Trainer Tips

Fit Forward trainer Levi Lee weighs in on how to overcome plateaus:

REST

Take a few days off, you’ll come back feeling rejuvenated and ready to go strong again.

EATING HABITS

As you work out your body needs more calories. Three meals a day does not cut it anymore. Sometimes even five to seven meals are inadequate depending on the nutrients you are getting. Make sure you eat enough and that its healthy food.

SLEEP ENOUGH

Working out is the catalyst, sleep is when your body evaluates the work you have put it through and compensates by creating more muscle or burning fat.

DON’T OVERDO IT

Keep workouts under an hour. In general if you work out for more than an hour, it can put your body into a catabolic state when your body uses up its preferred sources of energy: glycogen and glucose, and you want to avoid it at all cost. During this state, it can start to breakdown tissue in order to burn the protein found in muscle as energy. A similar process happens when you go without food for a long time.

Hitting a plateau in your fitness journey is very discouraging, but sticking to these helpful tips can help. Above all, keep in mind why you started the journey, lock it into your thoughts and then persevere tenaciously. Always remember that you are worth it. All too often we forget to focus on ourselves, everything in life pulls on us – family, friends and work. If you don’t take the time to make yourself 100 percent, how can you be 100 percent for everyone else in your life?