Overcoming a Plataaeu

When people begin a new fitness plan, they're sometimes surprised at how quickly they see results. If you never went to a gym or picked up a weight before you started the Living Well With Montel program, you may have lost weight and increased muscle strength pretty quickly when you started walking and lifting weights most days of the week. A few weeks later, though, you may feel that these improvements have slowed, even though your efforts have not. In other words, you may have reached a plateau.
Why does this happen? Briefly, with practice your body has learned how to perform your regular exercises more efficiently — meaning that you use less energy and burn fewer calories while doing them. You may also be feeling bored doing the same activities every day. Luckily, there's a simple method that can help you break through a plateau, as well as any boredom.
It's called the FITT principle, for frequency, intensity, time, and type. Changing one or more of these four components of your workout can help you break through to the next level.
For instance, you can change the frequency and time of your workout by changing how often and how long you work out. Perhaps you want to try more frequent, shorter workouts, or fewer but longer ones. You can increase the intensity of many cardio exercises by varying your speed, distance, or resistance or incline, or you can boost the intensity of your strength-training workout by increasing the weight you lift, the number of reps you do, or the number of sets. You can change exercise type by trying different kinds of equipment, or you can branch out into a whole new kind of exercise.
If you've hit a plateau, don't become frustrated and give up. Instead, celebrate how far you've come, and consider where you'd like to go next!