This guest blog post was written by fitness and nutrition author Tom Venuto I have his permission to share it with you.

The way to break the weight loss plateau then is to:
(1) re-stimulate metabolism and re-set fat-burning and starvation hormones, and
(2) re-establish the deficit.
(3) KEEP AFTER IT!

The question was, “How do I do that? More cardio, more weight training, manipulate my diet?”
You could do all of the above. Eating less or exercising more can both increase a deficit. But one thing you might want to do first, is give yourself a little break. Take your calories up to maintenance level, maybe for a week.

The idea there is not to try to accelerate fat loss, because what you’re actually doing is removing your calorie deficit for a short period of time. What you’re trying to do is facilitate the fat loss when you jump back into it.

It gives your body a physiological break from the stress of dieting; it resets some of those starvation hormones and stimulates your metabolism so when you go back to the calorie deficit, your body responds again.

You also get mental break from the diet as well, which makes it easier to stick with the program when you go back to it.
You could also use a calorie cycling approach, to help prevent yourself from hitting another plateau, and we already covered calorie and carb cycling in the last call.

I also recommend, because so many people underestimate how much they eat, don’t take any chances. Count your calories, or at least become really aware of the portion sizes and maybe even consider keeping a journal.

You’ve probably been told many times by a lot of different “experts” that you don’t have to count calories. But when you’re in a plateau, I’d recommend that you stop guessing and really get serious about what you’re taking in.

Then what you need to do is reestablish that calorie deficit using every tool at your disposal.

Use nutrition by pulling back your portion sizes. Or use cardio. And by increased cardio, I mean increasing energy expenditure. You could increase your frequency. You could increase your duration.

But increasing energy expenditure is not necessarily doing longer workouts, just burning more calories. You could also take the same amount of time that you’re spending right now and increase your intensity.

The whole idea is just burn more calories and stimulate metabolism, which gives you your deficit back again or you can pull back your food intake and give yourself a deficit again from the food side.

There’s more than one way to do it and I don’t think that you should lock yourself in. Use all of the variables and remember that there are TWO sides to the energy balance equation, not one.

For more info on Tom’s program **click here**

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This guest blog post was written by fitness and nutrition author Tom Venuto I have his permission to share it with you.

Weight loss plateaus can be frustrating, even maddening! It happens especially when you get down to that “last 10 lbs” or when you drop a lot of weight, and you hit the “good” body fat category, but you’re an “overachiever” and you still want to get even leaner… all the way to “ripped”, or at least lean enough to see your abs. It’s a challenge, but there IS something you can do about it. I revealed the answers in a recent teleseminar called the Super Lean seminar, which I recently had transcribed and I’ve posted it below for all my website visitors. Breaking a weight loss plateau is not difficult, it simply requires out of the box thinking. You will find the solution fascinating because part of it is the most counter-intuitive move you can imagine.

QUESTION: Tom, I know you often say that to get to the point where you can see your abs, you need to reach single-digit body fat. But what if I hit a weight loss plateau at about 12% body fat? What do I need to do to break the weight loss plateau and get my fat% down to single digits? Should I do more cardio, more weight-training, or change my diet somehow?”

ANSWER: You could use any of those strategies. You could manipulate your calories, do cardio more often, do more cardio sessions weekly, or increase the cardio intensity. You could also change your weight training. You shouldn’t limit yourself to only one option.

One of the problems I see with quite a few programs is that they’re too dogmatic. If you hit a weight loss plateau, the person with the most flexibility in their approach is the person who’s going to be most likely to get through that plateau.

The first thing though is to understand what a plateau really is. This is important, because if you were losing weight, but now you’re not, there’s only one thing that that could mean; you were in a calorie deficit but you’re no longer in a calorie deficit.

You may be wondering why that happens.

There are four primary reasons you hit a weight loss plateau:

The first reason you hit a weight loss plateau is because your metabolism decreases. While this does not completely stop fat loss, it does slow down fat loss. If you’ve been cutting calories, especially if you cut them severely, your body adapts by decreasing the metabolic rate. That’s sometimes known as the “starvation response” or “Adaptive thermogenesis.”

The second reason you hit a weight loss plateau is that you need fewer calories after you lose weight. Calorie needs are directly tied into your body weight. One problem is that after people lose a lot of weight, they tend to keep eating the same way they were eating when they were heavier.

So they’re feeding a smaller person the way they were when they were a bigger person, but when you’re a smaller person, you don’t need as many calories, even at rest (your basal metabolic rate is lower).

A third reason you hit a weight loss plateau is that when you move that smaller body, you’re not burning as many calories. If you strap on a weighted vest or heavy backpack and go out and hike up a hill, you can tell, obviously, that if you’re lugging around extra weight, you’re burning more calories. So now can you see why, after you lose weight, you burn fewer calories?

The fourth reason you hit a weight loss plateau is that most people either cheat on their diets or they forget to record part of their food intake. This one requires a little bit of honesty with yourself. Even if you don’t do it intentionally and you don’t “cheat” per se, unconsciously, we’re all terrible at estimating how much food we eat.

Some studies have even showed underreporting calorie intake as much as 50%. In other words, you say, “I’m only eating 1,200 calories a day, but I’m stuck at a plateau!” but you’re really eating 1,800 calories a day which doesn’t give you much of a deficit.

All of these reasons for plateaus get amplified in the later stages of a diet, because biologically speaking, your body is doing everything it possibly can to get you to go off your diet and to get weight to stabilize.

After a long period of dieting and after a large weight loss, your body cranks up the appetite, stimulates cravings and tries to trick you into eating more.

The leaner you get, the longer you’ve been dieting and the more aggressively you cut calories, the more your body tends to defend its weight, and hold on to remaining body fat.

So it’s really common to hit that plateau when you’re dieted down and leaner. Usually it’s nowhere near as difficult for the overweight person to start losing weight as it is for the lean person to get even more lean. The last 10 lbs is usually a lot harder than the first 10.

If you think about it, it’s pretty unnatural from a biological perspective to walk around with really low single-digit body fat. It’s not beneficial from a survival-of-the-species point of view to have low body fat. So this metabolic adaptation becomes more pronounced the leaner you get.

you’re also at a higher risk of losing muscle, because extra muscle is not economical when there’s a calorie shortage. Having extra muscle is like having an engine that’s bigger than you need – It’s like a gas guzzler.

The ultimate answer to why you plateau, why that last 10 pounds is so hard to lose and why it’s hard to break into those single digits is that you were in a calorie deficit but for all of the reasons mentioned above, you’re no longer in deficit.

In part two we’ll look at ways to break the weight loss plateau.

For more info on Tom’s program **click here**

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This guest blog post is a transcription between fitness and nutrition authors Jayson Hunter and Jim Labadie. I have their permission to share it with you.

Jim: Okay. Now, that will tell them more great vegetables, more about where they can get a great source of vitamins through vegetables.

Jayson: And it also goes into some detail with those foods as far as why they’re so potent. Why are they great for healthy living, for reducing fat loss, reducing calorie intake, things like that; antioxidants.

Jim: Terrific. Alright, so anybody listening make sure you get to DressSizeReductionDiet.com and get that whole special report, 36 Potent Foods. Okay, next tip. Protein. Everybody talks about protein and I know you’re next tip is protein should be at every meal. But why does protein accelerate weight loss? Why does it help a woman not only get lean but stay lean?

Jayson: Well, protein, has been in the news forever and some people are huge believers in mega protein diets and no carbs and this and that, but the real reason why protein is beneficial, and it doesn’t take mega doses of protein but it does take a good amount of protein so you’re protein intake should be higher, but the reason is there’s something called the thermic effect of food and what that is, is your body requires calories to digest food. When it digests protein it actually requires more calories. Almost four times as many calories as it does for carbs and fats.
So, if I’m going to eat a 100 grams of protein only, it’s going to cost me about 25 of those calories to digest it. So really my net intake is 75 calories. Where if I ate, 100 grams of carbs, it’s only going to cost me about 7 calories or my net intake is 93 calories. So, that’s a big reason right there because not only does your metabolism increase when you eat protein but it also burns more calories to digest that same amount of food. So, in the end you’re eating less calories and you’re burning more calories at the same time. So, you’re kind of getting a double whammy there as far as benefits to weight loss. And the other big thing is protein actually helps you feel full.
Just like fiber does for a longer period of time, so when you eat some type of protein at a meal, you’re not as likely to be hungry as quickly. So again, you’re eating less over all calories, you’re not getting those hunger pains that force you to then go to the refrigerator and start snacking on anything that’s in there. It really does provide a lot of satiety so that you’re satisfied till that next meal and you’re not urged to go grab a vending machine candy bar when you’re at work, because you’re not going to eat until you get home or something like that.

Jim: Okay. So now, again, everybody who’s listening you can go to DressSizeReductionDiet.com and download Jayson’s 36 Potent Foods report and you’ll get more great ideas for proteins, but real quick I want to share a story. I used to be a personal trainer myself and we had a client who was eating Krystal burgers which are a fast food, kind of like a White Castle and they’re a terrible source of protein, but this was before she started working with us, by the way, but she used to think that was a good source of protein so, real quick, I know probably a lot of people are saying they do know what a good source of protein is but for those who don’t, just very quickly Jayson, what are some good sources of protein for women?

Jayson: You really want to stick to your lean meats so, skinless chicken, fish, beef, things like. Eggs are actually a good source as well as dairy so, yogurts, cottage cheese, milk, the skim milk or 1% milk would be ideal just because of the fat intake. Beans are also another great source of protein and a great source of fiber. So, trying to incorporate red beans and black beans and split peas and things like that that fall into the bean category are actually a great source of protein and fiber and that’s why if people have ever noticed when they do eat things that include beans, it does make them feel full for along time and that’s the reason. As you’re getting not only the fiber but protein as well to help with that.

Jim: There you go. Beans for rapid healthy weight loss, I love it.

Jayson: There you go.

Jim: Okay. Tip number 3. Why are we eating whole grain carbohydrates? We hear so much carbs and I know you’re Dress Size Reduction Diet deals great deal with carbohydrates. In laymen’s what can we eat? What can’t we eat?

Jayson: Well, you do need carbs. I mean that’s the bottom line. This whole, you know when people say, “Oh, I’m on a low cab diet,” well, a true low carb diet is like under 20 grams of carbs for the entire day and essentially that’s no carbs and very, very few people even get to that level and I don’t now who really sticks to that for any long term period because it’s very extreme. A general, more realistic what we say low carb diet would be in the 40% range, and we want you to eat those 45-45% carbs if not 50% because you need the carbs for energy.
You need to be able to burn ATP and function properly throughout the day and that’s what carbs do. But, the types of carbs we eat is kind of the indicating factor of do you burn it for energy or do you tend to store it as fat? One of the reasons why we promote whole grain carbs is; whole grain carbs tend to have more fiber in it, so you kind of see the common theme of why fiber is important in how it can translate into your body weight loss or body sculpting or what ever you may be trying to do.
But, whole grain carbs help control your insulin levels and some of the research is showing that when you eat and your insulin levels—when your body gets flooded with sugar from eating simple carbs or sugars or things like that, your body produces a lot of insulin. That insulin, its main job is to get the sugars out of the blood and by doing that it will have to store it somewhere.
So, what it does is it tends to promote it as storage of fat and the goal is you want to keep your insulin levels in control. And you do that by eating whole grain carbs that have higher fiber content and a slower digestion rate so that your insulin levels are a little lower. You do that by also eating protein at every meal, because protein actually also releases a hormone that is opposite of insulin so it actually counter acts that promotion of fat storage, and some people believe that up to 70% of successful weight loss stems from just keeping those insulin levels in check.
And, by doing that, that means you need to be eating whole grains, avoid the simple carbs, eat your protein, eat your vegetables, things that are going to help benefit you in controlling that insulin level.

In part three find out why Jayson says you should eat more fat!

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