In the previous post I started talking about the idea of timed periods of intensity built into your year long training program called Stage 4 Surges. The name comes from the fact that you would move from the 3rd Stage of Nutrition to the 4th Stage of Nutrition. These surges center on your current life situation and motivation levels.
Let’s finish this discussion by looking at a different approach to peaking so that instead of peaking you will instead plateau at your idea body weight.
When you are ready, when your motivation is high, when your plan is set…move up to the 4th Stage of Nutrition, count calories or portions, be perfect….but only do it for a finite period of time. 4, 6, 8, or 12 weeks. Don’t diet until you are burned out. Lose the weight and leave on a high note. Maybe your goal is to lose 30lbs and after 4 weeks you’ve only lost 15lbs but you are completely spent. Your compliance is slipping, your motivation is low – Don’t force the issue. No one can keep up that level of intensity and focus forever without losing ground in other aspects of their lives. Plus, you don’t want to stop dieting because you just “can’t stick with it anymore.”
To steal from the overused sports phrase, it isn’t ‘Go Hard or Go Home’ it is ‘Go Hard then Go Home.’
Transition back to a healthy but less rigid approach (i.e. the 3rd Stage of Nutrition), instead of reverting to eating garbage food as many people end up doing, until you feel your fire comeback (and it will a lot sooner if you keep the weight off and don’t gain it back). When it does, move back up to Stage 4 and get back into attack mode.
Here’s what’s going to happen, despite the fact that you will back off on your dietary control moving down from Stage 4 to Stage 3, you are probably still going to lose some weight. This makes you different than 99% of other people that just ‘finished dieting.’ After a couple weeks of maintaining or losing more weight you’ll really become motivated. I’m willing to bet that the normal course of events after you finish a diet is to slowly gain the weight back, imagine how motivated you would be if the weight kept coming off.
Take that motivation and energy, re-commit yourself to a Stage 4 Surge and you’ll take another huge leap towards your goal. This stair stepping approach to long term and permanent weight loss success is much more effective than the usual 2 steps forward, 3 steps back approach that plagues most people.
I’m not telling you to start tomorrow, tighten your dietary control and go at it. I’m telling you to listen to your body, look at how your life (family, job, etc.) is going, and when you see an opening for when you can triple your efforts and focus DO IT.
If you are ready to ratchet things up then the best resource I have for you is Warp Speed Fat Loss 2.0 but it isn’t for everyone and it isn’t for you until you see that opening in your life and are ready to go for it. When it is over, don’t go back to eating junk, scale it back to consistently making healthy choices, until you are ready for another sprint. It is the middle of the year now. When December 31st comes around you are going to look at how much weight you lost between Jan 1st and December 31st. It isn’t going to matter if you lost 20lbs during May but gained it all back by November. Trying to force the issue with unnecessary dietary control 24/7/365 is how you do that. If you want to be 10, 20, or 30lbs lighter on December 31st then maximize your winners.
