Plateau Buster: Cycle your calories & fitness program...

Hi everyone!

Some of you have requested for me to post how I cycle my calories to bust a plateau.  I am posting a link that explains what happens to our body and what we can do to change things up.
www.criticalbench.com/weight-loss-plateau.htm

Of course some of you are on special diet plans, but you get the idea of what your nutritional values should be.  I follow a similar routine and it helps break away from stalls.  Keep the body guessing and add variety to our diets & fitness programs!!!

What to do:

First you need to know your BMR (Basic Metabolic Rate) the number of calories you'd burn if you stayed in bed all day.   health.discovery.com/centers/heart/basal/basal.html

     "If you've noticed that every year, it becomes harder to eat whatever you want and stay slim, you've also learned that your BMR decreases as you age. Likewise, depriving yourself of food in hopes of losing weight also decreases your BMR, a foil to your intentions. However, a regular routine of cardiovascular exercise can increase your BMR, improving your health and fitness when your body's ability to burn energy gradually slows down."

Now that you know your BMR (mine is 1600), you will most likely see that us WLS patients are much lower than this caloric intake.  I'm around 800/day.  So I do this for 2 or 3 days, then I raise my caloric intake to roughly 1000/day.  This helps to raise my metabolism and stop my body from going into another starvation mode (a natural preserve state). 

I also play with my fitness routines.  I try to work at burning 250 calories/day (5 days/week Mon-Fri), but some days I add an extra 10 minutes, or my cardio aerobic level and get my heart rate up from 140bpm to 150bpm.  I also lift weights 3 days/week (Mon-Wed-Fri), and will sometimes boost my reps from 10 to 15, at sets of two or increase my weights for strength at lower reps.

My workouts change to keep my body guessing.  Some days I do 20-20-20 (20mins of each: bike, treadmill, elliptical), other days I do 10-15-10-15-10 in any order of (bike, treadmill, elliptical, rowing, stairs).  When I hit a plateu, I change it up more and will choose the highest calorie burner -elliptical and go for 40minutes, then finish with the bike for 10-20minutes.  I try to aim at 60minutes total for workouts.  30 minutes is fine for those who are new starting out at the gym.

I also have my own home equipment (Gym weight system, treadmill, recumbant bike, 21 speed bicycle, mini-trampoline, jump rope, stability ball, flex bands, ankle & wrist weights, free weights for biceps, yoga mat)--You name it, I got it!!!  So I can do a lot of this at home.  I am now waiting for Christmas day to start using the fitness game "Your Shape Fitness Evolved" on our Xbox 360 Kinect, plus some other Kinect games to keep moving, have fun and stay fit!  It gets you using your whole body to move, not just standing on a board like the Nintendo Wii Fit.  

How we lose weight:

If my BMR is 1600 calories, I need to have a deficit to lose weight (burn fat).  

Drop my calories to 1000/day:     -600 cals x 7 days/wk = 4200
Burn cardio exercise 5 days/wk   -250 cals x 5 days/wk = 1250

Total week deficit:  -5450 cals less/wk

It takes 3500 calories (energy) to burn 1 pound of fat
so this equation works out to:             l.5 lbs lost/wk
(divide your deficit by 3500)

When I cycle calories: If I raise the calories, I burn more by exercising to keep it balanced.  So be aware of the days you want to cycyle and make sure you can put a little more effort into your workouts on those specific days. 

Be extremely careful when upping your caloric intake, it doesn't take much to raise by 200 and make sure it's healthy & useful calories, not a bag of cheesies!!!!!

Any questions, let me know.  Hope this helps bust those dreaded plateaus!!!!!!!!

By doing this (and it's my 2nd time around losing weight after surgery), I've lost 37lbs since the middle of August and 7 lbs in the last 7 weeks.
....I'm losing at 1lb - 1.5lb/wk average.



 

That's great - I will definitely give it a try the next time I stall!  Thanks for taking the time to post - I'm off to check out the link you included  :)

Thanks so much Coreena for posting this.

OK I'm gonna try it out - I have been at 600 calories for a long time and I have been stuck @ 197.6 or 197.8 for 4 days so yesterday I went up to 800 calories (I had a salad  :) plus I did weights at the gym and a 5k walk with a little jogging thrown in - still 197.8 this morning - I will go up to 800 calories again today and do my work out and see what happens...  I will let you know if it works for me  :)  It shouldn't be too hard to get in the extra 200 calories since we have to eat out this afternoon (we will be in the city all day) so I'm thinking the grilled haddock from the sfl menu @ Big Stop.  Wish me luck!!

This morning I weighed 198.4 (was 197.8 yesterday) with an intake of 900 calories yesterday.  I did weights at the gym but missed my walk (unless you count walking around the stores in Halifax - which I don't, really, because I'm not going as fast).   So I'm wondering should I lower my calories back down now or carry on with the higher calories for another day (I'm thinking I should lower them)

Angie, there's no way that you gained a pound of "fat" overnight...unless you have a pound of food in your belly when you got on the scale (yes, that means bowels too).  That's most likely fluid retention or just a normal flux.  Are you drinking more water since joining the gym?  That happens to me.

My weight changes everyday....honestly by .5-1.5lbs.  I only count what I weigh on "weigh in day", once per week, but get on the scale daily.

Myself I would probably go down again for a couple days with cals, and if it stalls again, raise it up.  I only raise my cals when I stall (plateau buster) and lower cals when the scale goes up over 2lbs.  (This morning the scale showed 199.4 and yesterday was 198.4, and Monday was 198.0,....did I gain???.....NO!!  Just a fluctuation.)

I use a line graph, and even though I lose, gain, lose, gain, etc....it's still in a downwards trend overall.  ---Like a zigzag line.

You probably wouldn't notice the effects from the gym until the following week.  When I do an intense workout for a week (Mon-Fri), I don't see those results until the following mid-week instead of by Sunday night--it takes a couple days to adjust on the body. 

The only cardio I count is when my heart rate is above 140 bpm.  Other than that, it's just bonus physical activity and beats sitting on the couch.  

Let me know how it goes. 

Hmmm, I get in my 8 cups/day for sure and some days I get in a LOT more - today 15 cups  :)  I HAVE to weigh every day - it's an addiction now    OK I was up again today (in calories), so I will try going down tomorrow - I had a HUNGRY HUNGRY day today so I was thankful for the extra calories!!!  My tom is around the corner so I'm thinking that's why (HOPING!!)   I use a line graph too - if you use the tickers (like in my signature at the bottom of my post) and you put in your weight daily/weekly or whatever it will show you a chart of your loss automatically - You don't have to include it in your signature but I love watching it go down!!  :)    I will keep you posted!!

Yeah, I use the same tickers on Sparkpeople.com.  I love to watch the results, I even use graphs for measurements and when I look back, hard to believe my waist was 6inches bigger just 3mths ago.  It's great when we don't notice our progress right away. 

Oh yeah, TOM steps heavy on the scale for me every month too!  (Except I'm starting with perimenopause, so I have TOM visit way too often lately!!).  LOL

I think it's good to weigh everyday.  Honestly, some say not to, but it really keeps you in check!

I'd say 15 cups of water will definitely show up on the scale tomorrow.  Don't freak out, just reflect and watch what happens for the next couple days with the new gym routine.  ....You will continue to lose, no doubt about it!

Angie I replied, but it's at the top of this thread....see above somewhere!  LOL 

198.4 this morning...