Hi There,
Welcome back to Kat & Tshepi blog. We hope you had a good week and you were able to achieve your planned tasks and goals for the week. Our week was a bit chilly, as we began the winter season. It was also a frustrating week for us when it comes to our weight loss and fitness journey, the scale seems to have disengaged from our alliance and is not willing dance to our own tune anymore. But regardless of the frustrations, it was a blessed week as we celebrated Kat’s birthday. It was very comforting to realize that it is at this time when he is aging that he has started to take his fitness and health seriously, he considers this a grace because it is common knowledge that the more we age, the more illnesses and health issues we encounter. Therefore, it is always better to start focusing on fitness and health earlier than later, it is not a guarantee of a life free from illnesses but it certainly gives an advantage and has benefits.
In this week, we managed to stick to our training program. It is so much fun when working out becomes a habit, what used to be a dreaded activity becomes an enjoyable endeavor and something to look forward to each day if it is given a chance long enough to be a habit. Our food preparations went according to our desire and plans, we had vegetables available for our consumptions each day of the week. It is amazing how much enjoyment we now get from eating a variety of fruits and vegetables, our mind and bodies really adapt very quickly to constant efforts and persuasions, an easy client if not forced into something 🙂 . We however, loosened the bonds of restrictions on Kat’s birthday and enjoyed some foods that are not on our meal plans, the cake was amazing. Our calorie tracking is still consistent but now there is a deep focus on balancing the macronutrients of protein, fats and carbohydrates each day.
Our set training and meals programs seemed to have worked well in the first three months of our weight loss and fitness journey. We were losing weight as predicted and we could identify and provide explanations in situations where we failed to lose weight, things were going very well. In this 4th month however, our journey has set sail towards the opposite direction of our desired destination, we are struggling to lose weight despite the same efforts and plans we followed in the first three months. We find ourselves in between a rock and a hard place, we have hit a weight loss plateau. This brings us to this week’s topic “Hitting a plateau”.
1.Hitting a plateau
A weight loss plateau is that state on your weight loss journey when you are putting enough disciplined efforts in your food consumption and training regiments that are more in alignment and supportive of weight loss but you are not succeeding. The weight loss has stalled regardless of your efforts. This is a painful state to be in, it is discouraging, stressful and has the potential to undermine all your efforts and progress achieved thus far and may cause a relapse into old eating and lifestyle habits. It is a destroyer of dreams, a dent on self-esteem, a toxic dip on motivation and the will to continue.
The reality of life is that there are always at least two sides to everything, and depending on one’s perception, things can look really good or really bad. Eric Idle of Monty Python shared a very humorous but very useful advice when he wrote “Always look on the bright side of life”, this is very helpful when one has hit a weight loss plateau. Focusing on the lack of current progress and the negative energy that accompanies a plateau can make one forget all the work they have put in so far on their journey, all the successes they had, the fact that they are better than how they were when they began the journey. One can forget a realistic perception of the plateau and focus on an imaginary and demeaning perception, the unrealistic perception.
Hitting a weight loss plateau may not be ideal, but it provides insights and information on the adequacy of our efforts and the likely response of our bodies to our efforts. The body is responding to the changes that are happening through our own doing or the effects of our environment. This is useful information that can be analyzed to identify and establish changes that can help the body to continue operating on weight loss mode. This makes one thing clear about weight loss and fitness journey, that it is dynamic and changes will occur throughout the journey. The plans that one started with ,may not necessarily be the plans that one finishes with.
On our fitness journey, we have hit a weight loss plateau multiple times. It was very frustrating and painful each time it happened, and it clearly still invokes the same feelings even now. We are frustrated that we are currently not making much progress, but we do know that we have to look at the possible causes and integrate a few changes up until we have figured out what is the possible cause of the plateau this time around. The challenge with the current plateau is that it jeopardize our targeted weight loss and date, and therefore is exposing us to possible failure(such a painful thought 😦 ). But we accept the reality of the plateau, and we acknowledge the great efforts we have expended thus far. Patiently, we are working on moving-on from the plateau with our eyes firmly gazing on the bright side of our journey.
That is it for this week. Hitting a plateau is not so ideal for us on this journey, the potential of a serious setback is lurking on the near horizon. We are starting to suspect the effects of Winter season, as changes are happening to our bodies to accommodate the cold weather. The intensity of our training is starting to wean down, our appetites are also changing in response to the season, and with all these changes, there is no way our metabolism can remain the same as the body is a master of adaptation in keeping us safe. In the coming week, we will be tracking progress of the 4th Month of our journey and see how we did in this month. Our habits of training, food preparation and tracking calories will continue as usual (this is a bright side 🙂 ) , we will be integrating new changes and tweaks on our plans as we discover things that can help us move on from our plateau. Until next week, stay blessed.
Kat & Tshepi
Kat & Tshepi 