Muscle for Life with Mike Matthews - How to Break Through Weight Loss Plateaus

Episode Date: November 26, 2019

Fat was practically falling off your body just a few weeks ago, and now you're wondering if your scale is broken because no matter what you do, your weight won't budge. What gives? Why did your routine suddenly stop working, and what can you do to push through this weight loss plateau? Listen to this podcast to find out. Want to get my best advice on how to gain muscle and strength and lose fat faster? Sign up for my free newsletter! Click here: https://www.legionathletics.com/signup/

A quick bit of exciting news before we start. My sports nutrition company, Legion Athletics, is going to be holding its biggest sale of the year in a couple days, starting on Wednesday, the 27th. This is our annual Black Friday and Cyber Monday sale. And what that means is that for a few days, you're going to be able to save up to 30% on everything in our store over at legionathletics.com. That's L-E-G-I-O-N athletics.com, including our protein powders, our protein bars, our pre-workout and post-workout supplements, fat burners, multivitamins, joint support, and all the rest. And as you will see come Wednesday, everything in the store is going to be marked down 5% to 15%. And then when you enter the code FRIDAY19, numerals 1-9,

at checkout, you're going to save another 15%. So if you like what I'm doing here on the podcast and elsewhere, and if you would like to help me do more of it, if you'd like to help me help more people get into the best shape of their lives as well, then please do support Legion Athletics this Wednesday when our big Black Friday sale kicks off. Hey, Mike here and welcome to another episode of Muscle for Life. This episode is a little bit different than the usual. This is a chapter from the new third editions of my flagship books for men and women, Bigger, Leaner, Stronger, and Thinner, Leaner, Stronger.

This chapter is in both of the books. And what you're about to hear is specifically from the men's book. And in the women's book, it's the same basic fundamental information, but it is customized to be specifically for women. But for women listening, this information, again, is going to apply to you just as much as it is to guys, even though it is from the men's book. And the reason why I wanted to publish this chapter in particular is it's a good topic, something that I get asked about a lot breaking through weight loss plateaus. And I realized that I hadn't recorded anything on it and that I have everything that I have to say about it really in the audio book of Bigger Leaner Stronger and also Thinner

Leaner Stronger. And so that's today's episode, how to break through weight loss plateaus. And if you like what you hear in this episode, then you will definitely like the rest of the audio books. So if you listen and you like it, go check out Bigger Leaner Stronger, the audio book, if you're a guy and Thinner Leaner Stronger, if you are a gal. And of course, those books are also available as eBooks and paperback books, and you can find them online wherever you buy books. Most people, though, just buy on Amazon. So of course, you can find everything on Amazon, and the audio books are on Audible and Amazon and iTunes. All right, let's get to the episode. Chapter 32, how to break through weight loss plateaus. Quote, hard choices, easy life,

easy choices, hard life. Jersey Gregorick. What's the most common gripe among dieters everywhere. Easy. Not losing weight. They feel like they're doing everything right and following all the rules, yet the scale flashes the same scowling, mocking number at them every morning. You've probably experienced this yourself. experience this yourself. This plight extends to our more enlightened perspective of monitoring body composition as well. You can carefully apply everything you've learned in this audiobook and suddenly stop losing fat. In fact, you can count on this happening. Fortunately, while the human metabolism is incredibly complex, breaking through weight and fat loss plateaus isn't. You simply need to widen the gap between energy in and energy out. To do this, you first need to ensure you're accurately measuring and recording everything you're eating and drinking. Remember in Chapter 7 where you learned how easy it is to mess up calorie counting if you're not paying enough attention to the details?

You also need to ensure you're not making any of the cheating mistakes we discussed in chapter 20. Once you're certain you're not making any energy balance blunders, the easiest way to break through a weight or fat loss plateau is to eat less. That said, loss plateau is to eat less. That said, I recommend maxing out on exercise first because this is better for staving off the negative side effects associated with calorie restriction. In short, I'd rather you move more before eating less. There isn't a clear scientific answer as to how much exercise you can do while dieting before it becomes unhealthy and counterproductive, but it's more than many people think. I've worked and spoken with many thousands of people, And here's what I've learned. Four to five hours of weightlifting

and 1.5 to two hours of high-intensity cardio per week will maximize fat loss while minimizing unwanted side effects. And that's exactly what I recommend you work up to as your exercise ceiling when you're cutting. What happens when you exceed those numbers and exercise even more? Some people's bodies are particularly resilient and do fine with more exercise, but in my experience, many don't. If you take it much further than I recommend, it's more likely that hunger and cravings will kick into overdrive, sleep quality will decline, energy levels will plummet, and your mood will sour. Once you've reached your exercise limit and it appears you're

no longer losing fat, it's usually due to one of the two following scenarios. One, fat loss is being obscured by fluctuations in water weight or bowel movements. Water retention can vary wildly when you're cutting. Sometimes you can go for two or even three weeks without losing weight and suddenly overnight drop several pounds through frequent urination, the whoosh effect bodybuilders often talk about. This overnight flush often occurs after a cheat meal or diet break because increasing calories, and carbs in particular, can significantly decrease cortisol levels, which in turn reduces water retention. Stool retention can also play tricks on you, obscuring both weight and fat loss by increasing body weight and bloating. All this is why it's smart to wait two or three weeks before reducing your calories when you've hit your exercise ceiling and your weight

or fat loss has stalled. 2. Fat loss has slowed to a crawl due to the natural metabolic adaptations that occur while cutting. As time goes on, what started out as a 20 or 25% calorie deficit can shrink to a much smaller one that no longer results in appreciable fat loss. continue if you like what I'm doing here on the podcast and elsewhere. And if you want to help me help more people get into the best shape of their lives, please consider checking out my VIP one-on-one coaching service. Now, my team and I have helped thousands of people of all ages, circumstances, and needs. So no matter how complicated or maybe even hopeless you might think your situation is, we will figure out how to get you the results you want. Every diet and training program we create is 100% custom. We provide daily workout logs and we do weekly accountability calls. Our clients get priority email service, as well as discounts on supplements, and the list

goes on and on. To learn more, just head over to legionathletics.com slash coaching. And if you like what you see, schedule your free consultation call. Now there's normally a wait list to work with our coaches and new slots do fill up very quickly. So if this sounds even remotely interesting to you, head over to legionathletics.com slash coaching now and schedule your free consultation call. And let's see if our program is a good fit for you. So if you've reached your exercise limit and failed to lose any weight or fat in at least two to three weeks, the next move is to eat less and to do it gradually, not drastically. Specifically, you should cut your daily food intake by about 100 calories every 14 days by reducing your carbohydrate intake. Don't reduce your protein or fat. How low you can ultimately go will depend on your body,

but a good rule of thumb is to stop cutting calories when you've reached about 90% of your BMR. And then, don't remain there for more than a couple of weeks before calling it quits on the cut. What should you do if you've been slightly below your BMR for a couple of weeks but still haven't reached your desired body fat percentage? Your best bet in this case is to bring your calories back to your total daily energy expenditure for 4 to 6 weeks to allow your body to normalize itself and then start cutting anew. Weight loss plateaus are nothing to be afraid of or worried about. They're an inevitable consequence of proper dieting and they're easily conquered by making minor adjustments to your meal and exercise plans and staying the course. That's all there is to it.

Key takeaways. While the human metabolism is incredibly complex, breaking through weight and fat loss plateaus isn't. You simply need to widen the gap between energy in and energy out. To do this, you first need to ensure you're accurately measuring and recording everything you're eating and drinking. You also need to ensure you're not making any of the cheating mistakes we discussed in chapter 20. Once you're certain you're not making any energy balance blunders, the easiest way to break through a weight and fat loss plateau is to eat less. staving off the negative side effects associated with calorie restriction. 4 to 5 hours of weightlifting and 1.5 to 2 hours of high-intensity cardio per week will maximize fat loss while minimizing unwanted side effects. Once you've reached your exercise limit and it appears you're no longer losing fat, it's usually due to one of the two following scenarios. Fat loss is being obscured by fluctuations in water weight or bowel movements.

Fat loss has slowed to a crawl due to the natural metabolic adaptations that occur while cutting. If you've reached your exercise limit and failed to lose any weight or fat in at least 2-3 weeks, cut your daily food intake by about 100 calories every 14 days by reducing your carbohydrate intake. Don't reduce your protein or fat. A good rule of thumb is to stop cutting calories when you've reached about 90% of your BMR. If you've been slightly below your BMR for a couple of weeks, but still haven't reached your desired body fat percentage, bring your calories back to your total daily energy expenditure for four to six weeks to allow your body to normalize itself and then start cutting anew. Cyber Monday sale. And what that means is that for a few days, you're going to be able to save up to 30% on everything in our store over at legionathletics.com. That's L-E-G-I-O-N

athletics.com, including our protein powders, our protein bars, our pre-workout and post-workout supplements, fat burners, multivitamins, joint support, and all the rest. And as you will see come Wednesday, everything in the store is going to be marked down 5 to 15%. And then when you enter the code Friday19, numerals 1-9, at checkout, you're going to save another 15%. So if you like what I'm doing here on the podcast and elsewhere, and if you would like to help me do more of it, if you'd like to help me help more people get into the best shape of their lives as well, then please do support Legion Athletics this Wednesday when our big Black Friday sale kicks off. big Black Friday sale kicks off. All right, well, that's it for today's episode. I hope you found it interesting and helpful. And if you did, and you don't mind doing me a favor, could you please leave a quick review for the podcast on iTunes or wherever you are listening from? Because those reviews not only convince people that they should check out the show, they also increase the search visibility and help more people find their way to me and to the podcast and learn how to build their best body ever as well.

And of course, if you want to be notified when the next episode goes live, then simply subscribe to the podcast and whatever app you're using to listen. And you will not miss out on any of the new stuff that I have coming. And last, if you didn't like something about the show, then definitely shoot me an email at mike at muscleforlife.com and share your thoughts. Let me know how you think I could do this better. I read every email myself and I'm always looking for constructive feedback. All right. Thanks again for listening to this episode and I hope to hear from you soon.