Taken a break? Get right back to your regimen

One of my clients, who had been doing quite well for the first four weeks of the program, had hit a plateau. (Remember I'd posted about plateaus a couple of weeks ago?)

She'd lost five pounds...then spent another week working out and eating smaller portions - no weight loss.

After 7 days of stepping on the scale - I always tell people to step on a scale once a week but every single one of them finds it necessary to do it every day! - and seeing no weight loss, she got depressed and "gave up."

She skipped 3 weight training sessions - Mon, Wed and Fri, and didn't do her daily biking, either.

Fortunately, she did not pig out over the course of this week, but she did eat more last thing at night then she should. Not ice cream, thank goodness, but apparently she's got a thing for hot buttered toast.

After a week of not stepping on the scale - (she eats too much and doesn't work out, and now she won't step on the scale every day?) she stepped on the scale and found to her surprise that she had not gained any weight.

This discovery has re-motivated her, and today she rededicated herself to her regimen, doing her weight training (and apparently able to do same weight and repetitions that she'd been able to do prior to her "break") and went out for a bike ride.

And she has promised me the late night hot buttered toast is a thing of the past. At least until she gets into her maintenance phase.

Remember, the more muscular you are, the more calories you burn "at rest." (Which doesn't mean that you can stop exercising and eat all you want. If you don't work out, muscles weaken and the less muscle you have, the less calories you burn.

[Note also that you are not working with heavy weights, because you are not trying to hyper-build your muscles like a weight lifter does. You are working with low weights - a 20 pound barbell, perhaps, 10 pound dumbbells at the most. Only on your leg exercises do you want to use 50 pounds or so - because your legs are so much stronger than your arms.  Remember you are toning your muscles, not building them to a gigantic size!

(Not that, as a woman, you can get your muscles to a gigantic size without drinking things like whey shakes and taking various supplements and working out 3 hours a day instead of 20 minutes!)

So, if you've skipped your weight training for a week...or if you have been eating too much ice cream recently or what have you...do not despair. Simply re-dedicate yourself to your goal, start now, and carry on from here.