Just this week, I had a client come to me a little frustrated about the lack of results he was getting.

He had a lot of success in the first two months of his training program, but the body changes had slowed to a crawl. He is about 180 pounds and has a body fat of about 15 percent; he is a solid, strong and very driven individual. So, I knew with a couple of little tweaks, he would be back burning body fat at a high rate and reach his goals.



I knew he was exercising intensely and properly to lose the last few pounds because I was monitoring his program; but after a few minutes of talking and reviewing his three-day food diary, it was easy to see what the problem was, and frankly, I was astonished. He wasn't even eating enough to sustain a 100-pound girl, never mind himself, a 180-pound heavily muscled man.

Some of his eating days hovered around 1,000 calories, which is way too low for him - even if he was doing no exercise.

He was working out six days a week - with high intensity weights, boot camp and interval cardio sessions. He was killing himself in his workouts, but his body was shutting down; therefore, he was not able to reap all the rewards of his workouts. His body was in the dreaded "starvation mode."



We'll get back to calories in a second, but first let's be clear on what a plateau is and why it happens.



A plateau is the body's way to adapt to a new stress. When you are trying to lose weight, the stress comes from the added exercise and reducing your daily calorie allotment. This forces the body to burn stored body fat.

However, the body is very effective at adapting to new stresses and figures out (very quickly sometimes) how to live on the reduced calories and extra exercise. The body will fight to stay in a state of balance and when it is successful, fat loss stops.



One of the biggest reasons people plateau (and it was definitely my client's problem) is from lowering calories too far.

Remember, it takes calories to burn calories. Most clients have a hard time fathoming this philosophy, but starving yourself actually makes long-term fat loss more difficult. Be sure to keep your daily caloric deficit at no more than 500 to 700 calories to make sure this doesn't happen to you.

A good rule of thumb is to never drop your daily calorie allotment below 10 calories per pound of body weight. If you need a larger calorie deficit, it should come from exercise, not cutting out food.

Cutting your calories to dangerously low levels will lower your testosterone levels, raise your cortisol levels and eat your muscle as a primary energy source. All three of these things would be the exact opposite of what you would want to get your body into a fat burning mode.



Another reason people plateau, is that the body adapts to your exercise program.

Keep your body guessing - you need to mix up your exercise plan once in while by adjusting the intensity, frequency or mode.

If you have been doing traditional gym workouts, maybe you switch to high intensity 30-minute workouts. If you have hit a plateau using the treadmill, switch to the eliptical or try a spin class. Start working out on a stability ball to get your nervous system working. Just switch it up and you'll blast through that plateau.



Also, when you are in great physical condition, you are ultra-efficient at burning calories. Focus on changing the intensity and mode of your exercise. Even better, take a week off and "reset" your metabolism. Start back with a little less intensity and a different mode of exercise and build back up. It is great for your body to do these cycles every 10 weeks or so and it can be exactly what you need to break through your next plateau. By making these systematic changes to your workout program, you may avoid plateaus altogether.

If you are in a exercise rut, try using one or more of the above suggestions to get things back on track.

Diverge Personal Training Gym opened in 2008, yet it has had its roots within the Hillcrest neighborhood for over 10 years. As co-owners, Brian White and Derek Heintz have been helping the community with their fitness goals since 1998. They take great pride in the fact that they have created a fun and distinct training facility that fuses both traditional and modern styles of training, and have also put together an excellent training team of top notch trainers with many years of experience.