84. The Real Deal About Fitness Plateaus

What's wrong with being in a plateau ? What does that actually mean ? Why do we find it so discouraging when we are in a plateau ? Because they're completely normal .

If you've been following a program , if you've ever gotten stuck in your weight loss journey , with your muscle building journey , with the changing of your body journey , whatever that looks like for you in your health journey , then you can relate to the feeling of being in a plateau .

Essentially , what that means , I guess , is just like if you're putting in a certain amount of work , especially if someone has made you feel like you should be making a certain amount of progress and you're not doing that , then you feel like you're stuck . A plateau is essentially when you're not seeing .

It's just a level line you feel like as far as in your health and fitness journey , you feel like you are eating healthy and you're going to the gym or you're following this workout program , or you're following this macros or meal plan , or whatever you're doing , you feel like you're doing all the right things and you're not seeing the results that you want to

see , or you have more . So a plateau is like you've been , you know , maybe losing a pound a week for five weeks and then all of a sudden you don't lose any weight for like two weeks and you're like , oh God , I'm stuck .

So that's kind of what I'm going to be talking about is those are those two things where you feel like you have seen some progress and then you're stuck , your plateaued .

Or this can also relate to you if you're just putting in a lot of work and you're not seeing the results that someone else is seeing , or you're not seeing the results that you thought you would see as fast as you would see them . So this is where I just come straight out the gates and shoot my shot here .

Okay , the reality is that we shouldn't expect results every day or every week or even every month . I'm just going to say it the faster you realize and accept that , the better off you will be . Everyone's kind of gone soft saying what you want to hear .

I feel like in this space and just giving you things like you can lose 10 pounds in your first month and all this , you know bullshit that I feel like you and we because I've fallen into that trap so when I say you , I mean we that you've fallen into and you feel like you should be seeing results because you're comparing and someone's telling you you can and

you should and just buy this product and buy this program and follow this trainer or whatever , do this workout and you'll see the results . And the reality is that you should not expect results every day . You should not expect to get on the scale and see weight loss every single day or even every single week or even every single month .

And that's just the reality of the situation . And , like I said , the faster you realize and accept that , the better off you will be , the faster . Or I should say , once I realized that every time I stepped on the scale , it was going to be pretty much the fucking same .

Every time I went to the gym , I was going to lift pretty much the same weight , do pretty much the same workouts . Every time I look in the mirror I'm going to look pretty much the same . Right , you can take photos , you can track your progress .

I highly recommend that you do that because as you look back over the months , you'll see your progress add up , but day after day , week after week , one month to the next , you won't see huge gains , huge losses , huge results . And that is the actual truth . I know that's not what you want to hear . I know that's not what most people are saying .

I know that's not sexy , that's not something I would put on like a t-shirt . Come join my programs and don't expect to see progress every day , but that's the truth . And the truth also is that you're going to have to do the same things , even if you're in a plateau . The way that you break through a plateau is by keeping the consistency .

As long as what you're doing is going to get you the results , as long as what you're doing is correct , you have to keep doing those things .

And so once I get my clients on the correct macros and the correct workouts and we've seen some results , sure , in the first few weeks and once we get them to a place where they're steadily losing weight , it still doesn't mean they're going to lose weight every week .

They're still going to have to do the same things and we'll jump on a call or be messaging in the app that I message my clients , my one-on-one clients , back and forth on and they'll say I'm still putting in the work , I'm still hitting my macros , I'm doing the same thing that I did last week , but I'm not seeing the results that I saw last week .

I feel stuck and a lot of times we can kind of pinpoint that to a point in their menstrual cycle , a point in where their hormones are changing , or we can relate it to a crazy weekend or stress or lack of sleep . There's usually something we can relate it to as far as time-wise , hormones , metabolism , like all of physically .

But what I really honestly care about is the fact that I am glad that you've been hitting the same workouts and the same macros and that you haven't made any changes week after week , because it does take time for your body to get used to those things .

And that's essentially what we want us for you to just continue to do that stuff , even if you're not seeing the results , because eventually you will see the results . But when that happens and my clients are like I'm doing the same thing and I was seeing results , and I'm not now . I'm not going to make any changes right away .

I'm going to ask you to stick with it for another two to four weeks because usually your body will eventually get used to that the habitualness of what you're doing and you will continue to see results . Because if I were to just instantly start cutting your calories , that's not okay . The goal is to not make changes all the time .

The goal is to create habits and systems and routines and just this lifestyle of doing the things even when you're not seeing the results , and just totally , totally trusting the process . You're going to have to do the same things , you're going to have to eat the same foods . You're going to have to do the same workouts .

You're going to have to show up day after day , week after week , month after month , and sometimes you will not see much change on the outward or with the way your clothes fit or on the scale , just the number .

If you're doing the right workouts and eating the right macros and you are tracking your , and if you're getting on like a smart scale and you can track your fat loss and your muscle gain , things like that , you'll see those numbers fluctuating , which is really nice because you'll see that something is working right , Gives you like a glimmer of hope .

Or if you're tracking non scale victories of just your energy and your sleep and you're drinking more water and those kinds of things , and those are huge . And if you keep doing those things and they add up , your body does start to trust you . This is normal . This is the goal . The goal is to just be able to trust the process and keep showing up .

If you were doing a quick eight to 12 week program with certain weekly strategies you know this week you're going to cut out bread and the next week you're going to cut out something else then sure you would see a lot of changes in those 12 weeks , week after week .

You're going to continue to see changes , maybe , I don't know , maybe on the scale , but that's not healthy , right ? So what I aim for is health and , honestly , after doing so many diets and crappy things to your body , it might take a while for your body to trust you .

So if you're used to doing diet after diet after diet in your life and you start let's even say my program and we make changes to what you're currently doing , you come to me and you make changes , your body is going to respond . And your body has responded to every other diet you've done in the past right .

So when you do something drastically different , your body does change . Then your body adapts , because your body's main goal is to keep you alive . So your body adapts to what you are putting it through . And then that's where the plateau comes in .

That's why a plateau is not always bad , because if you're used to doing diet after diet after diet and trading your body like shit in this cycle and it doesn't trust you when your hormones are screwed and your metabolism is tanked and everything's just not working right and you don't feel good , right , then you want your body to be at this place of happiness and

you want your body to level out and you want your body to plateau and just function for a while . Right , you want to get your levels up to a healthy place . Sometimes a plateau is a great thing . It's just , and I don't . We're never taught it like that .

We're never taught like oh , it's good to not see any changes for a couple of weeks , but it is like I think that's great . When my clients come to me and they're like I'm kind of stuck , I haven't seen any changes for a few weeks I'm like good , good , let's keep an eye on your muscle mass and hope that's going up .

Let's keep an eye on your fat percentage and make sure that's going down .

But if your number on the scale is staying the same and you have energy and you're sleeping okay and you're not stressed about anything , and for God's sake we don't have to like cut anything out or like , god forbid , we go a whole week right Without stressing about what do we have to change this week about our health and fitness .

That's great If we can change the mentality around a plateau , from being I'm stuck and I need to change something to I'm consistently weighing the same for a little while . Right , I'm eating more calories , like this is a good thing .

And so while we're aiming for health instead of like quick fixes , it might take a while for your body to trust you , and that's where that plateau is coming in . So think of a plateau sometimes as your body learning to trust you and also learning how to respond to what you're doing .

Give your body a little time to figure out what you're feeding it and figure out what to do with that in terms of actually making real changes , which is what we're ultimately talking about , like I said , fat loss and muscle gain .

That is what I would consider next level , and so I want to kind of transition this episode now into this next level thinking right . So there's thinking about a plateau in a good way , which I think we need to do , and I think we need to really take a step back and be like am I really stuck or am I just kind of leveling out here ?

And that's one mentality . The next mentality is this next level mentality . So , instead of saying things like I work out at the gym and I eat pretty healthy , that's one level of health and fitness If you work out at the gym a couple times a week but you're not following a program , then all you can say is I work out at the gym .

And if you can say I eat pretty healthy but you're not tracking your macros and you have no idea if you're feeding your body the right amount of gas , right . Like you can put gas in your car , but if you don't put enough gas in your car , it's not going to go the distance .

So you can feed your body pretty healthy , but if you're not feeding your body the amount that it needs , it doesn't matter . So that's the next level of health there's . It's one thing to say I go to the gym on occasion and I eat pretty healthy .

It's next level to say I'm following a workout program that's really going to help me build muscle and shed body fat and recomp my body and I eat enough calories to fuel my body right . It's the next level .

So if you want to lose those next five to ten pounds , if you feel like you're in a plateau and you actually have like five to ten pounds is really hard to lose and all weight is really hard to lose , but if you have that last five to ten pounds or that first five to ten pounds where you're like jump starting or you plateaued and you have a little bit

more , those five to ten pounds will require different things . It will require a next level and what I like to say is the next level of your journey requires the next level of yourself . So you've heard that quote what got you here won't get you there .

So what you've been doing up until this point , after you've went through your plateau and you've weighted it out and this might not even have to do anything with the plateau , but it can Sometimes you've weighted out your plateau and you've started to make some progress again and you're like I just kind of want to mix things up , or if you're just like I'm , you

know , ready to go to the next level , having nothing to do with the plateau either way , is fine . I just really need you to know that this is going to take the next level . So when you've kind of maxed out on something and you're like , okay , I go to the gym and I eat pretty healthy , that's no longer getting me to where I want to go .

I have a lot of clients who came to me and were like I work out and I eat pretty healthy , but I still need to recount my body , like I still have body fat to lose , I still want it . Like I do not look and feel how I want to feel , but I work out and I eat pretty healthy . Right , it's not the same thing .

So this doesn't mean that you have to work harder . It doesn't mean that you have to start cutting out foods and eating less and go doing all the cardio and going to the gym seven days a week and working out for two hours a day . That's not at all what it means . It's not working harder , it's working smarter .

It's working with your body to give it what it needs , and sometimes what it needs is time . Sometimes what your body needs is to just have that consistency and weight out that plateau and don't change anything , just let it go right . Sometimes your body needs time to build muscle . To build muscle , you have to eat more and you have to lift heavier .

This also means eating more food like that's going to require some fat gain . So eating more food and lifting heavier , that means you're going to get essentially bigger . Okay , that takes some mental , some mental work and this also takes time . The results are slow and they're kind of annoying .

So if you do want to recomp , if you do want to build some muscle , if you do want to lose some fat , it's going to take time . You're going to have to learn new ways of eating , new ways of lifting . That means you know troubleshooting in the gym when you're like my forms off , I can't . My progressive overload like I'm just not able to lift is heavy .

There's a lot that goes with it . You have to just keep showing up . It takes time . Like I said , the results are slow and it's freaking so annoying sometimes to just wake up and be like well , I'm going to go work out again , even though I haven't really seen much change in my body , and or I'm getting bigger and I'm eating more . That's .

That's the whole process , right ? Because later on , once we have that muscle built , we can cut back on some calories and expose all that muscle that we built . So sometimes you have to go through a plateau . Actually , always , you will always have to go through a plateau . You'll always be stuck there . We might as well just deal with it Again .

I'm not here to like sugarcoat this and make it soft and be like sometimes you'll go through a plateau , like I said that and I'm like no , everyone is going to have to go through a plateau . Everyone is going to have to go through those annoying times where you're like oh my God I'm . This is such bullshit .

It's like I'm just going and going and doing the actions and nothing is really happening . It is happening and you have to keep doing the same things and remember that that's exactly the next level Doing things you don't want to do , waiting longer for the results right , it's a new way of looking at things . That is the next level .

Those are the things that get you to that next level . It's new things , it's a new body . It can be a new you at the end of it if you push through it . So a couple of things that I want you to take with you after listening to this episode .

There's two questions that I want you to really ask yourself , because if you're in a plateau , usually what people will do is quit . If they've gotten to a plateau and they've been doing the same things they've been doing and they wait two weeks and they're like well , that's not working anymore , so they quit .

So that's one choice you can definitely quit and then you'll have to start again . So the other option is to just acknowledge and accept the path that you're on and know that it's going to take longer . So , instead of quitting , I want you to ask yourself are you ready to do things slower and practice some patience ?

The slow route can create some boredom , but remember that boring can sometimes be confused as safe . When we are used to buying into the flashy objects and trying a new program and buying new things and seeing results all the time , which isn't great for our bodies .

To just keep changing things up and putting in shitty products that we don't need , that's not good for you . Are you ready to do things healthy and do things slower and practice some patience ? If so , stick it out through the plateau , keep doing exactly what you're doing because it's healthy and you will see the results at the end and just keep going .

Another question I want you to ask yourself is are you ready to level up and really go after your goals ? This will require new thinking and this will require the next level of yourself . It doesn't mean to work harder . Oftentimes it actually means to just work smarter and actually work less .

So are you ready to do things slower and practice some patience and getting to your goals the healthy way , and are you ready to level up and really go after your goals ? If you are , then a plateau is exactly where you want to be , and you just have to make that choice to keep going and really accept that this is the route you're supposed to be on .

It can be easy , it can be simple , it can be boring and , honestly , that's good . Life throws us enough curveballs . I don't need my health and fitness to be another one . So I hope you enjoyed this episode .

I really love teaching these kind of things , and it's just that reality of plateau is are okay and you will not see results week after week , month after month , like from month to month , and knowing that kind of just starting out with the mindset of I am gonna hit plateaus , it is gonna be okay , I need to do the shit , whether I'm seeing results or not .

That mindset will serve you so much better than having these high expectations from someone who doesn't really know what they're talking about , then starting out in a way that's actually healthy . So I hope you enjoyed this episode .

I hope it was truly , truly helpful for you and I hope it expands your thinking into kind of this different way that not a lot of people think , and you can think of your slow fitness journey as actually good and healthy and stop comparing it to everyone else . I will talk to you next week .