Wednesday, May 4, 2011

Low Carb Diet Plateau? Learn How Overeating For One Day Will Break Your Low Carb Diet Plateau

Weight loss plateaus happen when your body adapts to the dietary changes you have made and if you have reached a low carb diet plateau your body likely needs a boost to keep losing. This article shows you some things to look out for and how adding one day of overeating a week (including carbs) will get the scale moving down once more and keep it moving week after week.
First of all when considering what is behind a low carb diet plateau you must evaluate your daily habits.  Check to make sure you haven't started increasing your carbohydrate intake.  Low carb diets are effective but it is very easy to get extra carbs in foods that you wouldn't think have carbohydrates such as nuts, peanut butter and some lunch meats.  Read your labels.
If you discover that you have not been consuming more carbohydrates on a daily basis then you need to turn your attention to your metabolism.  Your metabolism is your fat burning potential and when you have been dieting for a period of time your metabolism is often the first thing to drop off.
In other words, diet too long without a break and your body adapts by decreasing your ability to burn fat which of course causes your weight loss to stall and you find yourself on a low carb diet plateau.
Ironically your metabolism rebounds when you eat more food, including carbs.  When you overeat your body senses that food is readily available and it turns up your metabolism to handle the food.
So the task is to find a way to lose while shaking your body out of its adaptation and the way to do this is to add a strategic overeating or "cheating" day to your weekly low carb diet.
By eating low carb for 6 days and then taking day 7 off and eating all of your favorite carbs, pizza, burgers with buns, fries, ice cream, etc.  Your metabolism spikes and stays elevated for the rest of the week giving you the benefits of an efficient fat burning potential.
I do understand the concern that you will gain weight from this method but what happens is that you will gain some water weight due to the fact that the carbs you eat will retain water but the spike you get in your metabolism happens faster than your body is able to produce fat so you end up losing weight by the end of the week and consistently week after week.
If you have hit a low carb diet plateau you need to give your body a change and by overeating one day a week you will boost your metabolism and start dropping pounds again.
If you are interested in learning how to use a Cheat Day to boost your weight loss, then check out Cheat Your Way Thin here you will find before and after pictures and links to the official site where you can learn about the eating strategies talked about in this article.
Dr. Becky Gillaspy is a Doctor of Chiropractic, Certified Wellness Coach and Author helping clients reach and exceed their weight loss and fitness goals.

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