Week 28 09/20/2007
Plateau Be Gone!
I did it!!!! My three-week plateau is HISTORY. This week, I lost THREE POUNDS*! I know I can’t expect this every week, and I am sure part of it was the water weight I was retaining, but I was so tired of looking at the same number…and today I get to see a new weight loss TOTAL: 34.2 lbs*.
WANNA KNOW HOW I DID IT? I adjusted my endurance training. I mentioned last week that a friend, who is also a personal trainer, was in town and took a look at what I had been doing, and here’s what he said:
“Valerie, the good news is that you don’t have to do as MANY intervals.”
“Great! So what’s the bad news…” I asked.
And then he told me that when I’m doing my reps, my cheeks should be red and that I should be sweating. But still be able to pass the “talk test” – breathing harder, but able to have a conversation. So basically, I needed to increase my intensity. You can do that two ways – add in short spurts, called intervals, or if you are building your endurance and in pretty good shape, you can just increase overall intensity. And change it up. At Jenny Craig they call this cross training – very effective at burning more calories, as muscles untrained in a new activity are less efficient and burn more calories. Does that make sense? Anyway, it worked! Since my endurance increased this week, I was able to increase my cardio (walking + treadmill) – my calorie burning efforts.
The proof is in the scale, guys. (And my thighs, which are getting stronger! They’re even starting to get “the line” now.) Oh, and you should see Tom!!! He had been in a plateau for a few weeks as well…but he lost weight as well.
So the message here is that every now and then we need a tweak in our program. I am just so glad that I had Kathy to walk me through it (I must have called her EVERY day during that plateau) And my friend who helped me by suggesting changes in my workout!
Hey, you try losing weight in front of the entire country!
*Results not typical
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