If you're like the majority of the people out there, you will have tried a number of different diets and obtained a different degree of successes. You most likely lost a little bit of weight, got to a certain point and then, whatever you tried, couldn't lose any more. The plateau thing is really quite common--it is something that people deal with whatever diet plan they follow. There isn't a way of avoiding this plateau unless you deceive your metabolism.

You probably have already hit the plateau at least once--in fact, it has possibly caused a frustrating end to more than one diet program. This is a strange phenomenon, which happens to successful dieters roughly the third or fourth week of their diet. Up until that point weight is coming off and then it just quits, and nothing works to keep the body shedding weight. This is how your body responds to all of the changes you happen to be forcing upon it. Your body goes into protection mode to prevent hunger, so it slows down your rate of metabolism. What this does, then, is stop your body from losing any more excess weight.

This is what causes people to believe they are not capable of losing the weight they want, and they stop trying. At this point they go back to eating, and putting on their weight back plus even more than they dropped usually. The best way to stop this is to pick a diet where your calories merely get shifted. What you are trying to do is eat a different number of calories every day, which is supposed to deceive your metabolism. When this works, it stops your body from flicking the switch and going into protective mode. This will keep your metabolism steady instead of slowing down and you're going to lose even more weight. If you get to this point, you'll have passed your plateau and your diet will keep working the way it was designed to work.

It's not difficult to work this plan into your daily routine. Probably the most popular method of caloric cycling is the 14 day method. In this plan, you follow your diet for eleven days and then on the 12, 13 and 14th days you eat the things you truly want to eat. You can switch your foods during the day and trick your metabolism and then for three days eat what you would like to eat and avoid the plateau. This really is quite handy in keeping you on course with the stricter dieting programs. You can actually keep doing these 14 days repeatedly until you are content with your weight loss.

Another popular program is the 2 day plan in which you eat normally one day and the next day cut your calories by between twenty and thirty five percent. Keep repeating the process for as long as it takes you to attain a satisfying level of weight loss. This program is fantastic for helping you get past your plateau and lose the weight you want to lose so you should definitely try it out.