Get Over Your Fat Loss Plateau

Question:

About 1 1/2 months ago, I started a new fitness plan. To be short, here’s a list of what I’m doing:

Diet – drinking a protein shake and eating one whole veggie/fruit with every meal (also eating a mid-morning and mid-afternoon snack), consuming no more than 2000 calories a day (maybe less).

Workout – for the first month, I did cardio (a combo of running and walking) for 30 minutes every day. Now, starting last week, I do cardio 4 days a week and weight lifting 3 days a week.

From what I’ve read, they say “increase your workouts…” I’m already running a 8.5 minute mile and lifting with as much as 40 lbs. on free weights. I’m not looking to bulk up as I am already short and stocky (5’6″ and 223 lbs.)

I am shooting for 185…PLEASE HELP! I’ve even starting varying my workouts doing “random” exercises so my body doesn’t get used to the same ol’ thing.

I realize I have to be patient. But after melting off about 20 lbs. so far, I want the rate of losing weight to remain constant.

Answer:

You’re doing too much cardio.  Cardio only burns calories while you’re doing it.  So if what you’re doing only burns 200 calories, obviously you need to do more.  But good grief!  You can ‘t exercise all the ding dong day, right?  That’s where resistance training comes in.  It’s the absolute best and quickest way to lose fat.  You want to get an intense burn when working out.  You only need to do it for a few minutes as opposed to hours of cardio.  Do like 8 reps with enough resistance to really challenge your muscles so that’s it’s very difficult to finish the last rep.  Rest for a few seconds, then do it again.  Like 3 sets of that.  Then move onto the next muscle group.  If you workout your entire body, then skip a day and rest.  If you only work the upper body one day, then do the lower body the next, but never the same muscle group the next day.

It’s during the resting period (the afterburn) when the muscles repair themselves, grow and get stronger.  That takes an enormous amount of energy in the form of stored fat!  The more muscle you have, the more fat you’ll burn and you’ll get over that plateau you’ve hit.  Just be sure to get enough protein to keep your muscles feed.

So what’s the best and cheapest way to get that resistance training?  Get a set of these adjustable Bodylastics resistance bands.  They’ve got a fantastic Black Friday sale going on right now.  (Get some for Christmas presents, too.)  You’ll be able to workout your entire body with them.  They also have free live online workouts, entire 30 minute shows so you’ll always have a workout partner.