Ditch the Plateau! (spring cleaning time)

A plateau is when you feel like you’re doing everything right but you’re not seeing the changes you expect to see on the scale or in your clothes. Basically you’re not progressing.

Sometimes it really is a matter of your body holding on to those last few pounds and you needing to pull out some tricks to get your body to let go of them. However in my experience working with lots and lots (hundreds!) of women I find that really there are just some things you need to buckle down on and clean up (usually in the diet) to get back on track and get over this “plateau”.

So since it’s now officially spring let’s do some spring cleaning of your weight-loss habits.

These are the top 3 areas that most of us aren’t really being as diligent as we can:

Diet: Decide on ONE thing that you can give-up for a week. That one thing that deep down you know is holding back. Maybe it’s your Carmel macchiato, that nightly glass of wine, bread or pasta at every meal…..you know the one thing that you constantly try to justify or think you can work off. You don’t have to give it up forever, just 7-days. I’ll bet you end up finding that A). after 4 or 5 days you don’t want it nearly as much as you thought and B). you’ll drop a pound or two without changing anything else.

The ladies in my boot camp started this last week for our March challenge and are seeing some real changes because of it.

Sleep: Lack of sleep makes you fatter. Simple as that.

People who get less sleep report having greater appetites and greater feeling of hunger, specifically for high carb, high fat foods. Why?

Because getting less sleep leads to decreased leptin levels, leptin helps to control your brains hunger and craving responses. Also, people who sleep less are over an hour more sedentary per day; and you know; the less you move the less calories you’re burning. So starting now schedule in a power nap.

My new favorite app is Pzizz. This app is designed to stimulate deep sleep fast. I’m usually a tosser and turner at night but when I sleep with this app in my ear I wake up 7 hours later in the EXACT same position I went to sleep in! I am so rested it’s crazy. But when I do have a short night of sleep or just get tired from my world domination activities 🙂 I use it to steal a super effective 15 min power nap. Love it.

Move More: I’m not talking about your workouts, I’m talking about just moving more in your daily life. You can workout as hard core as fighter or pro athlete but if you then sit on your butt the rest of the day only walking from kitchen to family room or from cubicle to cubicle you’re probably wondering why you are not losing fat as fast as you’d like. The calorie burn difference between someone who just works out and then is fairly inactive and someone who works out AND moves throughout the day can be as much as 2,000 calories a day! Yeah, you need to get moving!

Let Sacramento's Booty Boot Camp help you step it up

Get a pedometer and aim to get at least 10,000-12,000 steps a day. It’s not that hard, pace around when you’re taking a call, walk your dogs a mile or two a day, take the stairs, park at the far end of the parking lot, do spontaneous burst of 100 jumping jacks throughout the day. Just make more of your day about moving!

Toss It!: Oh yeah and while we’re at the spring cleaning, throw away your scale!

Whether it’s in the bathroom, the basement or in the bedroom, it’s taunting you. Every day it beckons for you to step onto it. It’s the first thing you think of when you wake up and we always want to hop on the scale before bed.  This obsession is one of the reasons you should cut ties with the scale; set it free so you can set yourself free of its chokehold.

Did You Know that your scale weight can fluctuate up to 5 pounds in one day!

This is due to:

-Weight of food & beveragesDitch the scale and get fit with Sacramento's Booty Boot Camp

-Water loss from exercise

-Water gain from menstrual cycles

-Water retention from high sodium intake

-Weight of non-voided bowel contents

The scale is NOT the real barometer of progress.

Instead try focusing on:

-How you feel after rushing up a flight of stairs

-Not tiring out as quickly when you play with your children

-Your new-found ability to change the water cooler bottle at work without any effort!

-Diminished cravings for sugar

Try these simple steps today and enjoy the warm weather to come.

Yours in spring cleaning,

Sarai Jones, Booty Boot Camp

https://www.facebook.com/sacramento.bootcamp

 

P.S. The next Skinny Jeans Transformation Challenge starts in April!