can significantly decrease cortisol levels. which in turn reduces water retention. Stool retention can also play tricks on you, obscuring both weight and fat loss by increasing body weight and bloating.

All this is why it’s smart to wait two or three weeks before reducing your calories when you’ve hit your exercise ceiling. And your weight or fat loss has stalled. 2. Fat loss has slowed to a crawl due to the natural metabolic adaptations that occur while cutting. As time goes on, what started out as a 20 or 25 percent calorie deficit can shrink to a much smaller one that no longer results in appreciable weight.

Hey, before we continue, if you like what I’m doing here on the podcast and elsewhere, and if you want to help me help more people get into the best shape of their lives, please consider checking out my VIP one on one coaching service. Now my team and I have helped thousands of people of all ages, circumstances, and needs.

So no matter how complicated or maybe even hopeless you might think your situation is, please We will figure out how to get you the results you want. Every diet and training program we create is 100 percent custom. We provide daily workout logs and we do weekly accountability calls. Our clients get priority email service.

As well as discounts on supplements and the list goes on and on. To learn more, just head over to legionathletics. com slash coaching. And if you like what schedule your free consultation call. Now there’s normally a wait list to work with our coaches and new slots do fill up very quickly. So if this sounds even remotely interesting to you, head over to legionathletics.

com slash coaching now and schedule your free consultation call and let’s see if our program is a good fit for you. So if you’ve reached your exercise limit and failed to lose any weight or fat in at least two to three weeks, the next move is to eat less. And to do it gradually, not drastically.

Specifically, you should cut your daily food intake by about 100 calories every 14 days by reducing your carbohydrate intake. Don’t reduce your protein or fat. How low you can ultimately go will depend on your body, but a good rule of thumb is to stop cutting calories when you’ve reached about 90 percent of your BMR.

And then, don’t remain there for more than a couple of weeks. Before calling it quits on the cut, what should you do? If you’ve been slightly below your BMR for a couple of weeks but still haven’t reached your desired body fat percentage? Your best bet in this case is to bring your calories back to your total daily energy expenditure for four to six weeks.

to allow your body to normalize itself and then start cutting anew. Weight loss plateaus are nothing to be afraid of or worried about. They’re an inevitable consequence of proper dieting, and they’re easily conquered by making minor adjustments to your meal and exercise plans and staying the course.

That’s all there is to it. Key takeaways. While the human metabolism is incredibly complex, breaking through weight and fat loss plateaus isn’t. You simply need to widen the gap between energy in and energy out. To do this, you first need to ensure you’re accurately measuring and recording everything you’re eating and drinking.

You also need to ensure you’re not making any of the cheating mistakes we discussed in chapter 20. Once you’re certain you’re not making any energy balance blunders, the easiest way to break through a weight and fat loss plateau is to eat less. That said, I recommend maxing out on exercise first, because this is better for staving off the negative side effects associated with calorie restriction.

Four to five hours of weight lifting and 1. 5 to 2 hours of high intensity cardio per week We’ll maximize fat loss while minimizing unwanted side effects. Once you’ve reached your exercise limit and it appears you’re no longer losing fat, it’s usually due to One of the two following scenarios, fat loss is being obscured by fluctuations in water weight or bowel movements.

Fat loss has slowed to a crawl due to the natural metabolic adaptations that occur while cutting. If you’ve reached your exercise limit and failed to lose any weight or fat in at least two to three weeks. Cut your daily food intake by about 100 calories every 14 days by reducing your carbohydrate intake.

Don’t reduce your protein or fat. A good rule of thumb is to stop cutting calories when you’ve reached about 90 percent of your BMR. If you’ve been slightly below your BMR for a couple of weeks, but still haven’t reached your desired body fat percentage, bring your calories back to your total daily energy expenditure for four to six weeks to allow your body to normalize itself.

And then start cutting anew. My sports nutrition company, Legion Athletics, is going to be holding its biggest sale of the year in a couple days, starting on Wednesday the 27th. This is our annual Black Friday and Cyber Monday sale, and what that means is that for a few days, You’re going to be able to save up to 30 percent on everything in our store over at legionathletics.

com. That’s l e g i o n athletics. com, including our protein powders, our protein bars, our pre workout and post workout supplements, fat burners, multivitamins, joint support, and all the rest. And as you will see, come Wednesday, everything in the store is going to be marked down 5 to 15 percent. And then, when you enter the code FRIDAY19, numerals 1 9, at checkout, you’re going to save another 15 percent.

If you like what I’m doing, give Here on the podcast and elsewhere and if you would like to help me do more of it If you’d like to help me help more people get into the best shape of their lives as well Then please do support legion athletics this wednesday When our big black friday sale kicks off All right.

That’s it for today’s episode. I hope you found it interesting and helpful. And if you did, and you don’t mind doing me a favor, could you please leave a quick review for the podcast on iTunes or wherever you are listening from? Because those reviews not only convince people that they should check out the show, they also increase the search visibility and help more people find their way to me.

And to the podcast and learn how to build their best body ever as well. And of course, if you want to be notified when the next episode goes live, then simply subscribe to the podcast and whatever app you’re using to listen, and you will not miss out on any of the. new stuff that I have coming. And last, if you didn’t like something about the show, then definitely shoot me an email at Mike at muscle for life.

com and share your thoughts. Let me know how you think I could do this better. I read every email myself and I’m always looking for constructive feedback. All right. Thanks again for listening to this episode. And I hope to hear from you soon.