Six months without a plateau is pretty amazing. I thought I'd get stuck before that, the longest I went at the same-ish weight was a week. Until this month. Yep, it had to happen sometime. I've been bouncing between 163 and 165 for a solid 2 weeks, possibly a bit longer. And as any good engineer would do, we analyze the problem to fix it. At work, when we break a satellite, we have something called a Failure Review Board, and from that we decide on Corrective Actions. So I'm going to do that with my mini plateau
Failure Review: Why Could This Be Happening?
1. TOM... stupid little bugger... perhaps when it's over in a few days I'll start to see the scale fall
2. Alcohol... my friend and nemesis. Of the past 3 weekends, two involved me getting drunk and this past weekend I did have a beer and a half. It's possible the alcohol has finally caught up to me. The bad thing is that this weekend I'll be visiting my best friend in Phoenix who I haven't seen in nearly a year. There will be inevitably drinking. This time I have to make sure I drink TONS of water. That's been my downfall lately with drinking. No water.
3. Higher protein diet combined with strength training... In general, I dislike the excuse "I'm building muscle", since I don't think it happens that quickly. But I went from 15% protein to 30% and increased my fiber. Could my new diet be balancing out fat loss the past 2 weeks?
4. My body adjusted to my workouts... This is also very possible. Running isn't a new thing anymore, I started after Memorial Day. Chalean Extreme isn't new, I started in mid-July. Zumba isn't new, started after Memorial Day. So... time for a change???
5. Too much food at the end of the day... I've been tending to eat less during the day and then having dinner, a protein shake, and at least 1-2 snacks at night. It's quite a bit, and it all gets eaten right after I work out after work. So, it's possible my body isn't burning off as much of it?
Corrective Actions: How can I make the scale move again???
1. Cut out the drinking... after this weekend. And keep it within reason this weekend. I'll be drinking my weight in water while in Phoenix, but I'm going to try to avoid drinking excessively. Then when I get back, no alcohol for 2 weeks or so. I don't have to worry until my friend comes to visit the last weekend in Sept.
2. Start the Chalean Extreme/Turbo Fire hybrid TODAY! I have Turbo Fire now, so I'm going to do the hybrid schedule, starting with Week 4, since I completed Phase 1 of Chalean Extreme already. I previewed some of the TF workouts and it looks great! Between this and improving my running to longer times/distances, I think it will really help to break the routine.
3. Keep eating protein and try to lower my carbs. I love carbs, and I'm not a fan of cooking meat. So it's harder to get all the protein in. I'm working hard on it though, and each day is getting better.
4. Snack/eat more before dinner and less after my workouts. I'm going to try to even out my calorie intake so I'm eating less at night. I'm going to try to stick to protein shake plus dinner, and ONE evening snack.
5. Chilling out and sticking to my routine. The scale will have to start moving eventually. I'm not going to stress out about not hitting my minigoal on Labor Day. I'm only 3-4 pounds away from it, and once I get things sorted out, I'll be there in a week or two. So, no stressing. I like that my new scale measures body fat. It's something else I can use to track progress. And I do measurements, I'll be measuring again around Sept. 15th.
So that's my game plan, in about the nerdiest way one could present it. Let's hope it works! I dislike being stuck :)
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