The start of a new fitness journey is often an exciting time. You feel good about committing to a healthy routine and you’re seeing the results of your efforts each week. Unfortunately, there may come a time when your progress slows down and your best efforts feel like they’re for naught. This is known as a fitness plateau.

When you’re already making healthy choices in your life such as exercising consistently, eating nutritious meals, and getting adequate sleep, not seeing any changes can be a frustrating experience. However, the most important thing you can do is not give up. Hitting a plateau is an extremely common experience. To overcome this hurdle, it’s important to reevaluate what’s working for you on your fitness journey, as well as what’s not.

Here are five lifestyle changes you can make to accelerate your progress once again, with some insights on common causes of fitness plateaus.

1 Switch Up Your Workout Routine

Noticeable progress depends on variety in your fitness routine. When your body starts to get used to specific exercises, it adapts to them. It’s why people training for marathons often find it easier to run longer distances each time they train. Your body is no longer as challenged by the same routine.

If you’ve been following the same weekly routine for more than about 8 – 12 weeks, start incorporating new exercises into your routine or completely switching it up. This can help you shock your system back into progress mode.

2 Adjust Your Calorie Intake

Eating nutritious food is a great way to kickstart your fitness journey and maintain your progress. However, if you want to further your progress, you may need to start paying attention to your intake of calories. For instance, if weight loss is your goal, you may need to gradually cut back on calories with carbs, which may be hiding in otherwise healthy foods.

Additionally, make sure to differentiate between good sugars and carbs. For example, although foods with natural, simple sugars — such as fruits and whole grains — are perfectly fine in moderation, added sugars in highly processed foods are linked to weight gain.

3 Cut Back or eliminate on Drinking

While there’s nothing wrong with grabbing a drink now and then, regular alcohol consumption can be the cause of your fitness plateau. Alcohol can interfere with metabolism, decrease nutrient absorption, and cause imbalances in your gut microbiome.

Cutting back on alcohol can help you speed up your progress once again. If you want to take your fitness journey a step further, consider increasing your water intake. A good water intake can significantly improve your metabolism and help you avoid dehydration when working out. This way, you can improve your exercise performance on top of overcoming the roadblocks that alcohol creates.

4 Give Your Body a Break

While some people can overcome their workout plateaus by switching or intensifying their workout routine, others may need to work out less. Overtraining can lead to plateaus because your body won’t have time to recover and new muscles won’t get the chance to form.

If you’re working out every day without rest or you’re constantly feeling exhausted after hitting the gym, consider taking it easier. Taking extra rest days when you’re feeling sick or when you’re injured is also key to giving your body adequate recovery time. Finding the right balance for you can help you avoid future plateaus.

5 Seek Professional Help

When all your lifestyle changes don’t feel successful or when you need extra motivation to hit your goals, consider seeking professional help. Fitness trainers and dieticians can help you create personalized routines that work for you. Plus, they can help you stick with it or identify when change is necessary.

If trainers and dieticians still can’t get you moving toward your fitness goals, there might be a more serious health condition at play. If you’re concerned that your plateau is a sign of something more serious, consider visiting a doctor. Tracking your health and nutrition before your appointment can help your doctor more accurately identify the root cause of your fitness plateau and suggest lifestyle changes that may work specifically for your body.

Push Past Your Plateau With Lifestyle Changes

When you’re feeling stuck in your fitness journey, a few small changes in your lifestyle can make a big difference. Fitness plateaus are frequently caused by adaptations to your workout routine, such as too much repetition, too little intensity, or too few rest days. They can also be a sign of a need for a diet change, like reduced calorie consumption, even if you’re already eating healthily. Start with small changes first to ensure you’re on the right path.

If all else fails, consider reaching out to a professional for help adjusting your exercise routine or diet, or seeking a doctor’s opinion in case there’s a medical issue at play.

Author bio

Dan Matthews is a writer, content consultant, and conservationist. While Dan writes on a variety of topics, he loves to focus on feeling better both mentally and physically, and imparting health tips to others can help make the world a better place to reside. When Dan isn’t working on new content, you can find him with a coffee cup in one hand and searching for new music in the other.

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After a certain amount of work, especially if you’ve been pushing yourself to what you believe to be your limits, you might find that your progress slows down or stops altogether. This is called a plateau and it can happen to anyone after a period of time. Think of it as a sort of equilibrium in which your body has perfected your current regime and is taking in the maximum amount of nutrients it needs to maintain it’s current form.

1. Switch Up Your Routine

Reaching a plateau doesn’t need to be the end of your progress. Your first step here is to perhaps switch up your current routine or even just switch up your exercises. Your body may now be used to the exercises that you have been doing, that it just isn’t gaining anything from repeating them. You could try something completely new and different, and focus on hitting some different muscles groups altogether and utilizing those muscles in new ways.

Remember though, once you make a change, be sure to stick with it for some time before making another change so that you give your body and muscles a chance to fully utilize and progress from the new change. 

2. Increase The Intensity

In addition to choosing some new exercises and activities, you should look at ramping up the intensity of those workout sessions where possible. Whether that means a significant increase to your weight during weight training exercises or adding extra time onto your workout sessions to boost your cardio, there are plenty of ways to continue to push your limits further.

Remember though, while you might be in the mindset of kicking yourself into overdrive, you should still be mindful of your safety and not go too far or forget to do things properly. The risk of injury increases the more you push yourself, and exponentially more so if you start to drop the ball on thinking about your own safety. If there’s one way to start losing that progress you’ve made so far, it’s by sustaining a serious injury and being out of action for weeks or even months.

3. Improve Your Gut’s Microbiome

Getting fit is more than just the exercises you do. A lot of it is based on your diet and your internal, physical health. Before we speak about getting your diet in order, it’s worth having a think about your gut’s microbiome. This is an area of health where it’s important to do plenty of research via professionals such as Dr Ruscio who specializes in gut health as well as a number of other things that could benefit from things like functional medicine.

Developing a healthy, diverse gut environment can really improve everything from nutrient absorption to your ability to break down hard to digest foods and reduce bloating and cramping. Experiencing negative effects of poor digestion can hinder your ability to work out and also reduce your appetite, whereas if you’re not digesting your food properly, you’re at risk of a lot of those essential nutrients in your diet going to waste.

Taking probiotic supplements is a common method of improving your gut’s microbiome by increasing the numbers and strains of good bacteria in your gut, which help to break down your foods and nutrients for absorption. 

4. Analyse Your Diet

Once you’ve developed a healthier gut, it’s time to figure out exactly what you’re putting into your body to maximize your nutrient intake and cut out unnecessary foods that don’t benefit you at all. There are lots of amazingly helpful guides online and you’ll find that you may have to tailor your diet to you regardless of the advice you find. Building your perfect diet plan should be based on the results that you’re looking for. Remember to be conscious of your vitamin and mineral intake and always make sure you are eating plenty of good fruit and wholesome vegetables.

Figuring out the right nutritional plan to follow will take some effort, research and trial and error if you choose to do it yourself, but you can always get in contact with a personal trainer for some help. A good thing to remember is to ensure to use a progressive and gradual approach and do not cut or add a lot of changes abruptly.

5. Consider upping your protein

Continuing on from figuring out your nutritional plan, you should always be considering your micro and macro nutrients, and while your meals will provide a majority of the macro nutrients like carbs and proteins, micro nutrients such as vitamins and minerals may be a bit harder to maintain. Some supplements are a common remedy for this, and while they shouldn’t replace any of your foods or be wholly depended upon, they can be added to your diet to ensure that you can focus more on getting those calories and extra protein.

putting it all together

It may be a lot of information to take in and process, so make sure to do your research and do not rush the process. Try to understand each step that you take while making a change to move out of that plateau that you may have found yourself in. An important aspect to remember throughout this process, is that you should not try to make too many changes too quickly either. Utilize 1 of the points first for example, track your progress and see how it goes for a period of time, before introducing another change.

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