Remember two things: First, your body is not a machine. Nor is it a duplicate of anyone else ' s body. It has its own system, its own agenda, and its own timetable. In the long run, it nearly always responds to sensible management by the person in charge-you. But, in the short run, your body may decide to go its own way, for its own reasons, which perhaps we don ' t understand. Don ' t get mad at it. It ' s a good body or it wouldn ' t have gotten you this far. Be patient; you can afford to outwait it.
Second, loss of pounds is not the only way to measure success. Look at the other markers. Are you feeling better than you used to? Do you have the energy to do things you want to do? If so, then something is happening to your body. Do your clothes feel looser? Have you tried on those clothes that " felt a little too tight " just a few weeks ago? I hope you ' ve followed my advice about measuring your chest, waist, hips, thighs, and upper arms. If you ' re losing inches, the scale will eventually catch up.
Did Something Happen?
If you ' re losing neither inches nor pounds and four weeks have passed, let ' s consider the next possibility.
People frequently get frustrated after a week or two without weight loss, when a little reflection would tell them what ' s gone wrong. Certainly if you ' ve been put on some new medication-including hormone treatment or birth control pills-around the time you stopped losing, you ' ll need to consider its possible metabolic effects. Turn to Chapter 20 for guidance in dealing with this problem. Medications are a common and often formidable obstacle to weight loss, and I outline many of the problem drugs and chemicals in that chapter and offer alternatives that a physician may be able to prescribe for you.
Significant changes in your lifestyle also can alter the rate at which you consume energy daily. Maybe you ' ve been hit with an urgent deadline at the office and you ' ve been glued to your chair for three weeks. No more lunchtime walks, no more half-hour sessions at your health club and no more tenblock strolls with your spouse after dinner-because you ' ve been eating too late.
If you ' ve reached OWL( see Chapter 14) or Pre-Maintenance( see Chapter 16), changes like those could be enough to halt your loss for a few weeks. Not only are you burning fewer calories, but when you get less exercise, your metabolism tends to slow down( just as increasing exercise revs it up). Dear reader, from a health perspective, exercise is a beautiful thing. I just wish I could inject a love-exercise gene into all my patients-and readers. It would make their lives a lot easier.
Having mentioned lifestyle, I wouldn ' t want you to forget the obvious. Have you been living it up on a vacation, eating all sorts of foods of dubious carbohydrate content? Did the holidays come and, with them, four hors-d ' oeuvre-laden parties in the past three weeks? And now you ' re blaming me? If so, I hope this makes you blush, and I hope you had a good time. Not guilty? Well, then, let ' s look at a more serious panoply of problems that might cause your weight loss to plateau.
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