Weight Loss Plateaus and Taking Responsibility
In my readings about weight loss, exercise and nutrition, I’ve seen the concept of weight-loss plateaus come up again and again. The idea is that a person will be doing everything “right”, but their weight stays at the same level. I’ve read cases where this is attributed to gaining muscle at the same rate as losing fat, or the body adjusting to protect itself. My opinion is that both of these are entirely possible, but are more extreme cases and not the norm that they are perceived to be. I think that most plateaus come from deluding oneself and refusing to take responsibility.
I’ve been at a plateau for the past 6 weeks – hovering back and forth between 210 and 220 – up and down, up and down. This morning I finally broke through the 210 mark and weighed in at 209.6. My plateau did not happen because of muscle gain or my body being in starvation mode. It happened because I wasn’t active enough and was not consistent enough with my nutrition.
This is the 4th weight loss plateau I’ve been through since last June. Each time I’d start off thinking “oh, that’s just my body adjusting and holding me back” – but after reviewing what I’d written down each time I found that I was completely responsible for each plateau. Each time I plateaued, it was my own fault. I was being inconsistent with either my nutrition or my activity. Each time I realized that and acted in a more consistent manner, I broke through my perceived plateau. When I took complete responsibility for my actions, I got the result I wanted.
Inconsistent action gave me inconsistent results. Consistent action gave me consistent results. So simple, but so hard to really accept.
The concept of failure
I’ve been thinking a lot about this over the last few days and while I was out running today, all the pieces finally snapped together in my head.
Many times in my past I’ve felt like a failure at one thing or another. It starts out by failing at something specific I was trying to do and then I would take it personally. Instead of looking specifically at what I was trying to do, I focused instead on myself. Instead of failing at X, I was a failure.
Sounds like a pretty productive frame of mind huh?
When I started all this over a year ago, I changed the way I thought about failure. I realized that the whole concept of failure is only as negative as I let it be. If I fail at something and choose not to learn from it and take it personally, then it’s bad. If I look at what happened logically, learn from it and adapt then it was a good thing.
Now, whenever I feel myself slipping back to that old thought process, my inner dialogue kicks in automatically and tells me to stop, take a minute to think about what I should learn and then do that next time. There will always be a next time – I think the idea of a “once-in-a-lifetime” opportunity is bull shit.
Day 27/63 – August 16th, 2008 Workout – Running
Went for a 5k run this morning and it felt sweet. I’m changing up my program so that instead of trying to run as long as I can each time, I do two runs where I focus on improving my speed and technique and then one long run where I just go as far as I can make it.
I’m going to map out some routes along the lakeshore trail and go there for my long weekend runs. It’s such a nice area to run through – better than running through the residential area around my place.
Day 25/63 – August 14th, 2008 Workout – Running
The weather just did not want to co-operate with me tonight. I was looking forward to a nice long run, but as I was getting into my shorts, I heard the ominous sounds of thunder in the skies. Panicked, I ran downstairs and took a look outside. A little bit of drizzle, but nothing too bad.
One ziploc baggied iPod later and I was off. I made it about 3/4’s of a kilometre when it really started coming down hard. I was feeling the running vibe real strong at that point, so I decided to keep going. The rain felt really refreshing on my skin as I took each stride. I turned my iPod off and ran while listening to the sounds of the storm – just really taking it all in.
It was an amazing run. I cut it short after 2.5km as I didn’t want to risk my iPod getting water-logged. I loved it and I’ll do it again, but this time with the iPod left at home. I’ve already had one die a watery death :(
Day 23/63 – August 13th, 2008 Workout – Running
Went out for another late night run and got up to 6.1km this time – took 42 minutes including a quick stop at the house. I’m going to stick to this distance for a little while and work on getting my times down. When I get a bit under 40 minutes I’ll up it to 6.5km.
Legs feel pretty good and 10 minutes later my breathing feels pretty much back to normal. I tried twice before and failed to get into a running routine, but this time it’s going well. I really think I just needed to get under a certain weight before it wouldn’t be too hard on my legs.
Day 22/63 – August 11, 2008 Workout – Muay Thai
I’ve been in a somewhat pissy mood today since finding out it’s going to cost $500 to fix my car window that got smashed while I was in Ottawa. But after getting to Muay Thai class I feel a lot better and got my head straight. I’ve had a lot of good things happen in my life lately and it can’t always be up – there’s always balance.
The down parts are only as bad as you let them be and I let this bother me too much. I had a really great weekend with some great friends and that was worth the cost of getting the window fixed. Stuff is just that… stuff.. it can always be fixed or replaced, but experiences and memories are there forever.
I was supposed to post about my workout here – I think running has been helping my endurance a lot – today’s class didn’t seem as taxing as it usually does. We did a lot of focusing on the jab today with different drills that all started with the use of the jab. We then did a few rounds of sparring which is always fun. My reactions are getting a lot better and I’m starting to figure out my kicking ranges, especially with the teep.
Day 18/63 – August 7th, 2008 – Running
Scheduling and other real-life crap kept me from Muay Thai tonight and I was itching to do something, so for a change of pace, I went for a midnight run!
I actually quite liked it – the weather was cooler, the streets empty and there was a certain peacefulness about running in the dark that I enjoyed. I think I’ll do this more often. Also – I just plugged my route in Gmaps Pedometer and I officially ran 5km for the first time! I don’t even feel like I’m dying or anything ;)
I set a new goal for myself – I am going to run a half marathon in the 2009 Mississauga Marathon. It’s on May 9/10 2009, giving me 276 days to work up from 5km to 21km. I am going to do it!
Day 16/63 – August 5th, 2008 Workout – Heavy Bag
Work ran longer than I expected and I couldn’t make it into Konditioning class today, so I did some work on the heavy bag here instead.
I did a quick warm up of jumping jacks, crunches and knuckle pushups. Then I did six three minute rounds on the heavy bag with one minute of rest in between each round. Started off with just footwork and jabs and then jabs/crosses. For the rest of the rounds I used all weapons. I tried to work a lot on simulating defense while working with the bag. I figure that the more I work at it, the more natural it will be to quickly come back with an attack of my own after blocking/parrying/catching one of my opponents attacks.
After I was done with the bag, I did a couple of sets of clapping push ups – not fun after all that punching!
Mental Clarity Day – Follow-up
My mental clarity day went really well. I got everything on my list done except for taking the dog to the park, because we went for a run instead and he was completely exhausted.
It felt great to get all of that stuff out of the way – now I feel like I can concentrate with more focus on some new plans.
Day 15/63 – August 4th, 2008 Workout – Running
I went running today and I hit my 9 week challenge goal already! When I started a couple of weeks ago the most I ever ran was 2.2km. Today I went out and ran 4.7km and only stopped once!
I adjusted my running technique a bit and now I feel like I run forever. I could have kept going today even, but the dog got tired and pretty much refused to run any further. I actually out-ran the dog – which is amazing to me because he’s incredibly hyper.
I wonder if it’s all because of the technique change, or because I started thinking about it differently as well. In the past I thought about running as something I was just plain bad at. The last couple of times I went out, I felt really confident and had a really positive inner dialogue before going out running. I completely believed that I could run longer and I did.
If that’s not proof of the effectiveness of positive self-talk / attitude, then I’m not sure what is. It makes me think about what else I hold myself back from doing because of the way I think about it in my own mind.