Losing weight after bariatric surgery is so fulfilling for most patients. You feel better; your mood and energy soar; and people barely recognize your slimmer look. That is until you hit a weight loss plateau. It seems like nothing you do will make the scales budge — even if you are eating and exercising the same. How do you break this diet plateau when weight loss stops?
7 Kick-Start Strategies to Break a Diet Plateau
- Be more active. It’s hard to be active if you work fullt ime, but there are ways. Take the stairs. Take a stretching break every hour, and use your lunch hour as time to get outdoors and have a picnic in a nearby park. The more you move, the more you lose.
- Check your food and activity journal. Look for incidences of overeating or under exercising. Sometimes when you get lax on your weight loss rules, the result is a diet plateau.
- Eat more protein. If you’ve been adding more carbs and less protein to your daily diet, it’s time to make a change. Protein is key in any weight loss diet. Select quality protein such as lean meat, chicken without skin, seafood and tofu.
- Get more sleep. Studies find that people who sleep less than 6.5 hours a night may tend to gain weight. During deep sleep, the brain secretes a large amount of growth hormone to break down the fat that results when you take in extra calories. Also, poor sleep lowers the level of leptin (the hormone that tells you “I’m full”) and increases the production of ghrelin (the “eat more” hormone).
- Manage your stress. Cortisol is the stress hormone that can increase your appetite and cause belly fat. Cortisol helps your body break down muscles for energy and store excess calories in fat. If you have stress for days or weeks (chronic stress), your body begins to break down muscle and other tissues -- but not fat -- to keep it going. Cortisol also increases the craving for carbohydrates (bread, sweets, pasta, bagels and cereal).
- Rev up your workout. Change the way you exercise. You can add another 10 minutes to your daily regimen or use high-intensity interval training. With high-intensity interval training, you work out at a high intensity for 30 seconds and then slow down for a few minutes. Repeat this peak intensity burst throughout your regimen.
- Work out with weights. With proper instruction, add weight training to your regular exercise regimen. You can use machines or free weights. Over time, weight training will strengthen your muscles, which can help burn more calories.
Do Not Quit During a Weight Loss Plateau
Do not get discouraged if the scale doesn’t move for a few days or weeks. Weight loss plateaus happen to most people at some point after losing significant weight with bariatric surgery. With substantial weight loss, you lose both fat and muscle. Fat can leave. But muscle is necessary to rev up your metabolism and burn calories. Even if you are eating the same foods, you now have a declining metabolism, causing you to burn fewer calories.
Sources
National Institutes of Health: Weight loss leads to a strong increase in appetite.
EatRight.Org. Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics. 4 Ways to Shed the Weight for Good.
Nursing Times. Adult obesity 2: treatment and management options for weight loss and maintenance.
Springer: Weight Regain After Bariatric Surgery.