Buy Walking VideosThe Hidden Plateau – Part 2
I had figured out the reasons in my head why I kept gaining and losing the same 10 pounds for two years, but I still ran into trouble once I was able to get that under control. The second element of the Hidden Plateau was just as difficult for me to find, even though it was right under my nose:
I was lying to myself.
We are at our worst when we lie to ourselves, because we can’t even see it when it happens. I can tell if a diet pill advertising lies to me, but when I lie to myself, there is no one there to point the finger and yell, “Baloney!” Here are a couple of ways that I lied to myself.
Portion Control:
I had stopped measuring. Cereal in the morning was the worst. I had been following the program for over two years, so I thought I knew what 3/4 cup of cereal looked like in my bowl, but when I actually got real with myself and pulled out those measuring cups again, I was shocked at how much I had actually been eating. Sometimes it was twice the serving size, which had doubled my caloric intake. No wonder I was having trouble losing weight.
Risky Restaurants:
I would purposely go to restaurants that didn’t have published nutrition facts so I could estimate the calories for the meals. These estimates turned out to be hilariously less than they should have been. Even I could see through this lie, but it didn’t stop me from continuing the bad habit. For the longest time, my favorite restaurant only had minimal nutrition facts posted on their website. It wasn’t until I downloaded the full list that I found out the the bowl of pasta that I estimated at 350 calories was actually 550 calories. That sort of difference was what was stalling my weight loss.
Shoddy Exercise:
When I started exercising, I wasn’t able to do much without overloading myself. I had gotten into a routine of running the same course on the treadmill (or around the neighborhood) every day. I would “forget” to wear my heart rate monitor, telling myself that I could tell how hard I was working. It wasn’t until I started using my heart rate monitor religiously that I realized that I had been slacking. Exercise that used to be in the high intensity range was really in the moderate or light range now, but I had been counting it as high. Now, I wear my HRM every time I exercise, no matter what. If I’m going to spend time working out, I want it to actually do me some good.
Re-evaluate yourself. Have you been lying to yourself at all? If you are, that might be the reason behind your weight loss plateau. Truly looking at myself with eyes wide open helped me far more than the pat and easy answers that were handed to me by gurus.
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March 16th, 2006 at 7:32 am
I had less Plateaus and more gaining everything back and then some. I also had to stop lying to myself. I always just gain all the weight back and then some because 1. I felt I didn’t need to journal. 2. I know compare when I am making a guess at someplace out to eat. 3. I’d deprive. 4. I’d get board with exercise.
VH
PS I love you blog. I love technology fitness reviews. Your blog and the videogameworkout.com blog has made me want an exer-station for my birthday.
March 18th, 2006 at 4:11 am
I look back at my journal and I have more snicker bars and bread entered than fruit and vegetables, which of course, when I first started, I had more fruit and vegetables entered. Also, my jogging has increased from 15 miles a week to 21-30 to keep off the weight gain. I too am going to take a serious look back at my journals and make a change.
May 11th, 2006 at 11:16 am
I have been pretty true to the eating part of the diet for the past couple months,journaling every bite and not going over my points. The only thing I can think is I need to change up my exercising. I use the same three pieces of cardio equip at the gym 3 – 4 days a week for 60 minutes and my personal trainer has me lifting a ton of weight but doing the same core exercises (squats w weights, dead lift, bench press, etc) I have recently asked him if we could change things up, I see him tomorrow so we will see what he says. His wife and the other trainers there are all beautiful and have perfect bodies and they all got there doing what he’s been doing with me so he swears it has to be my eating. We will see!
October 1st, 2006 at 6:51 am
Thanks for sending me the link to your solution. This is my second time losing a lot of weight with WW and then hitting a plateau for a long time and being really upset. It’s just like you said but I consider that I’ve gotten lazy with the program. Portion control probably is the worst–I just like to see a lot of food set out for me and I always think I know what the serving sizes are but in reality I don’t. When I do eat the right portions I see weight loss. I wasn’t slacking with exercise at all–I had even upped all of my cardio (as much as I can with bad asthma) but when I saw myself weighing a few lbs more instead of less, I stopped exercising all together. I skipped working out all last week because I was “busy” Yes i was busy (college student + 20-25 hrs a week at my job) but I know I can still fit in my workouts! Thank you for sending me this 🙂 I’m going to get right back on the ball of things and really watch my portion control and exercising.