Fit2Fat2Fit (18 page)

By stepping back and seeing the big picture, you can make the necessary adjustment to exit the plateau. The next step is to recognize that it's time to move into a larger space, as it were—more calories of healthy foods and a higher level of physical activity. With that adjustment, suddenly the plateau disappears, and the weight again starts to drop off.

First as a personal trainer, and then more intimately as I became overweight, I have been surprised that we treat our own health as if we need only a high school diploma to survive. We learn the basics, perfect the basics, and continue to do the basics … over and over and over. We never advance. We never push ourselves.

When we're overweight, even the idea of physical activity is scary, exhausting, and painful. Just walking into the gym can be tiring, and getting onto a treadmill and walking for a few minutes is enough to send even the strongest-willed person home, defeated.

Yet every time we get on the wagon (or treadmill), we get stronger. Our bodies start to learn how to operate better. The weight begins to come off. For the first time, we start to feel what “healthy” means.

So we take baby steps forward. Instead of simply strolling on the treadmill, we walk briskly. We increase the weights we're using. We add additional resistance to the elliptical machine. Before we know it, we've lost almost unfathomable amounts of weight, and we feel great. As we approach our overall goals, we can power through any workout routine that we're faced with.

At the gym, we start to identify with those others who are there day in and day out, as opposed to the new member struggling in the corner. We actually enjoy our workouts and are more and more impressed with the fact that we can run a 5K without collapsing, or that we get through an exercise class with the best form of the bunch.

And then we plateau. The weight loss stops. The inches remain. We're so close to our end goals, and yet so far from where we want to be. We agonize over this, but we don't truly change anything where it matters most—in our workouts.

Once we reach an acceptable level of performance, we revel in the high output and increased energy. We don't feel sore anymore, and we attribute that to better health as opposed to not working hard enough. We convince ourselves that a healthy person wouldn't be exhausted or sore through a workout. The lack of pain is our reward for all the earlier horrific workouts that made every small movement the next day feel like agony.

Yet the only way to overcome the plateau and achieve long-lasting results is to continue to add to our workouts, change our routines, and challenge ourselves. Our bodies are wondrous in that they tell us when we're pushing to a new level: we become exhausted and we feel sore. There's a tension that's palpable when we're taking things farther than ever before.

Considering how far we've come in our quest to take control of our own health and fitness, the plateau of the “final 15” seems almost cruel. We've worked so hard—and still are working—not just in getting ourselves off the couch, but in changing what we eat and in making sure that we have the necessary support in our lives to achieve our goals.

When we do plateau, we look to our fitness, nutrition, and support coaches and ask, “Now what?” For countless weeks and months, we've eaten the same things and worked through the same routines, and every time we stepped on the scale the results were positive. But when those last pesky pounds won't fade away, though the days turn into weeks and the weeks turn into months, we become frustrated. We want to slack off—or, worse, quit. Because we've been attributing our overall success or failure to reaching a certain number (that old pesky focus on the destination), we feel like we'll never achieve the goals we originally set.

You
will
plateau if you don't recognize when you need to make a change. My advice: if a workout is routine and you can do it without breaking a sweat and without much thought, time to mix it up. Swim instead of run. Jump rope instead of use the StairMaster. Regardless of your exercise of choice, you have to be open to new, challenging workouts.

There's a key to breaking through a plateau, and the lesson can be learned from a characteristic of something found all around us—water. Water is a funny substance that changes its properties on a single degree of temperature. Keep water at 33 degrees, and it becomes very cold. Heat water to 211 degrees and it becomes very hot. But in either case, it remains essentially the same.

However, take water down one more degree—from 33 to 32 degrees—and it changes: it turns to ice. Take water up one degree—from 211 to 212—and it boils. When we reach a plateau in our own health and fitness, we're very good at getting to 33 or 211 degrees. We're very bad at taking it that one extra degree that makes the difference.

The health and fitness degree comes in many forms. Sometimes we need to change our workouts and challenge ourselves just that little bit more. Other times, we need to have the courage to increase the food we eat to ensure that our bodies have enough fuel to operate. Still other times, that one degree means we have to trust ourselves enough to know that while we're fallible human beings, the more our actual lifestyle changes, the less we have to find excuses to cheat when it comes to nutrition and fitness.

The key is to identify when that extra degree is necessary. For me, it was when I had lost 60 pounds, yet my progress had slowed for two weeks. I needed an extra degree. I needed to push myself beyond what I had been doing. Only then could I change.

I realized that I needed all of the elements mentioned above. I had to stop number crunching, mix up my workouts, and yes, eat more food. It took me a little while to realize what I needed, but once I did, I knew I would achieve my original goals. But more important than meeting my goals, I ended up with a perspective on weight loss and fitness that would improve my life in many ways beyond the physical.

When we plateau, our bodies are telling us that we're not doing enough to maintain our new lifestyle. It's like we're water at 211 degrees—pretty darn hot, but not quite boiling. We have to take the next leap of faith.

Only then will the true, systemic change that we desire (and that set us on our journey in the first place) be realized. Only then will we know what it means to find true health and fitness, this time for good.

There are a few things in life that can bond strangers together. When I was growing up, the most obvious one for me was sports. If you find a like-minded person who happens to share the same affinity for your team of choice, you become instant best friends, mocking the rest of the world for their poor choices.

Even if you meet someone who roots for your rival, you're suddenly bonded by the love of the game, and conversation flows about your given sport, the rivalry, and what's going to happen next.

Books can have the same effect. Lynn is an avid reader, and nothing seems to generate conversation like a shared novel. Indeed, groups of individuals organize book clubs for the opportunity to come together and speak about that shared interest (whether they agree or disagree on the quality of the writing).

There's a third fellowship that people join and immediately are welcomed into: parenthood. Nothing bonds people together like the chance to share war stories, provide advice, or seek guidance. Once you're a parent, you have an endless parade of fellow parents who can feel your pain and help you attempt to avoid the pitfalls they experienced.

While I used to think fondly of my daughters growing up and becoming independent, I now stare at the future of the teen years with angst and trepidation. My daughters have become ticking time bombs, inching closer to the inevitable tween and teen years.

As if I weren't already anxious enough about that upcoming transition, one fellow member of the parenthood club, Sarah, scared me to death. She is a parent, but it was a story of dealing with her parents that brought on a sobering reality.

Because we were all teenagers once, we know the tricks and arguments we used to torture our parents, so we try to protect our own children from themselves. Case in point, Sarah. She had two parents who approached her teenage years with an iron fist. Knowing what a teenager could pull, they tightened their grip on everything. They enforced significantly earlier curfews than other parents, made sure that their child came home every day to do homework, and made stalker-like efforts to find out what she was doing when the family was not together.

As is often the case with iron-fisted approaches, those efforts encouraged the opposite of what her parents had intended. The tighter they tried to manage her life, the more Sarah worked for her independence. To get around the curfew, she would sneak out the bedroom window. To keep her parents off the “scent,” she had friends make up alibis. And as more restrictions were placed on her socializing, Sarah started choosing friends she knew would be exactly the opposite of her parents' wishes.

When I asked Sarah why things unfolded this way, she went right back to the iron fist. With that much control and restriction imposed on her, it felt natural to rebel and fight for her freedom. An adrenaline rush came with maneuvering around the restrictions and regulations. She felt justified breaking the rules.

Typical diet and fitness regimens thrive on similar restrictions. A specific diet can turn a piece of bread into “forbidden fruit,” and fitness programs tend to spend as much time instructing participants on what
not
to do as they do on actual instruction for better health.

Early on, we follow along dutifully. After all, we made the choice to start. If we see results, it's easy to believe that the strict daily steps must be followed in perfect order or we won't keep getting results.

And for many, as we discussed, this seems to work—up until the point that results start to come at a slower (or nonexistent) pace. We're no longer seeing the pounds fall off or the inches disappear. Suddenly, we start seeing what we're missing—the lazy afternoons, the calorie-laden desserts, the forbidden fruit. Starting a program was our choice, but the tyranny of the program starts to lose its appeal. Freedom calls.

I want to pause here, because this is the point where most diet and fitness plans come to a screeching halt. That makes it worth another look. So … we begin with great intentions, energy, and drive. But at some point, we hit a plateau—a bump in the road. This critical moment leads to crashes of all sorts—from weekend binges to undoing everything we worked so hard for. So it's in this very moment that we must make a crucial choice. Is our diet about numbers and inches or is it about sustainable health? (Back to the destination vs. journey question again.) The wrong answer will lead us inevitably back to the beginning, and the right answer will guide us to the finish line—that is, living a healthy, fit life.

Here's how it unfolds.

When we're in the “militant” phase of a routine and the plateau takes hold, we become more perceptive regarding what we don't get to do or have. Suddenly, it feels as if every friend wants to enjoy an evening out at a calorie-exploding restaurant to celebrate every occasion.

Advertisements show up in the mail, offering two-for-one specials on the least special foods. And at the very moment that we're supposed to be heading to the gym, we find our favorite movie on television, begging us to curl up on the couch and take a break.

In spite of our best intentions, the rebellion against the diet or exercise plan subtly takes over. We rationalize that we've made such great progress that taking a weekend off isn't that bad. Monday comes along, and we decide that perhaps a full week off would help the body recover.

We sneak a cookie after dinner, as a reward for making it through another tough week, and have a cheat meal at a fast-food restaurant, though we're so guilt-ridden when we get home that we dispose of the fast-food trash in the bottom of our garbage can so nobody finds out.

Before we know it, we're in full rebellion, frustrated by a lack of results, addicted to the rush of forbidden treats, and tired of what we're clearly missing out on. The more our diet or fitness plan restricts us, the more we want to rebel when that plan isn't getting us closer to our goals. This is what I never understood pre-Fit2Fat2Fit.

When I was training James, his slipups were natural, normal, and expected. Instead of encouraging him through his choice and maybe offering strategies on how to handle the next temptation, I judged him and enforced stricter rules. Just like Sarah's parents, I was making it easier for James to rebel. Substitute my reaction to James with the restrictions of any diet or fitness plan and the results will be the same. Whether it was a meal plan telling James not to eat more than six ounces of protein for dinner, or a fitness routine listing the endless cardio elements necessary for the week, or a trainer unhappy that James had fallen off the wagon, the result was the same. James, like all of us, wanted freedom.

And that, inherently, is the problem. We follow plans that are so restrictive that they become the enemy, and we fight for our “freedom of choice” in what we're eating and how much we're working out. Taking on a new lifestyle, however, introduces a brand-new idea—that the key element of “lifestyle” is “life.” As in, you actually have one, so live it.

Nutrition is, and will always be, about making the “right” choices every single day and at every meal. But there's no rulebook that says making the “wrong” choice every once in a while is going to kill your progress. In fact, it might actually help in the long run. The reality is that things come up—
life
comes up—and you'll be faced with difficult choices, decisions that might throw off your perfect diet or extensive workout routine.