Have you been very strict with your dieting and finding yourself on a plateau?

I remember when I would diet (in the traditional sense of restricting calories to less then what I expended), there would come a point where I would get stuck … so I would eat even less and guess what? I still wouldnt’ be able to get through it.

Then one day I go so frustrated that for 2 days straight I just gorged on comfort foods. Ok, foods like pizza and hamburgers. Now, the neat thing about it however, is that after a few days I jumped on the scale and to my surprise! I lost weight!!! My pants were smaller and I felt good.

The bad thing is, this made me think I could get away with eating more so I kept eating and well the weight came back and at times I gained a little.

Now, the neat thing about this, is that when I used to be a fitness trainer, I would notice similar patterns with clients.

This didn’t make much sense to me until I read one of Dr. Fred Hatfield’s (AKA Dr. Squat) articles that explained, in the most simplistic ways I can describe at the moment, when you restrict calories at one point the body becomes adaptable to the calories you’re taking in and lowers it’s metabolism to that set point to safeguard you against famine. But at this point, if you take in a sizeable amount of more calories then you expend, it can trigger the metabolism to burn more calories thinking it is no longer in starvation mode, and actually raise your metabolism higher then when you first started the diet.

The trick is, at least what I’ve noticed with myself and clients, is to only raise the caloric food intake for a short time, and then go back to dieting. When done in this controlled manner, losing weight and reaching a particular goal become much easier knowing that I could “cheat” every couple of weeks or so for a couple of days.

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