Get on the ball and break through your plateau

You’ve laid off the starches and piled on the veggies. You’ve spurned dinners out with friends so you don’t miss your 6:00 am hard-core bootcamp class. You can’t remember the last time you had a drink. You were doing great, but now? The scale doesn’t move. Here’s how to bust out of a plateau.

Check your portion sizes. If you’ve been eyeballing your serving sizes lately, it’s likely that you’ve been putting a little more food on the plate than you realize. Be honest with yourself and go back to measuring cups and scales to make sure you’re getting the right amounts. I’m also a fan of the portion plate, a no-brainer way to keep your diet balanced and portion-appropriate.

Add 100 calories per day. You’d be amazed how many times it’s not eating too much but eating too little! If you really are watching portion sizes then try adding 100 calories to your daily intake and see if that moves the scale.

Switch to interval cardio. If you’ve been doing the same ol’, same ol’ cardio routine, mix it up to add intense bursts of all-out effort to boost your metabolism and shake up your fat cells a little bit. If you typically do a 30-minute cardio routine try adding four or five 2-minute bursts to your workout to goose your calorie burn and get the numbers ticking down again.

Don’t slack on weight training. You need both cardio and weight training to have an effective overall weight loss plan. Make sure you’re doing a full body weight training workout at least twice a week. The routine should have a bare minimum of eight to ten exercises but a well-rounded routine will be in the neighborhood of 15 to 20.

Adjust your calorie intake. Because there is more than one way to bust through your plateau, you may need to adjust your daily meals. As you lose weight, your body needs less calories to keep all systems running. You can figure out your calorie intake here. If you’ve lost significant weight then you’re going to need to drop your calorie levels to keep the weight coming off. It is, I think, one of the most unfair things about being successful with weight loss.

Overdoing exercise, burnout happens. You want to lose the weight so badly you get in the mindset of more, more, more and then your body decides to mutiny on you. It happens. If you’ve been doing hard workout after hard workout ease up. Either add an extra rest day per week (watch the calories on that day) or switch to a mind/body workout like yoga or Pilates. Let your body rest and repair itself so it can stay healthy and find it’s new happy weight.

Read the list honestly and think about which idea is the best one for you to start with. You probably already know if you’ve been sneaking extra food or working out too hard. Try one or two things first to see if that gets the scale moving again. If not, tweak your program again and try another idea.

Let me know how you do. :-)

L–

I have found a new, fun and totally cool exercise and I love, love, LOVE it.  Hooping!

Yes, the basic premise still holds just like when you were a kid: taking a hula hoop, holding it at your hips, and whizzing it around your waist.  But there is so much more.  You can hoop anywhere on your body from your neck to your feet, plus there are all kinds of tricks you can do with your arms that will make you look cool while you’re exercising.

Yesterday, while I was in the park practicing my fledgling moves, women kept watching me go through my different routines. There were a lot of smiles and a lot of people who were pausing to see what I could do.  One woman borrowed her daughter’s hoop and started doing it on her own. I walked over, let her borrow my “adult-size” hoop, gave her a tip, and within two minutes she was cruising along on some basic moves.

So here are some facts, courtesy of the new book, Hooping, A revolutionary Fitness Program by Christabel Zamor.

• Egyptian children in 1000 BC played with large hoops of dried grapevines and stiff grasses. They would propel the hoops with a stick and also swing it around their waists.

• In the late 1800s, British sailors visited the Hawaiian islands and noticed parallels between the hip motions of native hula dances and the popular activity back home, then called Hoops.  Hence was born Hula Hoops.

• In 1958, Wham-O manufactured its first hula hoop.  25 million hoops were sold that first year and over 100 million the next.

• The current Hoop craze, which has been building over this past decade, features a wide variety of moves, both on the body (hoop travels along the torso) and off the body (hoop spins on arms or legs or is held in the hands).  Dancers have found the hoop makes a good prop and the fluid movement and bright colors catch the eye during a performance. Several hoop troops have cropped up including The HoopGirl Allstars in San Francisco, and the Boston Hoop Troop in Massachusetts.

Here’s the kicker: Hooping is great for your arms, your abs, and your bum. AND it’s cardio as well!  Depending on the intensity of your hooping, you’ll burn as much as 10 calories per minute, equivalent to a fast walk or a steady jog.

You will need an adult sized hoop.  The one I have is made with irrigation hose and has tape wound around it in pretty colors.  You can buy them online in the $30 to $40 range.  Specialty hoops that have LEDs, glow in the dark, or break down so you can tuck them in a bag cost more.

For me, I find my new workout is great cardio and has really defined my arms and abs in a new way.  My first love is Pilates and I will always do that for resistance training, but I’m cutting back on running and adding hoop work into the mix. Plus, I’m having a lot more fun!

• Hoopnotica
• HoopGirl
• Hooping.org

Picture credit to Hoopnotica.com.  Thanks …

A great hooping video ~ That Old Pair of Jeans ~ Fat Boy Slim

According to the American College of Sports Medicine (ACSM), you should perform moderately intense activity 5 days per week for 30 minutes OR intense activity 3 days per week for 20 minutes.

Here’s some examples of moderate to intense activity.

Walking briskly
Gardening with a shovel
Cycling 8 to 11 mph
Roller or Ice skating
Doubles tennis

Here are some examples of intense activity

Jogging
Rowing
Vigorous basketball
Raquetball
Spinning or vigorous cycling

Another way to look at it from the CDC (Centers for Disease Control): if you have a heart rate monitor or use cardio equipment at the gym, moderate activity is between 3.5 and 7.0 calories per minute and intense activity is higher than 7.0 calories per minute. (This is a general guideline based on the average sedentary US adult, if you’re very heavy, or have a health issue, the guidelines could be different for you, check with your doctor!)

The Rules.

1. You must do a minimum of 10 minutes at a time for it to count to your daily total. A two-minute dash to catch the bus doesn’t count.
2. You must break a sweat before you start counting the 10 minutes. The first bead of sweat on your brow is when you should check your watch and begin tracking.
3. Cool down period doesn’t count either. Stretching and slowing down your intensity at the end of your workout is great but it’s not cardio.

So here’s how to structure a brisk walk.

0 to 5 minutes. Start moving slowly to loosen up the joints and then start picking up speed. Somewhere in the first five minutes you should break a sweat. When you do check your watch.

5 to 15/35 minutes. Now you’re in the “cardio zone” keep going for a reasonable time period for you. If it’s 10 minutes and you feel like you’re cooked, fine, just slow down and head home. If you’re more fit or you have more time keep going as long as the 35-minute mark.

The last five minutes. You should be heading back home and walking leisurely. Your heart rate will start to drop off and you’ll feel relaxed.

Some Caveats

1. If you’re very out of shape or have a medical issue such as arthritis, 10 minutes might be too much. Just go as far as you can on the first workout and then add one minute to your time each time you exercise again. Keep adding minutes until you reach 30 minutes per day.

2. The ACSM is a big proponent of 10-minute exercise bouts. As you can see above, that’s really more like a 20-minute commitment if you include warm up and cool down. Try sneaking in 10 minutes by

a. hopping on the exercise bike first thing in the a.m. for a fast 15 minutes, quick stretch, then cool down in the shower.

b. walk the dog briskly in the neighborhood. A 20 minute walk should be enough for the dog to do his business and for you both to get your heart rate up for at least 10 minutes.

c. walk to get your lunch. Remember you have to break a sweat so don’t wear that great silk blouse. You need to walk about 15 minutes away to get your lunch and then 15 minutes back. That’ll count for 20 minutes. Quick stretch and then back to your desk and your lunch!

3. This is only considered the minimum requirements to “maintain health and reduce the risk for chronic disease.” The ACSM adds, “it should be noted that to lose weight or maintain weight loss, 60 to 90 minutes of physical activity most days of the week may be necessary.”

I hope this clarified what can be some confusing guidelines. I’d love any feedback you have. Tomorrow we’ll talk about strength training guidelines.

Lisa