by Michelle Wilkinson

Created on: August 16, 2010

The whole point of going on a diet is so you can lose weight, but what happens on those occasions when you gain weight? It can be incredibly frustrating to have put on a pound or two when you are sure you’ve stuck to your weight-loss plan. It’s the same plan you’ve been following for weeks or months and it hasn’t let you down yet. However, this time it has and you can feel so annoyed that it is tempting to throw in the towel and just eat whatever you want without worrying about it. You know how terrible you’ll feel in the morning if you take such action, though, and so it is worth calming down.

Everyone reaches a plateau eventually, as your body adjusts to being fed so many calories and doing a certain amount of exercise each day. When you stop losing weight you might think that the best course of action would be to reduce your calorie intake further, but this doesn’t always work as this usually requires you to go below a healthy number of calories. If you try to consume less than 1200 calories a day you may not be receiving all the vital nutrients your body requires to continue functioning.

Instead, you could shake up your routine in some other way by taking a couple of days off from the gym and doing something different. You may decide to relax your diet for a week or two so that when you return to your diet plan your body will be ready to lose weight again, having been ‘treated’ to some extra calories and then forced to subsist on fewer calories. As long as you don’t use a plateau as an excuse to give up on your weight-loss plans altogether you will soon be back on track. You don’t want to get distracted by your frustration and never reach your goal.

There are other reasons why you may gain weight when you’re on a diet, such as the inability to exercise as much as usual due to injury or because you’re female and it’s the time of the month when your body retains fluid. It is always frustrating when you gain weight, though, whatever the cause, as you have been counting calories and depriving yourself of your favourite foods for nothing. However, you shouldn’t look at your weight gain in these terms, as otherwise you may struggle to follow through with your plans for weight loss and so you should try to focus on how far you’ve already come.

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