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Summary
On episode 409 of 40+ Fitness, Coach Allan tackles the plateau every dieter and lifter eventually hits: the set point.
He breaks the stall down into three drivers, the body, the environment, and the mind, and argues most people fixate on only one or two and miss the piece that actually unsticks them.
He lays out what is happening physiologically when weight loss stalls and gives concrete steps to work through each of the three areas.
Links
- https://40plusfitness.com
Key Takeaways
- Your body defends a set point through homeostasis. Weight is regulated the same way as body temperature or blood pH: lose fat too fast and hormones shift to slow you down, because ancestrally that pattern signaled famine, not intentional dieting.
- Elite athletes show the mechanism most clearly. Women who drive body fat extremely low during hard training often stop menstruating, because their systems read the low fat state as a signal that it is not safe to support a pregnancy.
- Environmental chemicals can quietly stall progress. BPA in plastics behaves like estrogen in the body, and residues in household cleaners, skincare, and hair products can disrupt the hormonal balance needed to lose fat or build strength.
- Light exposure affects hormones and sleep. Too little natural daylight and too much screen time late at night disrupt circadian rhythm, which in turn disrupts the hormones that govern appetite, recovery, and sleep quality.
- What you consume mentally matters as much as what you eat. Constant exposure to conflicting diet articles and fear based headlines creates stress and analysis paralysis; test one change at a time and drop what does not help.
- Your inner dialogue determines whether a stumble becomes a relapse. After a bad week, forgive yourself, build a plan, then act; skipping any of those three steps tends to repeat the same setback.
- Start with mindset before tactics. Self love and self awareness, the foundation of Allan’s Wellness GPS, come first, because without believing change is possible, tactics rarely stick.
- Break a plateau by testing one variable at a time. Cutting dairy for three to four weeks to see if it was causing bloating, or cycling lifts like dips, leg press, and front squats when a squat or bench stalls, are both examples of the adapt then adjust cycle Allan recommends.
“Adapt, adjust, adapt, adjust, and that’s the path forward.”
Coach Allan
Another Episode You May Enjoy
Episode 426 – When your doctor tells you to lose weight and exercise more with Kristen Carter
