Meal Times - When Should You Eat When Trying To Lose Weight?

At this point, you know that eating healthy, balanced meals and snacks all day, every day is clutch for losing weight. But if your eating schedule is kind of screwy, dropping pounds can still be a struggle. And that's frustrating AF.

A recent study from Harvard University suggests that, no matter how healthy you eat, if your mealtimes don’t jive with your circadian rhythms your blood sugar levels can jump 18 percent higher than normal—which can ramp up levels of the fat-storing hormone insulin. No bueno.

So when should you eat each meal and snack if you're trying to lose weight? We combed through the research to give you a meal-by-meal rundown of how to pencil in your eats.

Here's your plan of attack.

While the research on whether eating breakfast spurs weight loss is mixed, data from the National Weight Control Registry makes a pretty strong case for the first meal of the day. According to the database, nearly 80 percent of people who have successfully lost 30 pounds or more and kept it off reported eating breakfast every single day like clockwork.

In terms of timing the all-important morning meal, a 2015 Obesity study found that consuming a high-protein breakfast between 6:00 a.m. and 9:45 a.m. was linked to a reduced the risk of body fat gain and less hunger throughout the day, compared to those who waited to eat until after 10 a.m.

Breakfast 6AM to 9.45AM

“I always suggest eating a healthy breakfast within one hour upon waking,” says Jim White, R.D., spokesperson for the Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics. After all, the longer you put off your morning meal, the longer you go without the hunger-squashing effects of protein, fat, and fiber. 

Plus, since you wake up in the morning in a fasted state, topping off your glycogen stores with healthy carbs like unsweetened oatmeal will energize you, says White. That way, you'll be more active during the first half of the day, he says.

While a morning snack is certainly not mandatory, especially if your breakfast is really heavy or you don't eat until 9:45 a.m., it’s important to remember that your body takes between two and four hours to digest and absorb the food you eat, White says. After that, you’re fasting.

Sticking to that window of time between breakfast and your snack will help you keep your energy levels topped off and prevent a dip in your blood sugar, he says. And that will keep you from going HAM at lunch. If you're looking for healthy snack options, research presented at the 2013 Institute of Food Technologists annual meeting found that dieters who ate a handful of almonds for a mid-morning snack wound up eating fewer calories over the course of the day.

Still, it’s important to only eat a mid-morning snack when you’re legit hungry, says registered dietitian Betsy Opyt. Otherwise, you could wind up overdoing your calorie intake.

Lunch Before 3pm

A 2016 study in The American Journal of Clinical Nutrition followed roughly 1,300 dieters over the course of 28 weeks and found that people who ate earlier lunches had more success dropping pounds. While this was only the case in people with a specific genotype (and most of us aren’t getting tested for it), the finding’s in line with a previous study, published in the International Journal of Obesity. In that study, dieters lost about 25 percent less weight if they ate the bulk of their calories after 3 p.m. 

Like your mid-morning snack, an afternoon snack two to four hours after lunch keeps your blood sugar levels stable and prevents overeating at dinnertime, says White.

Also, in one University of Illinois at Chicago study of overweight women, those who snacked in the afternoon tended to eat significantly more fruits and vegetables throughout the course of the day compared to non-afternoon snackers. And that bodes well for your weight-loss efforts, as 2015 research out of Harvard Medical School shows that increased fruits and veggie intake is tightly linked with healthier weights. 

Dinner 5PM to 7PM ish

In one Brigham Young University study, researchers asked 29 men to cut themselves off from the kitchen at 7 p.m. for two weeks and then eat whenever they wanted to for another two weeks. The study authors found that the guys ended up eating 244 fewer calories each day when they stopped eating after the cutoff. White says these results are probably caused by the fact that people often snack after dinner, not because the guys ate dinner any earlier.

Another recent study found that when people who usually ate a third of their calories between 6 p.m. and midnight switched to a schedule where they stopped eating between 7 p.m. and 9 a.m., they lost weight and slept better. Again, it's not so much the time they ate dinner that mattered as much as eliminating post-dinner snacking. (So if you have to eat at 8 p.m., don't freak, just make sure you're not still making trips to the fridge after.)

The bottom line: This timeline might help make your weight-loss journey easier, but if you don't hit these deadlines every day, you're not doomed. "The most important thing is that you are eating a healthy diet rich in fruits, vegetables, and other whole, nutrient-rich foods—and that you're listening to your hunger cues," White says. "You should be eating when you are hungry, but not ravenous, and you should be stopping when you are satisfied, but not completely full or still hungry.

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Common Myths About Weight Loss

With so many diets and eating trends out there, it can be difficult to know how to lose weight.

"To lose weight, you should avoid bread and pasta"

False. It's absolutely OK to eat those carbs. The weight gain happens when you add too much fat to them. So, instead of adding cheese and meatballs, go for a tomato sauce.

"It's best to use sweeteners instead of sugar"

False. Research shows that people who use sweeteners instead of sugar are significantly more likely to crave sugary foods, which can possibly lead to overeating.

“Eating certain foods can help burn fat"

False. According to popular belief, foods such as celery can burn off fat. This is false. While some foods work by speeding up the metabolism temporarily, but this doesn't mean they burn off fat.

"Olive oil is not fattening"

False. Olive oil is good for us, because it has mono unsaturated fats - but just one tablespoon of it takes up 120 calories. So it should be used sparingly.

"You can eat as many low fat foods as you like"

False. These foods may be low in fat, but they often have more calories than regular food.

"You should eat a balanced and varied diet of fruits, legumes, grains and vegetables and increase your physical activity"

True. Yes, you knew that already - and yes, this advice really does work.

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How You Really Lose Weight

Does a nice job of explaining how it all works. What do you think?

Overcoming The Plateau! Tips To Break Through.

The decision to start losing weight isn’t always an easy one to make - but most of us find that, once we’ve made it, dropping those pounds is easy at first. Whether you’re counting calories, fitting in extra visits to the gym, or both, when you first start losing weight, it’s wonderful - the pounds slide off, the numbers on the scale rocket downwards, and the sense of achievement is fantastic. Yet the confounding fact is, the more weight you lose, the harder it becomes to lose more... and this can result in the dreaded fat loss plateau.

The fat loss plateau may seem confusing, but it’s simple, really. The larger you are, the more calories you need to maintain your weight, and as you lose fat, you need less and less calories to stay the same size. This is compounded by the fact that your body has a different opinion of your excess fat than you do - while you may see it as an unattractive embarrassment, your body sees it as an important natural resource... and the less you have of it, the more your body will work to cling to the fat you do have. This can result in your body going into ‘starvation mode’, and burning muscle, rather than fat, for energy, which is the complete opposite of what most of us are trying to achieve!

The fat loss plateau is common, and something almost all of us have to face when we’re trying to get back into shape. Fortunately, that means there’s a lot of tried and tested advice out there for kicking your metabolism back into action once it starts dragging its feet!

Overcoming the plateau through nutrition and exercise

When you reach a plateau, the first thing you should try is recalculating your calorie deficit, based on your current weight. Creating a calorie deficit simply means making sure you are burning more calories than you’re consuming, whether by restricting your calorie intake or by upping your exercise, and as you lose weight, you burn fewer calories. So you may actually need to make your calorie deficit smaller, to ensure you aren’t going into starvation mode, and hanging on to your fat.

Secondly, you may want to consider upping the amount of exercise you are doing, to see if you can reach those stubborn final pounds. But bear in mind that doing too much cardio places your body under stress, so it isn’t always the best option if you’re already doing the recommended maximum amount per week.

What to do when you’ve reached the right weight, but can’t shift stubborn fat

Plateaus are tough, but they can be worked through. Far worse, is when you’ve actually reached your target weight and level of fitness, but still don’t have the physique you desire. Areas such as the belly, thighs, hips, upper arms and bra area can hang on to stubborn fat cells, even when you’ve worked your very hardest. As we get older, our metabolism changes - fat levels increase in both genders, hormonal changes cause women to retain more weight around their hips and bellies, and lowered testosterone makes it harder for men to shift stubborn fat cells. Excess weight from childbirth, hormonal or health changes can all have the same effect.

The thought of this can be enough to make you give up, sit back and reach for the biscuits - but it absolutely shouldn’t! Exercising is vital for our health, and gets even more important as we get older, and there are other ways of shifting those stubborn extra pounds without going under the knife. CoolSculpting is a revolutionary new technique for fat loss - a celebrity favourite which was featured onscreen by Kim K in Keeping Up with the Kardashians, it involves the freezing of targeted areas of fat cells, causing them to break down and be processed and eliminated by the body, naturally and painlessly. Results can be seen as early as a month after treatment, but are generally visible from around 2-3 months and as long as you don’t gain excess weight again, the results will stay with you.

Fat freezing has become so popular that you can even buy kits which promise to allow you to perform it at home - but I cannot stress enough how utterly ill-advised this is. CoolSculpting is a registered trademarked treatment which is also FDA-approved, and benefits from the associated stringent safety standards - frostbite, skin damage, bruising, ulceration and scarring are all associated with improper imitations of the procedure, so don’t be fooled by copycats. The authentic cryolipolysis technology includes a patented ‘freeze detect’ safety feature which monitors the temperature variations in the skin to prevent damage.

Fat loss plateau is something most people have experienced at some point in their weight-loss cycle, but it can be managed through a combination of calorie deficit management, exercise and, for bothersome fat which cannot be shifted naturally, non-surgical aesthetic treatments. Don’t be disheartened when fat refuses to budge - losing weight is an amazing achievement, and once you’ve beaten the uphill battle of the bulge, the results will speak for themselves.

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Weight Loss Plateau? Why It Is Not As Bad As You Think.

What if I told you that the average American gains 1 pound every year? And that by not gaining a pound in the year, you’re actually doing well above average!

Most people lose a little bit of weight, hit a plateau, then immediately give up when things aren’t going as quickly as they were before. Most people gain that weight back and then some. This whole phenomenon of quitting when things are going more slowly is a bit like hitting traffic on your way home from work, and abandoning your car on the side of the road because you’re not driving as fast as you wanted. Or getting a flat tire and slashing the other three.

There’s a mantra in Zen: “the obstacles are the path.”

Plateaus happen. We know they’re going to happen. In fact, when we plateau, it means that we’ve made progress! It’s the perfect time to look back and see how far you’ve come because no human endeavor is linear. Learning a language, a musical instrument, how do date, or how to write well all takes time, with improvements coming in waves of easy progress, then stagnation, followed by bursts of more progress.

Diane Fu is a weight lifting coach in San Francisco who tells her athletes, “When you hit that first plateau and you’re not improving as fast as you were before, congratulations! You’re no longer a beginner!”

The same is true with fat loss. Weight loss can be fast in the beginning because the more weight you have to lose, the faster it comes off. The closer you get to your goal weight, the slower things get. So it’s not a sign you’re doing something wrong; it’s a sign you’ve done things right! It’s a sign that you’re completely normal and have hit a point that everyone hits on their weight-loss journey. A plateau is a mark on the road, letting you know you’re heading in the right direction, and that you’ve made a lot of progress.

So now it’s up to you. When most people hit a plateau, all they can think about is that things aren’t going as quickly as they were before, so they quit. The weight comes back on and they’re further away from their goal than they ever were. But plateaus are just part of the journey—a slight bend in the road that is still going to take you where you want to be. Do you turn around to go back? Or do you keep walking?

When you focus on the journey instead of the destination, the plateaus come and go. If you keep tracking, keep making little improvements to your diet, keep walking every day and getting some exercise, then the weeks when things aren’t going as quickly as you want them to will give way to the weeks when everything seems to fall into place.

And, before you know it, another year will go by. The average American gains 1 pound a year. The average dieter gains back more weight than he or she loses. So all it takes to be better than average is to keep moving forward.

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Weight Loss Program? How Often Should You Weigh Yourself?

Imagine this: You decide it’s time to make a concerted effort to lose weight. You start exercising regularly and embark on a healthy eating plan. The time comes to check in on your progress, so you step on the scale for the moment of truth.

You haven’t lost any weight.

What do you do? Continue with the exercise and healthy eating plan? Throw in the towel, and go back to what you were doing before? Start restricting your eating even more as an effort to make weight loss happen faster?

These are all completely normal and reasonable reactions to a lack of success on the scale. Weight loss, maintenance or gain can be tricky to navigate. Put more plainly: The scale can be tricky to navigate.

Weight fluctuations are common because your weight is determined by a variety of factors. These include but are not limited to how hydrated you are, what you recently ate, your bathroom habits, the climate and your exercise routine. A few pounds of weight fluctuation here or there are usually not a result of fat gain but a result of your body doing exactly what it needs to do to regulate its physiological functions. So, how often should you weigh yourself? Whether your goal is maintenance, loss or gain, let’s talk about the scale.

The very first question you need to ask yourself is: “Will weighing myself (daily, weekly, periodically, etc.) help me or harm me?” Since there’s no magic answer for how often to weigh yourself, figuring out what is helpful and motivating for you as an individual is how you decide.

DAILY WEIGH-INS

Many people find weighing in daily provides a sense of accountability and is helpful for having a good idea of where they are with their progress. For many, it helps to keep progress on track. If you’re able to look at the overall trend and not stress about the fluctuations, then by all means, weigh yourself daily.

Does a 0.4-pound weight gain sour your mood? Or, are you absolutely elated to see that you’re down 1 pound? If the daily weigh-ins powerfully affect your mood and behavior, then you might want to reconsider how often you weigh yourself. The number on the scale should not have the power to dictate your mood, the events of the day or your overall quality of life — it’s just a number.

WEEKLY WEIGH-INS

Weighing weekly can have its advantages — it allows you to track progress while still having six whole days to not focus on your weight.

For best results, pick a consistent day each week, and weigh yourself in the morning. Look for trends, but don’t get caught up in the minutiae. Recognize that it will take a few weeks to get a picture of where the trend is heading. This can be a good tool to help you feel accountable without making you ride the daily emotional roller coaster that is (or can be) the scale.

OCCASIONAL WEIGH-INS

Some people opt for the occasional weight check-in. People may do this at home or rely on the scale at the gym or doctor’s office to get an idea of where they are. People who opt for the occasional weigh-in often have alternative ways of identifying weight shifts, like the way their clothes fit or how strong they feel while exercising.

NEVER WEIGHING

There are many people out there who smash their scale and never look back. Some people find it helpful to focus on how they feel in their clothes, the balance of their meals and snacks and how they perform with their exercise rather than focusing on the number. This can be a valid way to approach health — there’s much more to health than a number on the scale!

If you are weighing yourself multiple times per day, stop! With rare exceptions, you should not weigh yourself more than once per day. Obsessing over a number on the scale can turn into a very problematic pattern that can disturb the peace and happiness in your life. If you decide to weigh yourself, the scale should be a tool that helps you, not harms you.

Overall, ask yourself about what is most helpful for you. For some, daily weigh-ins are the best route. For others, weighing less often is better for overall health. Each of us has different ways of experiencing things and inviting motivation and positivity into our lives. Find what works for you and stick to it!

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Americans Guess What 100 Calories Looks Like

Mustard?  Who would have thought! What do you think?

Drinks To Avoid That Can Hijack Your Weight Loss! Part 2 of 2

              ICED TEA

Almost every kind of pre-sweetened iced tea—from a restaurant or from the bottle—is usually a bad idea.  

"It seems so light, but it contains so much added sugar that you might as well drink a soda," says Ansel. Another bummer: When you buy iced tea at the store, it's often packaged in 20-oz, single-serve bottles, making it easy to knock back 175 calories and 11 teaspoons of sugar, she says. Yikes.

If you're going to pick up a tea drink while you’re away from home, read the labels carefully. Gans says teas that are good-to-go are made with artificial sweeteners (or no sweeteners at all), and have little to no calories, she says.

Better yet, brew your own at home and add in some fresh squeezed lemon to cut the bitterness, says Gans.

JUICE

Whether you're addicted to your local juice bar or pick up a bottle or two at the grocery store, you should know that even the most natural juices are loaded with sugar. A glass of 100 percent grape juice has nine teaspoons of sugar, a glass of 100 percent orange juice has six teaspoons, and a glass of 100 percent apple juice has seven teaspoons.

David Ludwig, M.D., Ph.D., professor at Harvard Medical School and author of Always Hungry?, says that the sugar in juice is digested super fast because there are no other nutrients (like fat or protein) to slow it down. That leads to a giant blood-sugar spike and subsequent crash that leaves you craving sugar and carbs, says Ludwig. And since we drink juice even when we're not hungry, all those calories go straight to storage, he says.

While juice is definitely a better choice than a soda, since 100 percent juice should only contain naturally-occurring sugars and a little fiber, you still have to limit yourself to a one-cup serving per day, she says. To limit the blood sugar spike, chase it with a handful of protein-rich nuts.

Also worth noting: You need to avoid any kind of juice cocktail that contains added sugar (or sweeteners) in the ingredients, she says.

 SMOOTHIES

You would think that a smoothie made of fruits, vegetables, and little else would be a smart move on a diet, but that's not always the case, says Ansel.

If your go-to smoothie joint serves fruit-packed blends or you make yours at home, it's easy to go overboard, she says. "You wouldn't sit down and eat five servings of fruit at one time," Ansel says, "so why should you drink it?"

While smoothies can be a healthy meal or snack, it all comes down to portion control. A recipe that calls for a banana, a cup or more of berries, a cup of yogurt, and a splash of milk and/or juice is going to rack up the calories and sugar, says Ansel.

Instead, Gans recommends blending one cup of protein-packed plain Greek yogurt or milk to keep you full with one serving of fruit for energy, and a healthy, satisfying fat, like two tablespoons of peanut butter or one-quarter of an avocado. That's a mix that can fuel your weight loss goals.  

 ENERGY DRINKS

When all you want to do is crash and burn instead of hitting the gym, you might turn to an energy shot or a low-cal, sugar-free energy drink to get amped. But that's a mistake, says Gans.

If you're on track with your healthy eating, workouts, and sleep sched, you shouldn't need a jolt of energy from caffeine or whatever other crazy ingredients are in your can, she says. Your healthier lifestyle alone should leave you feeling energized.

Instead of guzzling a drink, assess whether you're getting enough sleep or eating enough calories to get you through your workouts, she says. Adjusting these habits so that you're naturally energized will automatically put you on track to lose weight, she says.

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Drinks To Avoid That Can Hijack Your Weight Loss! Part 1 of 2

You already know the bad guys, right? The milkshakes, margaritas, unnecessary sports drinks, and super-sized Cokes. If you're trying to lose weight, it's pretty obvious that you've got to cross these off your list of go-to bevvies.

But that's not all that's screwing over your big plans to get in shape. Even some seemingly-innocent sips can set you back.

"You can literally guzzle down hundreds of calories without even realizing it," says Karen Ansel, R.D.N., author of Healing Superfoods for Anti-Aging: Stay Younger, Live Longer. That's because our brains don't register feelings of fullness from liquids the same way they do from solids, she says.

Obviously, if you're trying to lose weight, you're way better off getting your calories from actual food rather than drinks because they'll help you feel full longer, she says. But something tells us that you're also a human and drinking water 24/7 isn't super thrilling at 4 p.m. when your brain hurts.

From your first cup of coffee in the morning to that afternoon iced tea, we compiled a list of the drinks you should avoid—or at least drink in moderation.

    COFFEE DRINKS

Those flavored fraps, mochas, and lattes you crave first thing in the morning aren't going to help you get to your weight-loss goal any quicker. But that doesn't mean you have to quit your caffeine addiction, you've just got to modify it a smidge, says Ansel.

Instead of ordering something made with cream, half-and-half, or even flavored soymilk (more on that later), order a black coffee, straight up. Then add a little splash of whole milk to your cup, she says. That will cut loads of calories from the creamy brews you normally get or that flavored half-and-half in your fridge.

If you're not a fan of plain coffee, it's fine to add a pack of sugar to your brew, says Keri Gans, R.D., author of The Small Change Diet. But adding any more than that will definitely stunt your weight-loss goals, she says. "If you're a three-cup-a-day drinker with three packets each, the calories will add up."

If you've got a serious sweet tooth, a better option for anyone trying to lose weight is an artificial sweetener that has zero calories, Gans says.

The bottom line is that the further you stray from that straight-up cup, the more likely you are to screw with your pounds-dropping plans.

    SKIM MILK

"Observational research rather consistently shows that consumers of fat-free or 1 percent milk tend to gain more weight over time than those who consume whole, unsweetened milk," says Ludwig.

In addition to avoiding skim milks, he also recommends avoiding milk substitutes with added sugars, like almond milk or rice milk, especially if you prefer the flavored kinds.

If you can’t handle dairy, or the gastro struggles that come with it, an unflavored, unsweetened nut milk is your best bet. One cup of plain almond milk, for example, only has 40 calories, two carbs and less than a gram of sugar, and it has half of the calcium you need in a day.

When you're trying to drop pounds, stick with 2 percent or whole milk. These are a great source of calcium, which helps you burn fat more efficiently, says Ansel. "And it's a top source of muscle-building protein, so it's a double win," she says. 


Part 2

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3 Effective Drinks To Boost Your Weight Loss!

Starting the day with a glass of lemon-infused water has become akin to a religious ritual for many looking to lose weight fast. The bad news? Dietitians in the know say the water won't magically help you shed pounds. In fact, no beverage in and of itself is a silver bullet for slimming down (especially not diet soda). But there are some brews that, coupled with a healthy lifestyle, can actually give your weight loss efforts a boost. Here are three to start sipping.

Coffee

Call it nature's perfect energy drink: Research shows drinking two to three cups of coffee before a workout can spur you to work out longer and harder than you would if you hit the gym caffeine-free—and that means you torch more calories. One study in the Journal of Sports Medicine and Physical Fitness found that exercisers could do almost 20% more reps on a leg press machine when they fueled with java. But remember: Always drink it black (or add a little no-calorie stevia extract), since loading up on cream and sugar is the fastest way to undo the benefits of your coffee-fueled extended workout.  

Plain ice water

Swap out the squeeze of lemon for a handful of ice: Cold drinks prompt your body to expend more energy to maintain its preferred 98.6-degree temperature. This means downing three 24-oz servings of ice water in a day can help your body burn up to 100 extra calories, says Mitzi Dulan, RD, nutritionist for the Kansas City Royals and author of The Pinterest Diet. Do it every day and you could lose up to 10 pounds over the course of a year.

Green tea

Not only is green tea gloriously calorie free, it can also help spur fat burn and weight loss. In one study, participants who drank four cups of green tea daily for 2 months lost an average of about 6 more pounds, compared with those who drank just plain water, according to research published in the Journal of the American College of Nutrition. Another 2013 analysis from the European Journal of Nutrition found that regular green tea drinkers weigh less and have smaller waists. (Scientists speculate green tea's combo of catechin antioxidants and caffeine are behind the effect.) Choose fresh, hot brewed tea with nothing added—store-bought bottled brews tend to have fewer antioxidants and can be loaded with excess sugar. Stay away from unregulated green tea supplements, too: They're a frequent cause of liver damage and may contain unsafe doses of compounds isolated from tea.

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Lemon Water - Can It Help You Lose Weight?

Celebs such as Gwyneth Paltrow and Real Housewives of New Jersey star Dina Manzo guzzle hot water with lemon as if the liquid was bottled at the Fountain of Youth itself. They're certain it aids in weight loss—but is the claim too good to be true?

"Hot water with lemon in and of itself does not cause any actual weight loss," says Alissa Rumsey, R.D., a spokesperson for the Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics. However, if this drink is replacing a beverage that is higher in calories, like coffee with sugar or fruit juice—and that results in a calorie deficit—then it can help you lose weight.

Drinking water—whether hot or cold, infused with lemon, or plain—also helps keep your metabolism humming. "Staying hydrated is an important component of a healthy diet because it boosts your metabolism," says Rumsey. "For those that don’t enjoy plain water, adding some lemon is a great way to boost the flavor without adding calories."

In the short term, drinking water with lemon can also reduce bloating—it acts as a mild, natural diuretic, says Rumsey. However, if you're experiencing bloating in the long-term, it’s best to figure out what is causing it and work to stop those habits: Eating too fast, drinking through a straw, drinking carbonated beverages, consuming too much salt, and consuming foods with sugar alcohols are common culprits.

You also don't want to chug water with lemon religiously if you experience heartburn or acid reflux, as the citrus in the lemon will only exacerbate your symptoms, says Rumsey. Now you know!

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Why You Can’t Lose Weight

Really Cool and Informative Vid. What do you think?

Weight Loss Secret - No One Talks about Part 2 of 2

Ready for the Big Weight-Loss Secret? 

Your body does not like change. I don’t care who you are; it’s very resistant to anything that takes it out of its comfort zone (a.k.a. homeostasis). When that change occurs—specifically when you try to lose weight—your body does everything in its power to get you “back to normal.” This is a process known as set-point theory.

If you ask me, set-point theory is the reason why so many people fail on long-term weight-loss goals. If more people understood that stagnation is an expected and natural part of the process, then they wouldn’t quit prematurely. Sometimes the scale isn’t moving simply because your body is adjusting to change.

Here’s how it works: We all have a “normal” body weight. Whether we like that weight or not is a different story, but this is the weight that we’ve come to “accept” as our own. We also have a look we desire, whether it’s your college weight, your pre-baby body, or where you were that one time you got super fit a few years ago.