Weight Loss Plateau problems?

This week I got a question from Twitter user @kelly_barefoot that I think quite a few people might also be wondering. Often times, our bodies respond differently to our food intake as time changes and this means we can reach a ‘weight loss plateau.’ This can be really frustrating when you’ve seen good results at first, but I promise you the answer is NOT to stop what you’ve been doing. Here was Kelly’s specific question:

When you radically change your diet—as so many people do after reading my book You Can Be Thin—your body can sometimes go into starvation mode, where it is holding onto fat as it believes that it will not be getting more food in the future. This will pass eventually, but to aid it along, the best thing to do is to go into an intensive fat burning mode for 10 days to 2 weeks. This isn’t as severe as it sounds, and really is just a slightly more rigid version of my usual dietary advice.

• Consume absolutely no sugar: refined, fruit, juice, honey all included. The only sweet thing in your diet during this phase can be one apple per day or one portion of berries (like blueberries or raspberries).
• Once you’ve cut out the known sources of sugar, pay attention to finding the hidden sugars. These can often be a big culprit. Things like vinegar, salad dressing, wine, tomatoes, lots of lactose sugars (i.e. from putting milk in your tea). Stick to unsweetened almond milk only in your tea or coffee.
• Focus heavily on eating vegetables, proteins and fats during this phase. There is no need to go hungry. You can have a huge plate of veg and a large piece of salmon and you won’t gain weight. Also snack on raw nuts and nut butters to feel satiated.

Following these guidelines for 10-14 days will really kick up your body’s metabolic rate. Remember that without carbs (carbs are the same thing as sugar) your body literally can’t gain or hold onto weight. Make an effort to really find all the hidden sources of carbs and sugar in your diet and I can guarantee you’ll see result.

So don’t despair Kelly! Remind yourself of all the great progress you’ve made already and envision much more weight loss in your very near future. This is a way around the dreaded weight loss plateau!