Q&A with Megan Jendrick: Eating to Get Past a Plateau

Written by Shoshana Pritzker Wednesday, 05 August 2009 17:52

Megan,

I made the conscious decision on New Years to lose a lot of the extra weight I’ve been carrying for a number of years. I went from eating what I wanted, when I wanted, to two or three small meals a day. Over the last four months I’ve dropped thirty pounds, but now it has stopped and I’m not sure what’s left to do. I feel if I eat even less I’ll lose energy and not be able to get much done. What should I do?

Jean


A

Jean,

I think it’s great you made the decision to get in shape and you have set yourself apart from the majority by sticking with it for more than four months. That said, it seems like you were just a little over excited to get started. Remember, losing body fat is a slow process that needs to be done carefully, not a race that you can just jump right into.

Obviously without more information it is hard to detail what may have gone wrong, but I think it’s pretty clear that what has happened is your body has stalled itself by severely slowing your metabolism. When you make drastic changes to your diet like you have done, the body responds with a “defense mechanism” to protect itself. And much to our demise, the human body is fond of its fat stores.

I think what you need to do to get your metabolism kick-started again is to slowly start introducing more clean, healthy food into your diet to get your calorie count up and show your body it isn’t going into starvation. Once your metabolism gets going again, you’ll notice quite soon whether you’re losing body fat again or if you may be adding a little bit. If the latter is the case, SLOWLY start reducing your food intake or increasing your exercise volume. Make small, incremental changes, and you’ll be very happy with your results.

Best wishes!

Megan

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