Have you been humming along with your fitness and health routine and then all of a sudden progress comes to a screeching halt?  When week after week you are consistently getting trimmer and seeing results and then WHAM, nothing for a week, then another week.  You may have hit a fitness plateau.  It happens all the time, especially when our bodies get used to doing the same thing over and over.  Here are three important tips to get your engine back in high gear and start seeing results again.

1.  Overcoming a fitness plateau is actually easier than you think.  The first step is to STOP and pay attention.  What are you eating?  Keep a food diary for 5 days, write down everything you are eating, including snacks and drinks.  You may be consuming more calories than you think, sabotaging your goals.  Pay attention to the timing of your meals and snacks, are you still eating every three hours or have you fallen back into bad habits of depriving yourself all day until you are starving and then binge eat all evening long?
2. The second step in overcoming a fitness plateau is to MIX it up.  If you do the same routine every day because that’s what you know and that’s where your comfort level is, that’s when you’ll start to plateau.  You have to mix things up a bit, your body will adapt quickly to what you do each day.  If you change your routine, you will change your fitness level.  Instead of the treadmill, get on the elliptical machine for cardio.  Try a new class at the gym.  Add more strength training into your program.  One of the best things you can do is add interval training to your cardio routine.
3. Do More (or Less), while changing up the type of workouts you’re doing to overcome your fitness plateau, try changing the length of the workout.  How about an intense 10 minute jog instead of a mild 30 minute walk?  Also, try adding one more day to your workout week or if you’re feeling burnt out, take a day off and re-group.  Sometimes a little time off to re-assess your goals and reconnect with your body & mind, is all you need to overcome your fitness plateau.