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Plateaus are Inevitable: Break Through with 4 Simple Tips

Jan 19, 2017 | ZEN Bodi

By Mark Macdonald, ZEN Brand Ambassador & New York Times Best Selling Author

As you take on 2017 and rock your ZEN Project 8® program, it’s important to stay ahead of the curve and keep your momentum flowing.

I think we’ve all been there before, excited about our health progress, and then all of the sudden our results halt. Frustration can easily start to build, boredom creeps in, and the groove you were in seems to be lost forever. These are classic signs of the dreaded plateau derailing your progress.

Plateaus are defined as times when your weight and body-fat percentage remain the same for a period of time. They are the part of the health process you always know will come, yet you’re always surprised when a plateau arrives, hoping that maybe this time you would dodge the bullet. Plateaus are often viewed as bullets because from the surface, they appear daunting and seem to kill your health progress.

The good news is that this plateau mindset will soon be in your past. A plateau simply means you’ve reached your body’s set-point (the place it’s used to being). Your body follows the same pattern as everything else in life: first come moments of progress, followed by moments of recalibration, followed by more moments of progress. This is the natural cycle of life.

Your health plateau is just that “moment” your body takes to recalibrate, to adjust and take your improved body composition and other positive changes into account. This recalibration period occurs as your body reprograms your metabolism by lowering your set-point.

Once this reprogramming phase is complete, your body is ready to take another run at progression.

Since you now understand why you plateau, let’s dive into the four strategies that will help you take control of your plateaus by knowing how to minimize them and what simple adjustments to make to burst through them as you rock your ZEN Project 8 program!


1.
Accept and Prepare for Your Plateau

By accepting a plateau in your future as fact, you will not be shocked or frustrated when your progress slows. You’ll understand why and make the proper adjustments. This knowledge will definitely work in your favor.

Instead of implementing these strategies and raising your game when you reach your plateau, you can begin steadily working each strategy into your program from the start. This allows you to improve a little more each week — at a comfortable pace.

Many times this will prolong the time before you reach your first plateau and prevent the feeling of frustration when it comes.

2. Keep It Clean
Clean food is your body’s friend. Clean proteins, fats and carbohydrates are optimally digested and metabolized by your body and help balance your blood sugar. In addition, since clean foods are unprocessed, they contain low amounts of sodium.

This is why clean foods cause less bloating. Focus on eating high-quality and unprocessed foods and to help, here’s a snapshot from the ZEN Project 8 Ignite Phase, which provides a clean food list and portion sizes to maximize your results.

Just remember to eat PFC Every 3 in every meal (eat every 3 hours with a balance of protein, fat and carbs).

3. Raise Your Exercise Game

Raising your game is taking your exercise to an entirely new level.

To break through a plateau, you want to make the three following exercise adjustments. These adjustments will add more time to your workout, but this added time is just temporary to help break through your plateau.

Once you break through your plateau, you can go back to your normal exercise quantity. No matter what, though, you should still continue choosing the most optimal movements. Here are the 3 simple exercise adjustments:

  • Add another day of high-intensity cardio, preferably sprinting. You will get quick results by sprinting three days a week, for thirty minutes each session. If you cannot sprint, do stairs, cycling (spinning) or swimming.
  • Add 15–30 minutes of additional time to each fat-burning cardio session.
  • Replace a strength-training session with a high-impact sport or class. Some examples include boxing, kickboxing, singles tennis, racquetball and basketball. This type of training will activate muscle you have not been using, which will then speed up your metabolism.

4. Eat More Frequently

The longer you eat PFC Every 3 and live ZEN Project 8, the better your body becomes at metabolizing your food. This increased efficiency causes you to become hungry every two and a half to three hours rather than every three to four hours.

This is a very good thing. Every meal you eat causes your metabolism to fire up even hotter. More meals equals better results. Increase your meals to six or seven per day (eating only when you are hungry, of course).

There you have it, your winning strategies to dodge any plateau bullets and truly burst through all obstacles!

If you’re ready to take your knowledge, results and body to the next level, get started with your ZEN Project 8 transformation today! Simply check out the ZEN Project 8 website or connect with the person who shared this blog with you.