If you've ever embarked on a slimming journey and watched the pounds fall off, only to to see progress stall - you've likely experienced a weight loss plateau.
It can happen at anytime during a healthy stint and is a period when you briefly stop losing weight, despite eating the right foods and doing the correct workouts. While a very common occurrence, it also be frustrating as it force slimmers to give up.
Instead of throwing in the towel, there are little changes you can make to break your plateau and one involves increasing your intake of fats. That's according to diet guru Michael Mosley, founder of both the 5:2 and Fast 800 eating plans.
This may sound counter productive, as we are trained to think that high fat foods are a no-go for shedding pounds. But Mr Mosley has revealed on the Fast 800 blog that increasing your intake of healthy fats may help break through your wall.
Foods that are rich in healthy fats include avocados, eggs, olive oil, nuts, seeds, beans and oily fish like salmon. Mr Mosley is also an advocate for the Mediterranean diet, which heavily incorporates these kinds of foods.
So how can eating more of these good fats help you break a weight loss plateau? Well, if you've been dieting and cutting down on fats, your body may feel that it's not getting enough of the nutrient.
This keeps the body from burning excess fat stores for energy in order to hold on to reserves, causing weight loss to stall.
The health expert also recommends increasing incidental exercise to break through the plateau. Unlike specific work outs, this type of exercise pertains to our natural movements throughout the day, such as walking, climbing the stairs and cleaning the house.
It's also important to know what can spark weight loss plateaus and being aware of why they occur will help you tackle them. Studies have shown that stress plays a huge part in weight loss stalls, so worrying about them won't help your goals.
Instead, Mr Mosley advises to keep stress levels as low as possible and suggests methods like meditation, yoga and mindfulness to stay relaxed.
It's important to remember that weight loss plateaus are not only normal, but are in fact a positive sign. While the scales may not be going down, they also aren't going up - a clear sign the what your doing is working.
Mr Mosley said: "There’s no need to panic if you do find that you are experiencing a weight loss plateau; as we said, it’s very common, and it should just be a short phase. If you continue to exercise and eat the right foods, you will begin to lose weight again."
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