Last week I was feeling great. This week, I hit the wall. Here is what I think happened and what I’ve done about it.
A couple weeks ago, I increased my calories from 1600 a day to 2000 a day, based on a weight loss plateau of about 17 days. I’ve had this problem before. If my body thinks it might not be getting enough calories it refuses to lose, even if I’m doing everything *right.* At those times, the only thing that seems to work is increasing the calories. Once I made the change, I immediately start dropping the weight I would have expected to lose on the fewer calories.
But I also really got into exercise about that time and slipped from walking almost daily over to doing the CrossFit WOD (Workout of the Day). In CrossFit, workouts are scaled to your ability and my ability level is the lowest - buttercup. Isn’t that cute! LOL My thinking was that my little buttercup workouts were not tough enough for me to have to increase my calories due to exercise. What I didn’t factor in that they were a real challenge to me, I was exercising to the max at my level, after coming quickly from couch potato status.
But, I stopped losing again. For the last 12 days I’ve bounced up and down within a .6 pound range. The food I’m eating is pretty clean - hardly any junk type food, good protein, good carbs, lots of fruits and veggies, good fats and not too much of those. I *should* have been losing.
In the last 5 days, I also got very tired. I mean, really tired, the kind that lasts. The CrossFit workouts are designed to be intense, and being sore for a day or three after a workout is expected, on a regular basis. But the kind of tired I’m talking about should leave, and didn’t, even after 5 or 10 hours, even after a day or two. That’s not right.
In addition to the exercising and calorie issues, I’ve been noticing that it takes sleep to:
- burn fat (read: trim my waistline)
- build muscle (read: *up* my metabolism)
the very things I am striving to do. Yikes! Bad habit alert! I have a long history go *getting by* on 5-7 hours sleep, sometimes less. So, During this same two week period, I tried out a few 8 hour nights by making myself stay in bed until 8 hours passed. What I found was my body not only loved it but suddenly wanted naps. What an idea! my body was saying to me, Sleep! You should do this!
I may have even let go of my careful hydration habits during this same period.
My favorite CrossFit Mentor, Miss Veronica Davis, left me this tip: Rest is EXTREMELY important to performance. I would say the three most important things are nutrition, rest and hydration.
I’m thinking I might have challenged myself in all three areas. So, I hit the wall. My body rebelled. Obviously changes are needed. My body refusing to recover from the exercise was complaining loudly and clearly that it wasn’t getting what it needs. Here is my response:
- changing my daily calorie level again,
- changing my food plan to a diet more suited to me and what I’m doing,
- changing my fitness plan, particularly the rest day cycle,
- challenging myself to develop an 8 hour a night habit, with more as needed.
With all these changes, decreasing CrossFit a little, increasing calories, etc., I thought about changing the monthly goals that I had just set - just before I *hit the wall.* But, I’m thinking if my changes work, if they get me to a place where my metabolism is working better and where I can workout without the residual tiredness, I may still be able to complete my goals for the month on schedule, due to improved results. We’ll see. I’ll post more about each change.
Question for you. What kind of changes have you made in your own diet/fitness plans and why? I really appreciate my readers and would enjoy the chance to *get to know* you. Thanks!
