Weight Loss Plateaus are about the worst thing to deal with and get through when dieting.  They are weight loss hell and a big reason why a lot of people “toss in the towel” on their weight loss efforts.

I’ve been dealing with a plateau for the past month.  The same 2 1/2 pounds has been plaguing me – down, up, down, up…..grrrrr!

I’ve been happy, mad, frustrated, sad, hopeless and completely ticked off.

Last week when I weighed in at Weight Watchers I let my frustrations pour out to my leader (yes, I know I’m supposed to call her a facilitator now but I think it sounds stupid).  She calmly listened and then suggested I quit trying to lose for a few weeks and instead try to maintain since my emotions were all over the place ever since I reached 50 pounds.

It made sense even though I resisted for a couple of minutes.  My emotions have been all over the place.  I was ecstatic when I got my 50 pound reward.  I felt as skinny as Twiggy!  Then I got depressed when I realized that I wasn’t even halfway to my goal (I want to lose 120 pounds). Maybe I did need a break.  So the next day I added a few points to my daily allowance just like anyone who was going on maintenance would…..and then…..I proceeded to pig out!

I decided since I was going to “maintain” that it would okay to drink a regular Pepsi (the full octane stuff with something like 15 teaspoons of sugar in it).  The first Pepsi was so good I decided to have a second..then a third, fourth, and fifth.  While in the middle of my Pepsi binge I got hungry for chips and found a half bag of stale Chili Cheese Corn Chips in my pantry so I ate (inhaled) all of them even though they were more chewy than crunchy.

Then, since I had blown the day anyway I decided to take a trip to McDonalds for a Big Mac and fries….can’t really tell you why – by then I was in a food induced haze and couldn’t stop myself from shoving my mouth full of fatty, high calorie food.

After my McDonalds binge I felt sick.  What a surprise, right?

A bike ride seemed like the right thing to do in an effort to burn off a few of the junk food calories I had just consumed.

The bike ride was hell.  Even though I had consumed enough calories and sugar to satisfy a small elephant I could barely muster up enough energy to get through my normal 10 mile bike ride.  Plus, the farther I got into my ride the sicker I felt.  I was gassy from all the soda and had to fight the urge to jump off my bike and “hurl” into the bushes.

Then and there I vowed to remember how eating that junk made me feel.

The next day, last Thursday, I got up and decided to get back on track with Weight Watchers.  I ate healthy the rest of the Weight Watchers week (I weigh in on Tuesday mornings so my “Weight Watchers” week is Tuesday through Monday), exercised, and drank a lot of water.  Plus I didn’t let myself get on the scale at home (no need to take the risk of further depressing myself).

At weigh in yesterday I was down 4 pounds!

My leader thinks my binge shocked my system all to heck.  She cautioned that I shouldn’t do the binge every week but she reminded me how she often tells people during our meetings to go ahead and use all their extra weekly points in one day when their weight loss is at a standstill in order to get their metabolism burning up calories again.  The problem is that most people resist that suggestion and are too horrified to even consider it cuz how can temporarily eating more mean losing weight?

It does work.   Of course, it doesn’t mean a person should eat the junk I did.  Healther eating is a better idea.

I’m officially down 55 pounds and have now made it through several plateaus.

What have I learned?

For me, the best way to get through those plateaus and start getting the weight off again is to do something different – to shake things up and kind of confuse my body.  During one I started drinking lots more water; then I upped my exercise; then I significantly upped my fruits and veggies; then I changed my exercise routine.  They all worked and got me through plateaus in two or three weeks.

The problem was that when I hit this plateau I didn’t know what to do differently.  I was drinking lots of water, eating lots of fruits and veggies, and had an exercise routine that I could change some – but didn’t see a lot of room for change (mostly because the weather is finally nice – no snow – and I’m working hard to get my “butt” conditioned for long bike rides).

I was so close to giving up but I stuck with it (such a change from the last 150 times I tried to lose weight – I was always giving up.  I just may finally have my head screwed on right).

The thing that helped me the most was continuing to go to Weight Watchers and not skipping a meeting or avoiding weigh in.  Being in that meeting room with other people who understand how difficult it is to get those pounds off and having an understanding leader made the difference for me.

Now it’s onward and forward for me…..working on losing that weight one day (and sometimes “one minute”) at a time.