I’ve hit a plateau – now what?!

Unfortunately, no matter how hard you try, there are always going to be hurdles you need to overcome and walls you need to climb on your way to becoming a fitness goddess. No one can reach an infinite level of awesomeness, except for Ryan Gosling, but you’re not Ryan Gosling. So what are plateaus and what do you do when you run into one? You define your own plateaus, so there’s no general answer.

I’ve hit a plateau – now what?!

Ofcourse there’s a general definition for the word, the dictionary defines ‘plateau’ as:

a period or state of little or no growth or decline

So whenever you feel you are not progressing anymore, you call it a plateau. The problem is it really depends on your patience, mostly. Some people scream out “plateau!” if they haven’t lost any weight for 24 hours, while others realize fat loss, strength or muscle gain are all long-term goals. It’s completely understandable you want to see constant progress, but here’s the truth: that’s just not going to happen. Ever.

The worst part? The more experienced of an athlete or fitness enthusiast you become, the longer it’s going to take for you to progress even a little bit. For instance, beginners who go to the gym can gain muscle a lot faster than an experienced lifter who’s been doing it for years and is close to his natural potential. The latter person is going to have to fight for every ounce of muscle mass, while the first can look at a dumbbell and gain a few pounds. Is it fair? Not really. But it’s the reality of things.

You can only reach a plateau, if you monitor your progress right.

Here’s the thing: contrary to popular belief, the body is an extremely complicated machine. Ofcourse you think you can ‘feel your metabolism slow down’ or ‘feel the fat burn’, but you can’t. Your body consists of an average of 7,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 (7 octillion) atoms. There’s a good chance you’ve never even heard of that number. There are “only” 300 billion stars in our galaxy, which is nothing, compared to the amount of atoms in the body.

If you gain a pound of muscle or fat, your body creates seven miles (eleven kilometers) of blood vlessels to supply your new cells with enough blood. Every second you produce twentyfive million new cells. Take a second to let all of that sink in, for that is the majesty of the bodies we take for granted every day.

My point? The body is really complex, so don’t try to rationally (or emotionally) understand your body. If you haven’t lost a pound for a few days, that doesn’t mean you’ve hit a plateau, because there are a lot of factors that influence bodyweight (contents of your stomach/intestines, glycogen, water retention, muscle mass, fat mass, etc.).

That’s where you need to start looking at the way you monitor progress. A lot of people go to the gym and stand on one of those weight scales that also calculate your body fat percentage, usually a Tanita scale. One week the scale will say their body fat percentage is 20% and a week later it’ll say 22%. Naturally, most people freak out at that point, because they ate right that week and worked out, so what the hell is happening?

The problem doesn’t have to be you, it could be the scale. The simple fact is that they’re not accurate at all and multiple studies have shown deviations of up to 10%! Meaning that if the scale says 22%, it could be anywhere between 12% and 32%. Also, try standing on the scale, drink half a gallon of water after and stand on the scale again; a completely different number will probably show. Even before and after training your body fat percentage can supposedly go up or down significantly.

So now what? How do I monitor my progress?

It depends on your goals.

Weight loss:

• Weigh yourself every morning on an empty stomach right after waking up and preferably after going to the bathroom. Then calculcate your average weekly weight. (add up your weight of every day and divide that number by seven).That’ll take care of slight daily deviations. Especially women can experience weight swings due to their menstrual cycle.
• Check if clothing starts to loosen. If the weight on the scale doesn’t go down, but your clothes start to loosen, you’re losing fat.
• Check the mirror. It doesn’t matter how loose your clothes are, nor what number is on the scale. If the face in the mirror doesn’t smile back at you, none of it matters.

Muscle gain:

• Weigh yourself the same way as explained above. If you’re gaining weight but your body fat is not obviously going up, you’re gaining muscle.
• Monitor your strength in the gym. If you’re getting stronger and stronger, you’re almost certain gaining muscle, unless you’ve only been going to the gym for a few weeks.
• Check the mirror, as explained above.

I’m already eating so little, but you still can’t see my abs!

That’s a tricky one. You lose fat when you consume less calories than you burn, plain and simple, it’s an undeniable fact. If you think you’re already eating so little, that really does suck, but if you want to lose more fat, you’re going to have to cut calories by consuming less, or moving more. Since training doesn’t burn that many calories, you’re usually stuck with cutting calories from food. It’s not nice to hear, but you can’t always get what you want.

Do realize that having abs isn’t a generally healthy thing for most people and not all people can maintain visible abs as easily. Some are born with visible abs and will carry them with them forever without even trying, others feel like they need to starve themselves and feel unhealthy. Some men feel great with low body fat, others experience an extreme drop in testosterone, libido and feel like horrible every day. That’s just not worth it.

To wrap things up.

Your body doesn’t lie and is always going to be a reflection of your diet, training and lifestyle. If you pig out at an all-you-can-eat buffet every night, never train, sleep too little and stress out over little things, you’re going to look pretty bad. If you eat right for your goal (there’s not one right way to eat), train consistently, sleep a good eight hours a night and chill out, you’ll be happy with your Instagram selfies.

The less you eat, the skinnier you are. If you want to lose more fat, you’ll need to consume less calories. But do all of that for something bigger and better than “I just want abs”. Your future kids are not going to be as impressed by your abs as you might think right now. If you feel like crap every day, just stop what you’re doing, because you’re either not doing it right, or it’s not for you.

And most importantly, be patient! It’s not a sprint, it’s a marathon and a damn long one. Oh, you worked out for a few months now? Some people work out half their lives to reach their goals. A few months is nothing. It’s a start and that’s the hardest part for sure, but don’t expect any miracles to happen after a few sets of squats. It doesn’t work that way, or we’d all look amazing and walk around naked all day. How cool would that be?