So, you’ve been moving along fine with your exercise and nutrition plan and then suddenly, without warning, the scale stops moving… or worse, it starts to creep back in the opposite direction.
Your first inclination might be to point a finger at all that beautiful new muscle you’ve been building but, before you do that, let’s take a good hard look at the whole “muscle weighs more than fat” myth. Then we can get down to the business of identifying and eliminating the real culprits behind your stubborn scale syndrome.
IS IT
MUSCLE?
Probably not, since it typically takes 4 to 6 weeks to build one
pound of lean muscle. Men, of course, build a bit faster than women
but, even for a guy, it takes a good deal of hard work, the right
amount of calories and, most importantly, a certain measure of TIME
before a full pound of muscle will show on the scale. So, even if
you are one of the lucky few who builds muscle pretty easily, these
gains are always gradual. In the best case scenario, if you are
consistently building muscle, you might see an increase of ¼ to ½
pound per week – but even these numbers are on the high side
when it comes to average muscle gains.
IS IT FAT?
On the flip side, if you are
eating honestly, watching your timing and portions, avoiding
alcohol, and drinking plenty of water, you will typically lose
between .85 and 1.45 pounds of fat per week. So, you see, it isn’t
that fat weighs less or muscle weighs more (a pound of muscle
weighs the same as a pound of fat – it’s simply that muscle takes
up less space than body fat…) When you are following your program
90-95%, in a month’s time you are going to lose many more pounds of
body fat as compared to the 1 or 2 pounds of muscle you may or may
not gain. Therefore, if the scale isn’t budging or is reverting
back to the old numbers, it’s likely your nutrition is the guilty
party.
WEAK AT WEEK 5
It’s usually after the honeymoon period of any nutrition and
exercise program (between week 5 and 8) that things start to slide
a bit. To decide if this is the cause of your weigh-in woes, have a
look at these 6 Plateau-Busting steps and see if, perhaps, your
program is due for some fine-tuning:
Plateau Buster #1 – Get Real – I’m going to pull a Dr. Phil on you here and ask you to really look at the difference between what you are doing right now, and how it compares to what you were doing when first you started. Are you missing workouts, skipping meals, having a few cocktails in the evening, cutting your cardio short, eating clean during the day but loading up at dinner? Make an honest assessment of how things were when you were losing as opposed to how things are now.
Plateau Buster #2 –
Get Rid of Destructive Language– Think
about the words you are using to describe how you feel about your
fitness program. Have you been dragging yourself into the gym,
struggling to talk yourself into even going? Negative dialog is one
of the biggest drains on your energy so, while you’re at it, take a
good look also at how you are describing your feelings about
healthy eating. If you’re using words like “I’m not
allowed…” or “I can’t have this or that,” you’re
setting yourself up for failure. Start looking at all the great
foods you can have and get in the habit of describing how
much you enjoy those foods. Find something good to say about your
exercise routine – then focus your energy (and your words) on what
you like about exercise, as opposed to the things you
dread.
