3 Reasons For A Weight Loss Slow Down
It’s a fact that anyone who chooses the safe and healthy route to shed unwanted pounds will experience a weight loss slow down after a couple of weeks or so.
While the situation is frustrating, the good news is that there are perfectly logical reasons why a weight loss slow down happens after the first two weeks of exercising and/or dieting. This may be worrying but solutions to this predicament are very simple and easy to implement.
Let’s look at the 3 most common causes of a weight loss slow down as well as solutions on how to kick-start your fat burning potential.
3 Reasons For A Weight Loss Slow Down
1. Muscle Gain
One very simple reason why weight loss normally slows down after a while is due to an increase in muscle percentage within the body. This is especially relevant if you’re taking on weightlifting and strength training workouts as part of your weight loss plan. If you’re new to muscle building exercises, you’ll experience a significant increase in muscle mass over the first 3 to 6 weeks of training. This however doesn’t mean that you’ve stopped losing fat. If anything, you’re actually losing fat and gaining muscle at the same time. But, since muscles are more dense than fat, you’ll appear heavier on the weight scale.
A simple way of knowing if your weight loss slow down is because of muscle gain is to measure your waist. If your waist is growing smaller and your physique appears slimmer, you’re definitely losing weight regardless of what the scale shows. Enjoy this stage of your weight loss. Your body will eventually stop building muscles and start to burn fat at a fast rate.
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2. Fluid Retention
Another reason why most people stop enjoying fast weight loss results after a couple of weeks is fluid retention. Also known as water retention, fluid retention can be triggered by a number of reasons ranging from hormonal fluctuations, to poor eating habits, to an increase in muscle mass. Regardless of the cause, water retention significantly affects weight. You can stand to gain as much as 1 to 2 pounds daily. So, while your weight loss plan continues to yield significant results, the additional pounds gained from fluid retention will cause the scale reading to show that you have only lost a little amount of fat or even gained weight.
Luckily, water retention can be fixed rather easily. Simply drink enough water daily, increase magnesium, potassium and protein intake, eat less salt, and avoid stress. These practices will stabilize your fluid levels thus causing the excess weight from water retention to melt away.
3. Weight Loss Plateau
This is probably the most frustrating cause of a weight loss slow down. Not only do you have no control over it, this is also likely to happen if you’re just starting out on your weight loss journey. You can see pounds fly off fast at the beginning only for everything to come to a sudden halt, sending you into a weight loss plateau. The main cause of a weight loss plateau is a slower metabolism rate. This is the body’s own natural way of resisting change and trying to hold on to its current physical state. Getting sloppy with your weight loss plan by sneaking in high calorie foods, skipping workouts, or having too many cheat days can also lead to a weight loss plateau.
The best way to bust through a weight loss plateau and get back to losing significant amounts of fat weekly is to start burning far more energy than you consume. For this, you’ll need to review your whole weight loss plan. A good place to start would be exercising more or trying a different type of workout that targets rarely used muscles. Additionally, you can also cut down on your calorie intake to further widen the gap between energy in and energy out.
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