You’re on your way to athletic success – you religiously perform cardio and weight training routines, you cut fatty processed foods from your diet, and you begin to see tangible results, when – for seemingly no reason – you’re progress plateaus. You try to “work through it” by exercising harder and eating less only to see no improvement.
Having suffered several of my own fitness plateaus, I know the sheer frustration of exercising and dieting as hard as you can with no results. But before you to throw in the sweaty towel and gorge on crème brulee and cannoli, I urge you to take a deep breath and calmly examine if there are any nutritional obstacles between you and your athletic goals.
For example, many women try too hard by eating too little. I know . . . I know . . . all of our lives we’ve had the mantra drummed into our heads: the less we eat, the thinner, sexier, and fitter we’ll be. Such refrains make fitness experts crazy. Natalie Brainerd, a personal trainer in Portland, OR, remembers how one of her clients spent a month eating very little and exercising a lot only to gain 7 lbs. of fat and no muscle.
Remember, our bodies think we still live in caves, and are just one failed mammoth hunt away from starvation. By eating too few calories, our bodies scream “Red Alert –Impending Famine” then cling to our fat like a life raft and discard our muscles like yesterday’s garbage. Eating six or seven small meals a day stimulates our metabolism, burns more calories, and reassures our bodies that food is not scarce.
Eating the right foods before and after workouts can end most any fitness rut. I used to begin my morning workouts on an empty stomach only to crash 10 minutes later. I chalked it up to me “not being a morning person,” but what really happens during our empty-tummied energy bonks is this:
Much of the energy we need for exercise comes from a complex carbohydrate that is the stored in our muscles and liver as glucose. Even when we sleep, our bodies continue to burn this fuel so that when we awake next morning – having gone 6 + hours without food – our livers have burned about 80 percent of its stored glucose reserves. As we begin our workouts on empty stomachs, we quickly burn the remaining stores causing our arms and legs to turn to jelly as we fall off the treadmill. Now that I eat a light breakfast of protein and carbs an hour before my morning workout, I’ve become a born-again morning person.
Skipping the post-workout meal can result in a loss of muscle that in turn can actually slow metabolism. When we exercise at a moderate to high intensity, we actually deplete fuel or glucose from our muscles and liver. Yet, our brains must have a steady supply of glucose to function properly. If we don’t replenish these stores after our work out, our bodies will break down muscle tissue into amino acids, and then convert them into a usable fuel for the brain. Skipping the post-workout meal can result in a loss of muscle that in turn can actually slow metabolism.
After completing weight-training sessions, we should eat foods rich in protein complex carbs. Resistance training performed at moderate to high intensities breaks down muscle tissues, creating "micro tears." Proteins build and repair these tears enabling the muscles to become stronger and denser. Carbs, on the other hand, create insulin spikes which help move nutrients to the muscles faster and more efficiently.
My most recent nutritional blunder involved too much wine and whining: I spent evenings sipping Chardonnay while lamenting my inability to lose fat. Then my trainer informed me that even small amounts of alcohol prevent the body from burning fat. In fact, American Journal of Clinical Nutrition reported that drinking just two vodka martinis in a one-hour time period can reduce the body’s fat metabolism by as much as 73%.
Most of the alcohol in the body is broken down in the liver by an enzyme called alcohol dehydrogenase (ADH), which transforms ethanol into compound called acetate. When acetate is released into your blood stream, it replaces fat as your body’s main source for fuel putting the brakes on any fat burning you body may have begun. Soon after I cut wine from my diet, my body fat began to slowly decrease.
Finally, if nothing – at least nutritionally – seems to end your plateau, then you may want to reevaluate your fitness goals. Are they athletic objectives like running a marathon or winning a bike race? Or are they aesthetic ones like fitting into a size 4 jeans or having a 25-inch waist? If a small size is so important, then I suggest you look at body size with a new perspective. See how you can boost your workout with
Women's Weight Training.
Feminist Abra Chernik wrote a moving essay “The Body Politic” describing her long struggle with anorexia nervosa. Instead of being strong and fit, she grew weak and powerless. Chernik explained, “Gazing in the mirror at my emaciated body, I observed a woman held up by her culture as the physical ideal because she was starving, self-obsessed and powerless, a woman called beautiful because she threatened no one but herself.”
Food is not our enemy . . . healthy foods are the one-stop way to reach our long and short-term fitness objectives – no matter what our body sizes may be.
Get more advice on getting past a fitness plateau at
Women Fitness.
