As the weeks go by you are cruising towards your target weight. Each week you lose some weight. Sometimes more than your target sometimes less but overall you are heading in the right direction.
You will think this is easy and it is just a matter of time before you hit your target weight. But for some the weight loss will come to a grinding halt. You will either get stuck at a certain weight and hover up and down for several weeks and get nowhere or slowly start creeping up in weight even though you think you are being diligent with your calorie counting.
It easy to slip back to your old ways after a period of weight loss. You may be:
subconsciously rewarding yourself with food that little bit too early
Underestimating the calories you have eaten
Forgotten what you have eaten or
Self sabotaging your efforts as you do not truly believe you can be your target weigh
Or something else! You end up yoyo-ing around a certain weight having some good weeks and some bad weeks. This will become apparent after around 10 weeks. It’s incredibly frustrating as you only really realise it after all this time. You ultimately have been eating too much.
To add insult to injury you are now way off your target weight for the forthcoming weeks and the whole targets look completely unreasonable. Have a look at this example Target Plan:
Date | Target Weight (Kg) | Actual Weight (Kg) | Total loss |
8/11/17 | 77.5 | ||
15/11/17 | 77.0 | 77.0 | 0.5 |
22/11/17 | 76.5 | 76.7 | 0.8 |
29/11/17 | 76.0 | 77.3 | 0.2 |
6/12/17 | 75.5 | 76.1 | 1.4 |
13/12/17 | 75.0 | 75.8 | 1.7 |
20/12/17 | 74.5 | 75.4 | 2.1 |
28/12/17 | 74.0 | 74.0 | 3.5 |
3/1/18 | 73.5 | 74.4 | 3.1 |
10/1/18 | 73.0 | 73.5 | 4.0 |
17/1/18 | 72.5 | 72.7 | 4.8 |
24/1/18 | 72.0 | 72.3 | 5.2 |
31/1/18 | 71.5 | 71.7 | 5.8 |
7/2/18 | 71.0 | 69.7 | 7.8 |
14/2/18 | 70.5 | 70.8 | 6.7 |
21/2/18 | 70.0 | 70.5 | 7.0 |
28/2/18 | 69.5 | 70.0 | 7.5 |
7/3/18 | 69.0 | 69.0 | 8.5 |
14/3/18 | 68.5 | 69.9 | 7.6 |
21/3/18 | 68.0 | 69.7 | 7.8 |
28/3/18 | 67.5 | 70.0 | 7.5 |
4/4/18 | 67.0 | 69.8 | 7.7 |
11/4/18 | 66.5 |
Looking at the above example you can see that the person’s weight plateaus from 7/2/18 to 4/4/18 and just hovers around 70.0Kg. They have done well previously by losing approximately 7.5Kg from their original weight of 77.5Kg however they are stuck at 70.0Kg.
You will see on 28/3/18 whilst being 70.0Kg that the target weight for the following week is 67.0Kg. It is highly unlikely you will lose 3.0Kg in a week especially for the fact you haven’t shifted anything in the last 8 weeks!
So what do you do? Well you need to press the reset button. This period of stagnation can be really demotivating. So much so you need to simply press the big red RESET button and “START” again.
When I say start again all I am asking you to do is:
1. Change The Weekly Targets
2. Change The Rate Of Loss
3. Change Your Target Daily Calorie Intake
1. Change The Weekly Targets
Let’s face it. You are not going to hit your weekly targets. You’ve missed them for the last 10 weeks and they are now way beyond your reach. So guess what. I am going to let you change your weekly targets. How kind of me eh?
Go to you Target Plan and change your weekly targets to something you think you can achieve. So in my above example the future weekly targets could look like this:
Date | Target Weight (Kg) | Actual Weight (Kg) |
4/4/18 | 67.0 | 69.8 |
11/4/18 | 69.5 | |
18/4/18 | 69.0 | |
25/4/18 | 68.5 | |
2/5/18 | 68.0 | |
9/5/18 | 67.5 | |
16/5/18 | 67.0 | |
23/5/18 | 66.5 | |
30/5/18 | 66.0 | |
6/6/18 | 65.5 | |
13/6/18 | 65.0 | |
20/6/18 | 64.5 | |
27/6/18 | 64.0 |
So we have increased the next weekly target on 11/4/18 from 66.5Kg to 69.5Kg. So you only have to lose 0.3Kg in the week to get back on target. Again how nice of me eh?
2. Change The Rate Of Loss
It gets even better. You can reduce the rate of loss to a rate that you think is achievable. So you may have been trying to lose 0.5Kg every week. You can now reduce it to say 0.4Kg every week. Then revise your Target Plan showing this rate and get to your Target Weight. So using the same example if the person had a target weight of 65Kg the revised plan would look like this:
Date | Target Weight (Kg) | Actual Weight (Kg) |
4/4/18 | 67.0 | 69.8 |
11/4/18 | 69.5 | |
18/4/18 | 69.1 | |
25/4/18 | 68.7 | |
2/5/18 | 68.3 | |
9/5/18 | 67.9 | |
16/5/18 | 67.5 | |
23/5/18 | 67.1 | |
30/5/18 | 66.7 | |
6/6/18 | 66.3 | |
13/6/18 | 65.9 | |
20/6/18 | 65.5 | |
27/6/18 | 65.1 | |
4/7/18 | 65.0 |
So now all the weekly target weights look achievable now. Are you feeling better now? You should be. But all this generosity comes with a catch. I need you to do something for me. Read on.
3. Change Your Target Daily Calorie Intake
You have to admit I have been pretty kind to you. Upping your weekly targets to something achievable and lowering the rate of loss giving you more time to reach your target weight is……very very generous!
So there is a price to pay. All I ask in return is that you LOWER your Target Daily Calorie Intake. Can you do that for me? Now before you say “yeah I can lower it. Will 50 calories do?” I want you to think of a big number. A number that hurts. I’m looking for a 30% to 40% reduction. So if you have been budgeting 1400 calories I need you to drop that to anywhere from 840 calories to 980 calories.
It needs to be a big drop. The reason being you haven’t been very good at monitoring your calorie intake. Basically you have got rubbish at calorie counting. So if we set a very low number which I want you to aim for it won’t matter if you go over it a little bit as you will still be consuming a low amount of calories in order to lose weight.
If you really think about it you are bound to hit a plateau. Your weight has dropped since you started losing weight but the target daily calorie intake has remained the same. Therefore the ratio of target calorie intake to actual weight has increased. Basically you are smaller and you need to eat smaller. So a reduction in your target calorie intake becomes kind of obvious.
So can you do that for me? You will thank me in the long run. I promise you. Once you have committed to a new Target Daily Calorie Intake adjust your Target Plan.
That’s it. It’s over to you. You have no excuses now. Go beyond your plateau. If you do get to another plateau just apply the principles in this chapter and readjust all three things; weekly target weights, rate of loss and target daily calorie intake.
Everything you need to know on how to lose weight is above this paragraph. I truly wish you the best of luck. I know you can do it. So many people have. So why can’t you? If you do need help I recommend trying my 52 Step Program. It has a free 7 day trial so you have nothing to lose!
Once you have reached your target weight you need to stay there. The next chapter deals with this.
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