7 "Dont's" For When You Hit A Fitness Plateau (Part 1)
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Have you ever experienced a frustrating fitness plateau?
I understand that hitting a fitness plateau can be demotivating and confusing. Many of us have been there, feeling stuck and unsure about the next steps. But fear not, as I'm here to guide you through this challenging phase.
Welcome to another insightful episode of the "Embrace Your Real" podcast. In this episode, we'll talk about hitting a plateau, which is a common problem for those who are trying to get the body that they want. We'll explore the seven "don'ts" for breaking through a fitness plateau. These are common mistakes that many people, particularly women, tend to make. By avoiding these pitfalls, you'll be on your way to breaking through your plateau and reaching new heights in your fitness goals. Stay tuned for part 2 next week, where we'll unveil the essential "DOs" for conquering those plateaus.
What I discuss:
Don’t cut calories
Don't Skip Meals
Don't Overdo Cardio
Don't Obsess Over the Scale
Don't Overdo Supplements
Don't Skip Rest Days
Don’t assume what you’re doing isn’t working
If you loved this episode, check these out:
Episode 256 - 5 Ways To Monitor Your Progress Without The Scale
Episode 337 - What Your Low Calorie Diet is Doing to Your Body
If you want more from me, be sure to check out...
Instagram: @embraceyourreal | @movementwithjulie
Movement With Julie | App: https://sale.movementwithjulie.com/
Macro Counting Made Simple: https://www.macrocountingmadesimple.com/
Website: www.juliealedbetter.com
Free e-book: www.juliealedbetter.com/free-ebook
Amazon Storefront: https://www.amazon.com/shop/influencer-6bda1ca8?ref=cm_sw_em_r_inf_pub_influencer-6bda1ca8_dp_DgsIam9salgfi
Transcript:
Speaker 1: [00:00:00] Hey there beautiful human. You're listening to Embrace Your Real With me, Julie Ledbetter, a podcast where I empower you to just be you. With each episode, I issue a dose of real talk and actionable advice for building your confidence, honoring your body, and unconditionally loving your authentic self. Stay tuned if you're ready to embrace your real. Let's get it, let's go. [00:00:20][20.2]
[00:00:26] Hello and welcome back to another episode on the Embrace Your Real podcast, how you've hit a fitness plateau. What are you going to do about it personally? After years of training thousands of women, I have seen what so many women have turned to in order to get over their plateau. And I can tell you this most women and this was me too. [00:00:44][17.9]
[00:00:44] So I'm speaking from experience. Take the wrong measures to get over their plateau. Like they immediately go to extremes. They immediately go to things that they think that they should be changing. And in most cases it actually gets them into an even bigger plateau long term because it makes it so much more difficult to break through. And so that's why in today's episode, I want to kind of outline seven don'ts for getting over a plateau. Be sure to stay tuned for part two as this is a two part series where next week I'm going to be sharing the do's for getting over a plateau. So if you find yourself in a fitness plateau right now, I want you to tune in to this. I want you to listen up because again, this is just speaking from years of experience of not only myself and what I personally did wrong, but also, you know, training thousands of women over the last ten years in my health and fitness journey and in this online coaching space. And so that is exactly what we're going to be outlining in today's episode. [00:01:39][54.6]
[00:01:39] But before we dive in, I wanted to share this review. It comes from Mama Strong three. She gave a five star review and said, You need to listen to this. Stop everything you're doing and just listen. This has been a nice dose of reality and motivation. I've been doing movement with Julie for seven months now and I've never felt so empowered and strong. Julie Girl, you are changing the world one podcast at a time. [00:01:58][19.2]
[00:01:59] I love this so much. Thank you so much for tuning in and also leaving a rating and review. They really do mean the world to me and our team and also people who stumble upon the podcast. They typically tend to look at their reviews before they decide to tune in or not. So thank you in advance for doing that. And I'm also so grateful that the movement with Julie app is serving you. You're seven months in. It is so incredible. I will just tell you just being in the Facebook group and just having the online community on Instagram and TikTok and Pinterest, Facebook being able to celebrate people's milestones on a daily basis. I mean, celebrating anywhere from their first workout to their hundredth workout to their 650th workout like it is so, so amazing and such an honor. And so thank you for all of you guys who take the time to leave Reading interview, especially on Apple Podcasts. It really does mean so much. [00:02:49][50.8]
[00:02:50] Okay, so let's dive into the seven don'ts for what to do when you hit that plateau and what not to do in particular, which is what we're going to be talking about today. So number one, do not cut calories. This is the response for when people are not feeling like they're seeing results, They immediately think, okay, I need to eat less. But by responding to your fitness plateau, by eating less can actually oftentimes be very counterproductive for several reasons. Number one, it kills your metabolism, for lack of a better term. Number two, you'll have to continue to cut your calories more and more to see results, which is not sustainable. And when you reduce your caloric intake significantly, your body reacts by slowing down the metabolism like it's a survival mechanism that goes all the way back to when food scarcity was a real threat. Your body senses a reduction in its caloric availability, and it will adapt by conserving energy, making it more efficient and utilizing the calories when it does receive them. [00:03:49][58.9]
[00:03:49] And so basically this adaptation includes a decrease in your basal metabolic rate, which you oftentimes will see it being referred to as BMR, which is essentially just the numbers of calories that your body burns at rest to maintain essential functions like breathing, circulation and temperature regulation. So initially, when you start eating less, A Sure, you might see some results in terms of weight loss or thinking that you're losing weight or breaking through your plateau. And this is what makes people oftentimes think, oh, I'm doing the right thing and getting through this plateau. And it's essentially just because you're creating a collect deficit which is necessary for weight loss, you need to be eating less than you're burning, but too much of a collect deficit, that's when it can get dangerous because this effect is very short lived. Your body quickly adjusts to the reduced caloric intake and your weight loss Progress slows down or even halts altogether. And as a result, to continue seeing results, you might feel compelled to even reduce your caloric intake even more. And this is what creates a problematic cycle of diminishing returns, right? [00:04:50][60.4]
[00:04:50] You're constantly trying to cut more calories to achieve the same results. And the danger of this is that the more you restrict your calorie intake, the more your metabolism slows down and the more calories you're going to have to cut. And the cycle just continues. So this not only makes it increasingly difficult to lose weight, but also sets the stage for this rapid weight gain once you return to your maintenance calories or even eat a little bit more than you were eating on a regular basis. This rebound effect can be super frustrating and very demotivating. So if you've ever followed a fad diet, you probably know what I'm talking about. And a lot of us, I mean, oftentimes we didn't even know we were falling off our diet. And we did. And then once we learned kind of the science behind it, we're like, oh, that's why, you know, I struggled with this for so long. Once you start eating more, your body holds on to more weight because your body is still in that energy composite conservation mode. And therefore, it tends to store these calories as fat even more efficiently. Right. [00:05:48][58.0]
[00:05:48] This is why you're gaining back the weight that you lost and sometimes even exceeding the initial weight that you were at. So in order for this strategy to actually work, you will likely have to live the rest of your life in this drastic caloric deficit, but then it won't actually work because that causes a bunch of health issues on its own, like, yes, you'll have metabolic issues, but you'll also likely have hormonal issues, reproductive issues, nutrient deficiencies, hair loss, bad skin, lack of energy, brain fog, mood swings. The list goes on and on. I've actually done a full episode really going into the nitty gritty on this and what happens when you don't consume enough calories. So if you want to learn more about that and why it's extremely detrimental to your health and reaching your body goals, check out episode 337 what your low calorie diet is doing to your body. I will link that in the show notes to that after this episode. You can easily go tune in to that. [00:06:38][50.2]
[00:06:39] Number two, do not skip meals. So kind of to piggyback off of number one, don't. It's not worth it. Skipping meals like some of us might look at. Okay, I can only X amount of calories. We may look at it like if I skip this meal, I'll see better results. It's just a different perspective on cutting calories. But regardless, it should not be used as a tactic for getting over your fitness plateau. Here's the thing. Skipping meals on purpose leads to this pattern of yo yo dieting, which is not going to help you break through your plateau. Skipping meals oftentimes leads to overindulging later, and this result is consistently increased because you have these feelings of hunger, especially later on and during the day. So if you're like, man, you know, I'm just going to skip breakfast and see if this helps me get over my plateau. Well, this heightened hunger will lead to overeating or impulse food choices due to extreme cravings and desire to satisfy that hunger quickly. And you know, what happens next is that this will likely initiate a cycle of overeating followed by periods of food restriction, a.k.a. yo yo dieting. You're never going to get over your plateau if you continue to go back and forth between overeating and over restricting. [00:07:46][66.9]
[00:07:47] The simple solution to this is eat balanced meals, three balanced meals, a few snacks during the day, making sure that you are drinking your water, you're getting enough sleep, you're moving your body, all of those things in conjunction with one another. That's when you're actually going to notice a huge difference, not only in being able to keep your hunger at bay, but also see results. [00:08:07][20.2]
[00:08:08] Number three, do not overdo cardio. In fact, you don't even need to do any cardio intentionally to overcome your plateau. I know oftentimes people think that's like one of the only things that they can do during this plateau is, you know, I'm just going to add another 15, 20, 30 minutes of cardio, you know, 2 to 3 days a week or 5 to 6 days a week are turning on how extreme you think in your mind. And sure, if you add more cardio into your routine, you might see results initially, but it's often times not sustainable. Again, leading to these diminishing returns, primarily due to the principle of adaptation, which I outlined in a few other episodes and above. But essentially, as you constantly perform the same cardiovascular exercises at the same intensity, the same duration, your body becomes remarkably efficient at them. [00:08:57][49.8]
[00:08:58] And so while efficiency is generally a positive trait in this context, especially if it's unsustainable, it means that your body is going to be burning fewer calories to perform the same exercise, making it challenging to see continued results in terms of weight loss or improve fitness. So as your body adapts to the increased cardio volume, it becomes more challenging to create this caloric deficit necessary for weight loss. And this can be particularly frustrating for those who rely solely on cardio for weight management. When you reach this point, it might feel like you need to further increase your cardio sessions or durations to see results. [00:09:31][33.5]
[00:09:32] However, this escalation is not only going to be unsustainable, but it's also going to lead to over exercising and over exercising in the context of excessive cardio can have significant negative consequences. One of the most important to mention is the potential for hormonal imbalances. I've talked about this a lot on the podcast, but intense, prolonged cardiovascular exercise can really stimulate release of stress hormones such as cortisol and elevated cortisol levels. That is what increases to increased stress muscle breakdown, storage of fat, primarily around the abdominal area. That's right. So too much cardio can actually trigger more fat storage. So instead of seeing the results that you want over exercising can actually paradoxically lead to weight gain and other health issues. [00:10:19][47.1]
[00:10:19] Number four, don't obsess over this scale. Now, some people think that. You know, they've hit a plateau because the number on the scale isn't moving. But here's the truth. It is entirely possible that your entire body composition is changing without ever having your weight change. Yes, that's right. Meaning that your body will look significantly different without the number on the scale changing one bit. So if the weight on the scale isn't budging, you can't automatically assume that you've hit a plateau and you need to take measurements to get through it. You actually likely need to do some deeper investigating outside of the scale. Weight is just one of so many measurements of progress. And it's not even the most important measurement for progress. This is why this overreliance on the scale can be super discouraging during a plateau. [00:11:06][47.1]
[00:11:07] I've actually done an entire episode on this and other ways to track your progress without the scale in Episode 256. Five Ways to Monitor Your Progress Without the Scale. So I will be sure to link that again in the show notes so that you can easily go listen to that episode after this or after the prior episode that I talked about earlier. But essentially in that podcast, I talk about your energy levels, strength, consistency, progress, photos and so much more. So if you are hung up by what you're seeing on the scale, I highly recommend that you check out that episode. I really think that that will benefit you and it will give you some other ideas outside of just this closed box of, Oh my gosh, the scale is saying this or Oh my gosh, the scale isn't moving. Thus I've hit a plateau. So again, I will link that in the show notes that you can check it out and add it to your cue. [00:11:53][45.8]
[00:11:53] Number five, don't overdo supplements. You can actually totally overdo supplements. And this is one of the biggest lies that I see. And it's simply just because advertisers and companies spend billions of dollars every single quarter to market to you, but you really can't supplement your way out of a fitness plateau. You can't supplement your way to building the body that you want. Like, supplements are not the answer. They are not the supreme answer. There is no magic pill that is going to solve all of your weight loss or fitness problems. [00:12:24][30.5]
[00:12:25] And while some supplements can be super beneficial if you're, you know, supplementing with vitamins, omega threes, greens, protein powders is supplementing things that will speed up your metabolism. That's just a marketing ploy. Those are things that you should steer clear away from. And just don't buy into that lie because again, often times it might quote unquote bloat you. But is it just taking away waterway? Okay, If it's just taking away water weight, you're likely going to see that water weight come back within a matter of days or weeks. [00:12:55][30.8]
[00:12:56] So, again, don't waste your money on that. Don't try to supplement your way out of a fitness plateau that's just going to put you into this yo yo dieting cycle as well as just mentally. It's not it's not going to bring you to a good place and it's also going to drain your bank account. I always tell people when they say, like what supplements you recommend, I always say first and foremost, supplements make less than a five. Yes. 5% difference in your health and fitness journey when it comes to actually doing it in a sustainable way. It just genuinely comes down to movement and nutrition. Nutrition is so important in this as well as just constantly moving your body not over exercising, but moving your body in an effective and efficient way. That's what's going to lead to overall sustainable results. [00:13:41][45.6]
[00:13:42] Number six don't skip rest days. So when people hit a fitness plateau, they just think, Oh, I just need to work out more to get over this plateau. And then they start working out six, seven days a week. You know, on the rest days, they're literally still doing all of these things. And it's because they think that they can't skip the rest day because they're in a fitness plateau. But in fact, skipping rest days can actually put you deeper into a fitness plateau. [00:14:06][23.9]
[00:14:06] Let me kind of explain. So like I discussed earlier about overdoing cardio, chronic overtraining can lead to hormonal imbalances and again, particularly elevated levels of cortisol, the stress hormone and the stress, the high cortisol levels that can actually kill your weight loss efforts by promoting fat storage, again, like I mentioned, especially around the abdominal area. Plus, when you're skipping rest days, this can actually negatively impact your performance during your workouts. And when your body is over fatigued, your exercise quality diminishes. You don't have the energy. You might not be able to push yourself as hard or as effectively. And this results in suboptimal workouts, which actually makes it harder for you to break through that plateau because you're constantly fatigued, you're constantly just blah. You might not be, you know, you might not be falling asleep during your workout, but you also are likely not in this optimal state to be able to push really hard on those days so that when you are in your workouts, you're pushing as much as you can. [00:15:03][57.2]
[00:15:04] And lastly, psychological burnout. This can occur when you don't allow yourself regular breaks like exercise should be enjoyable and sustainable for the long term. When you're constantly pushing your limits without adequate rest, this is going to lead to a loss of motivation, enthusiasm, and it's going to make it more challenging to stay committed to your fitness goals. Remember that? Ultimately that fitness should be a lifestyle. And if you get to a point where it is no longer enjoyable, it is not maintainable. That is not going to be a lifestyle that you maintain long term. So again, working out 6 to 7 days a week is not the answer to your plateau, trust me. [00:15:40][36.5]
[00:15:41] And lastly, number seven, don't assume what you're doing isn't working. Let me repeat that again. Don't assume what you're doing isn't working. The problem might be how you are doing it, so you don't just need to immediately toss in the towel and go back to the drawing board. If you've had a fitness plateau, you might just need to assess how you're actually executing your current plan. Like a plateau can indicate that it might be time to reevaluate your methods or make adjustments, and by analyzing and fine tuning your approach, rather than completely abandoning your current plan or your current fitness goals altogether, you can actually overcome plateaus and continue to make progress towards building the body that you want. And this is achieved by so many different ways, which I will talk about in the next week's episode. Part two, where I kind of just explain these adjustments and how you can make them. But if you don't have a current plan, that is definitely somewhere that I encourage you to start. [00:16:34][52.9]
[00:16:34] Like I always, if you follow me for any length of time on my movement with Julie account, I talk about how random workouts equals random results. And simply put, it's because you are wasting so much time and energy putting in to finding these workouts or finding these workouts on TikTok or Pinterest. And likely when you're doing them, you are likely finding something and saying, Ooh, I like working shoulders or Ooh, I like working glutes. But then when you see something like a core workout or a cardio workout, you're like, Oh no, I don't like to do that. And so often times complete muscle groups are completely avoided simply because of preference. And you're not pushed and you're likely doing things that only appeal to you, which. Don't get me wrong, it's important to have a plan and follow a workout plan that actually gets you excited. But there also should be a component in that workout plan that pushes you. And that's where I think either hiring a coach or signing up and paying for a program. When you are putting money into it, that is a sacrifice. And oftentimes it is the sacrifice that we need to keep us going simply because it is costing us something to do. [00:17:39][65.3]
[00:17:40] You know, whether it's a monthly payment or it's a one time payment, paying a coach or paying into a program, it's going to keep you accountable because it does cost you something versus these free workouts. You don't really have any sort of accountability as well as no sort of structure. Right. And so this is where I will always tell you, either if it's not my plan, if it's somebody else's plan, that's great. Whatever it is, I just care that you're consistent. But I do have a demo only plan every single week. I give you five brand new workouts there. Go at your own pace style, which is my personal preference. And so many other women inside the group prefer that over these follow along videos, simply because you can go at your own pace, you can slow the heck down. Because the one thing that I have seen in terms of these follow long workouts, and when I say follow along workouts, I mean putting on one video and having it play throughout the entire thing. So that's, you know, YouTube video. Tons of other platforms have various videos. I find that oftentimes people are rushing the heck through these movements, like they are rushing to keep up. [00:18:41][61.1]
[00:18:41] They're compromising their form. They're not using that mind muscle connection and they're just trying to get in, get out. And I believe that there is still an efficiency that comes with go at your own pace, but it's effective because you are slowing down and you are really creating that mind and muscle connection. So every single one of my workouts has video demos for every movement that are looping silent video demos. You can play your music, you can play your podcasts. I have people that watch shows while they're, you know, in their basement or in their living room working out. But there's video demos for every movement. There's also alternate exercises for every movement. So if it's a, you know, a bodyweight alternate or it's a low impact alternate or it's a no band alternate, no matter what, you can rest assured that there is a movement based on all fitness levels, which is super huge as well. [00:19:29][48.2]
[00:19:30] So every week five brand new workouts, the workout schedule is lower body, upper body cardio and core shoulders includes and full body. If you only have three days to commit to workouts, I always recommend prioritizing the lower body, upper body and full body. But you can rest assured, if you're following my program, you are hitting every single muscle group that you need to hit hit even if it's three days a week and you can rest assured that you are getting an effective workout. There's 60 minute workouts as well as 30 minute workout variations for every single workout each day, depending on your time constraints. And again, go at your own pace. [00:20:03][33.3]
[00:20:04] So in the 30 minute workouts, it's a giant circuit, meaning that it's, you know, comprised of 5 to 7 movements back to back to back to back. So you're doing one round of each exercise back to back, and then you're resting at the end of the giant circuit and then repeating that two more times for a total of three rounds. I always tell people that like if you're low on time, you can get there once. Two two rounds of that giant circuit. You can rest assured that you got a killer workout that was hitting all of the major muscle groups and you are not leaving behind or neglecting any muscle group. And so that's kind of the cool aspect of my program, is that you can scale it however much you want, but rest assured, even if you're scaling it to one circuit, one giant round, you're still hitting all of your major, major muscle groups. So there's that. [00:20:50][46.2]
[00:20:50] And then in the nutrition component, I do have a program as well. It's called the Macro Counting Made Simple Online Academy. If you have been following me for any length of time, you guys know that I'm a firm believer in utilizing the tool of macro accounting to reach out to fitness goals. Now, does this mean that you have to macro count for the rest of your life? Absolutely not. I personally have not counted all three of my macros, you know, to a tee in years, and that's simply just because I counted macros for almost a decade before I really was able to go into this next stage where I am actively prioritizing my protein. But other than that, like, I pretty much know what it looks like to properly feel my body in terms of the serving sizes, the portion sizes as well as how I feel. So if you are interested in learning more about the nutrition component, I do have a program macro accounting made simple dot com, and this is the program where we will help you get your macros count count. It will help you determine what your body actually needs daily will show you how much protein, carbs and fat is ideal for your body and will kind of just guide you through this whole macro accounting journey. So I will link both of those things in the show notes below. But I really think that focusing on your nutrition and focusing on your movement and not overdoing it, right. [00:22:07][76.8]
[00:22:07] Let me kind of chat what we talked about and just recap what we talked about in today's episode for the Seven Don'ts for when you hit that fitness plateau. So, number one, don't cut calories and number two, don't skip meals. And number three, don't overdo cardio. Number four, don't obsess over the scale. Number five, don't overdo supplements. Number six, don't skip rest days. And number seven, don't assume that what you're doing isn't working. Again, the two episodes that I mentioned in today's episode are episode 250 6a5 Ways to Monitor Your Progress without the Scale in Episode 337 What your low calorie diet is doing to your body. I will link both of those in the show notes that you can easily go listen to those now, but I hope that this episode was helpful for you. I hope that this sparked something for you. Trust me when I know how frustrating it is when we hit these fitness plateaus. But the cool thing about it is that oftentimes I think we are overthinking it. We're overdoing it, and that's what's leading us into this yo yo dieting cycle. And I want you to be able to break through it. And I believe that you can break through it, just doing it in a mindful way and doing it in a way that's very straight forward and also focusing on the right things instead of trying to fine tune all of these other things that are just going to lead to unsustainable results. So if you have a friend, a coworker or someone in your life that you feel like would really benefit from this specific episode, I just ask that you can copy the links it to them in a text message. Text message. You can also screenshot this imposed upon your Instagram story, but that is all that I have for today's episode. I love you so much. I mean it. I think that I tried. [00:23:41][93.9]
[00:23:47] All right, sister. That's all I got for you today. But I have two things that I need you to do. First thing, if you are not already following me on the gram, be sure to do so. Julie. A Ledbetter. Yes, It's with an A in the middle for that daily post work out real talk, healthy tips and tricks, and honest accountability to keep your mind and heart in check. The second thing be sure to subscribe to Apple Podcasts to never miss an episode. Thank you so much for joining me. It means the absolute world. And I'm going to leave you with one last thought. The most beautiful women that I have met in my life are the ones who are completely confident and secure in being authentically themselves. Remember that beauty goes so much deeper than the surface. So go out there and embrace your real because you're worth it. [00:23:47][0.0]
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