Are You on a Plateau?

When people are attempting to lose weight, plateaus tend to kill motivation.  Plateaus are frustrating.  Many people will say that you need to switch up your exercise or eating to "break through" the plateau.  In reality, however, those plateaus are likely healthy.  

One reason why plateaus frustrate people is that they have unrealistic weight loss expectations.  We start out with lofty weight loss goals, and think that we can and should be able to lose weight in a straight line.

Plateaus are beneficial, because if we can stabilize our weight after a loss of 5-10% of initial weight, we may be able to prevent gaining weight back up to or above initial weight if we go "off" our diet plan.  And unfortunately, dieting for weight loss is not a temporary thing (despite what we would like to think).  Research has shown that people who lose weight need to continue on a calorie reduced diet to maintain the weight loss.