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Eat Well-Be Well: Weight Loss Hitting a Plateau? Posted September 3, 2009 09:30 AM By Tony Polito, Guest Columnist Are you heading towards a sticky plateau? Are you looking at the scale and seeing it look back as if to say, “Hey what are you looking at?” Often times plateaus are looked upon as a negative stigma in that they interfere with future performances. Plateaus are a nice way of saying, “I’m lazy again…” or “I’m not reaching my goals!” or perhaps not even setting goals, reaching milestones or creating a better history and that might be true. Some folks are faced with uncontrollable events that have a drastic affect on your ability to stay focused. That can manifest and create a web of negativity. Feeling low or hitting a plateau can make you question your will, your capacity to overcome defeat, your motivations. It tests your emotions and even questions your internal thoughts. That little voice inside of you starts saying, “Am I really doing the right thing?” Plateauing is something everyone faces. Leveling off or plateauing on a diet can approach you very quickly. In many ways it’s like a mini tsunami, it creeps up on you and before you know it you’re underwater. Weeks can go by and you’re still treading. Keep a few things in mind when things don’t go your way or you feel flooded. 1) Go back to basics. Visualization is very powerful. As a child, my Mother battled with weight and had a fist fight with the typical yoyo diet. As she was treading water, I would picture her losing weight and in fact I went as far as drawing pencil figures of her on paper of what she would look like in 5 years. The power of thought and imagination can conquer a valley of defeats, and can dampen negativity. We generate the thoughts we think we deserve. 2) Attitude – need I say more? It’s so obvious. You know when someone is moody. Have you ever called a love one and you can feel their drooping attitude as soon as they pick up the phone? It’s as if all of their problems are on their shoulders, but you don’t need to solve them all at once. It’s like driving in the dark on a bike, if I had a small flash light all I need to see are the first 10 feet in front of me and I can cycle from Waltham MA to Cap Cod. I might be faced with speed bumps but I’ll deal with them when as I hit them. Depression/discouragement comes when you think of all the speed bumps at once and that my friends can be a real cancer. 3) Remember Jack Nicholson’s famous line from “A Few Good Men” “You can’t handle the truth”, well the fact is many of us can’t. We often justify our failures and provide stories and excuses as to why we fail or why someone hurt us. That leads to why you couldn’t commit to plan A, B or C. Own your problem! Just remember we act the way we do because we get something back from it. Most drugs just mask the real problem and eventually you’re going to need to face the truth and deal with it. Think of it this way, have you ever had knots in your hair? If so, what do you do to get them out? You pull, tug, and scream for hours and maybe you managed to get a few ripped out of your head. It takes times to untie the problem that was created years ago. It takes more time to untie than to tie. The knots are so deep that you might need to chop the knots out and allow the hair to grow like a new garden. You may need to cut your losses. Let it go and with the right mindset they soon will grow back stronger and with a story, I promise you. 4) Another challenge that many folks are faced with is simply eating too much food. Weighing your food is important but I don’t tell any of my clients to do that. Everyone is blessed with a healthy hand. Your hand is all you need. Everything you fed yourself should fit in your hand. A handful of sunflower seeds, spinach, pasta. If you’re eating dead flesh then measure fish the size of your palm and combine that with eating slowly as I mentioned in my previous article. Log on to my website www.cookingwithtony.com read over my blog you can read all the articles that I’ve written. 5) Don’t ever forget you can have problems if you stay with the same old routine. Muscles can and will get used to what you’re doing. Change it up. Most runners/walkers train with 3 things in mind or a least should; speed, endurance and strength. Working on these three thing in the same workout is as smart as giving your 16 year old the keys to your brand new luxury car. Also… separate and give yourself enough time to recover, rest, get lots of good sleep and change up your workouts. If you walk 4 miles try to run 0.5 miles or run and walk at every other mailbox. Try to do more endurance work, i.e., working harder for fewer minutes, recover and do it again. Swim, if you have access to a pool. I urge you to take full advantage of any of your friends who have a pool. Find a person who you can check in with just to say, “Hello, I’m going to the gym.” If you’re responsible, you’ll be accountable. 6) Sign up for a class, adult continuing education, yoga, Pilates, dance, etiquette or go ahead and take a class in art history. Get involved with a non-profit organization like the Leukemia Lymphoma Organization, Special Olympics, Habitat for Humanity, any charity with a fundraising road/bike race or will get you moving and give you a chance to help others. Just get involved! You’ll inspire someone and you’ll feel great about helping others and it will help you get fit. 7) Avoid taking the victim role. Give that job to someone else. What you think… you become. Avoid those folks or persons that don’t add to your pot of sauce. If you feel sorry for yourself, that’s ok, but don’t stay there for long, refuse that role. Remember even a warm shower on a cold winter day is nice but sooner or later you start looking like a prune. You’re unable to stay in any position for any length of time or we’d all look like prunes. 8) Lastly, set a date, and circle it on the calendar. That day may come and go my friends but sooner or later it’s going to stick. Then set another date and commit to that date. It’ll get easier. Over time it gets you thinking. You’re in control of that date and before you know it you start thinking more and more and the commitment becomes larger and larger.
In closing, don’t let plateaus take control of your efforts. You control the plateau. Visualize, take care of yourself, and don’t use the plateau as an excuse to fail. You can do it if you stay on track!Grilled Alaskan Salmon with Summers Greens:
SERVES 2
1) 1 Plastic Bag
2) 12’ by 6” Parchment Paper
3) 4 oz Alaskan Salmon
4) 6 Cherry Tomatoes (cut in half)
5) Cilantro
6) ¼ C. Peas
7) ¼ C. Corn
8) 1 Red Bell Pepper (Slice in match sticks)
9) 4 Stalks Asparagus
10) s/p & 1 TBSP Olive Oil
11) Other Seasonings of your choice
In your plastic bag combine 2 – 7 and massage well. Remove and rest on paper and fold it up like any boxed lunch sandwich place on direct heat. Cook fish until desired texture (recommend 145 F) in the same plastic bag combine pepper and asparagus massage well and place on the in direct heat until tender.
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