Posted on December 7th, 2007 by Shannon Clark  •  Filed under: Q and A, Weight Loss

Q: Lately it seems like no matter what I do, I just can’t lose weight. I’ve been sticking with my diet for so long now and I’m really afraid to lower my calories any further because I am just barely getting by on my current intake. What could be going wrong?

A: Great question! This is something that a lot of women run into and unfortunately, something that halts all their progress.

I think the question you really need to ask yourself is when the last time you took a diet break was. Has it been more than 6-8 weeks? Are your calories less than 10 multiplied by your body weight in pounds? (say a 150 pound female consuming fewer than 1500 calories)? Are you generally feeling tired, cold, and irritable?

If you answered yes to two or more of those questions, chances are, you need a break. What very often happens is the metabolism ‘shuts down’ in a sense, in that it starts to really conserve energy, slowing down so it doesn’t expend any more calories than it needs to. This will translate to you not burning any additional body fat. Basically, your body is working against you.

It’s always a good idea to take a break from your diet every so often to ‘reset’ things a little and let your body know that it’s not starving to death.

My guess is once you eat at maintenance calories for a week or so and then move back onto the diet, things will be rolling again and you’ll be feeling a hundred times better.