If you’ve kept steadfast with your new eating and fitness regime, you should have already seen some results. The most frustrating point on a weight loss journey is when you hit that wall, that plateau, when you see little to no change on your body. One way to break through that plateau would be to change things up in your workout routine, but if this is still not yielding any breakthrough, the problem may lie in your eating habits.
The body is an incredible machine, it is able to learn from your new patterns and adapt all in order to keep you functioning at your best. But sometimes, the body can work against you when it comes to weight loss. If it feels you are losing too much weight, it goes into survival mode and will try and force you to hold onto some of that unwanted fat ‘just in case’. Remember the body is always planning and keeping itself on the ready for when it may need those additional fat stores.
The most stubborn weight to lose is usually those last few kilos before your goal weight – in those last 5 kilograms of weight one would think you have more room to play and relax your eating habits, but actually it’s then that every diversion off your eating plan counts against you. For me, I hit that wall, at that point and it was so frustrating.
The secret that helped me tremendously was keeping a food diary for two weeks. Literally recording every single thing that crossed my lips no matter how small or seemingly insignificant. It’s in these little details that I found the weakness in my weight loss plan. We often think we could easily recall what we ate for the day, however it’s a whole different story when you have it written down in front of you and you can actually see it listed – it often surprises one.
Then, when we take that diary to a nutrition expert or our personal trainer who would look at it even more critically, it’s easy for them to point out where the weakness in our plan is. It was that simple for me, once we identified what my mistake was, (mine was drinking too many Lipton Ice Teas – at the time I had no idea it contained as much sugar as a coca-cola! Yikes!) it was easy to correct and voila, I started seeing the weight come off again!
The important thing with the diary is to be absolutely painfully honest, don’t try and trick your trainer or nutrition expert, you are only in the end tricking yourself.
Wardah
Happy Healthy Fabulous
Photography: Hemisha Bhana
