How to Use Cardio to Overcome a Weight Loss Plateau

When you start a new workout program you likely see big changes, fast. But over time your progress seems to slow down. You’re not seeing the same results you saw at the beginning – you’ve hit a plateau. Why is that? And what can you do to overcome a weight loss plateau?

It’s not unusual to see ups and downs during your weight loss journey. Your body is a far more complex place than we give it credit for and it’s not always going to respond to the same stimulus and same programming. This is particularly true after the “beginner” phase.

Why Beginners See Quick Results

When you first start working out to lose weight, you’ll see results quickly. That’s because your body isn’t used to the stimulus. Whether you’re lifting weights or doing cardio – or ideally a combo of the two – your introducing a new challenge to your muscular system and your nervous system. Your body will work hard to adapt in order to deal with the stimulus. That hard work and the effort needed to recover results in a boost to your metabolism and more calories burned.

When it comes to calories burned, your idea of a great thing is not your body’s idea of a great thing. You might want to burn more calories in order to lose weight. But your body wants to hold on tight, for self-preservation purposes.

Why Results Slow Down

Your body is a complex machine. It wants to be stronger and healthier but here’s the thing: it doesn’t want to work so hard. Your body’s goal is efficiency. It will work as hard as it needs to in order to recover from the challenge it faces (read: your workout), but no harder.

What that means: if you carry on with the same activity at the same intensity, your body will not need to work as hard to get the job done. You won’t need as many calories to do the same amount of work.

So if you never change your routine…

If you never lift heavier weights, add intensity or time, decrease your rests – you will stop seeing results. That’s what we call a weight loss plateau.

And this is one way you overcome it.

Using Cardio to Overcome a Weight Loss Plateau

There’s no one, single and sure way to overcome a weight loss plateau. That said, the tips and strategies below will absolutely tip the figurative and actual scales in the right direction.

#1: Increase Cardiovascular Intensity 2-3 Time a Week

Progressive overload: the gradual increase of intensity/challenge in your workout to stimulate your body to adapt and get stronger.

To beat your body’s beautiful system of adaptation, add HIIT into the mix a few times a week. When you add something that is both new AND high intensity, you trigger your body to work harder.

Plus, HIIT is a great way to burn fat without sacrificing muscle. That means that while you will be upping your caloric burn, your body won’t go after hard-earned, metabolically active lean muscle in the process.

Try these HIIT workouts this week!

• 15 Minute At Home HIIT Workout
• Total Body HIIT in Under 30 Minutes

#2: Work in Recovery Days

Believe it or not, when it comes to your goal of overcoming a weight loss plateau more is not always better. Feels wrong but it’s actually right, for two main reasons. Hear me out…

Physically your body needs time off to recover, repair and rebuild. There’s a ton of benefit to exercising and/or moving every single day. That said, working in a couple of low intensity days to your week gives your muscles and your hormones time to completely recover.

Mentally, a workout program with workouts that are either extremely long or extraordinarily intense every single day is likely to cause burnout. I love working out but even I get tired of a program that wants me in the gym for 90-120 minutes at a pop.

Work in a couple of de-stress days. You’ll get a mental and physical breather. Try going for a long walk or easy hike, some yoga exercises or swimming. These kinds of activities spur recovery and help to balance your hormone levels – key in your weight loss journey!

#3: Combine Cardio with Weight Training

While changing up your cardio game can help you overcome a weight loss plateau, strength training is the real catalyst. Strength training builds muscle. Muscle is metabolically active. The more muscle you have, the more calories you burn even at rest.

So while cardio is great, strength training is the real weight loss king.

Your Cardio Plan for Beating a Weight Loss Plateau

Here’s how to work it for real results:

1-2 Days a Week: High Intensity (HIIT) Cardio

Depending on your fitness level, work in 1-2 (or 3 if you’ve been doing this a while and your HIIT workouts are on the short side) of high intensity cardio intervals. These workouts should last 30-45 minutes tops.

Pick a cardio exercise of your choice. Warm up for 5-10 minutes. Alternate between spurts of high intensity and recovery intensity for your working sets. Cool down for 5 minutes.

A good way to tell if you are working out with intensity is to do a Talk Test. If you can hold a conversation during your high intensity sets, you aren’t working hard enough!

*Check out the HIIT Workouts above or head over to my YouTube Channel for some great HIIT workouts.

1 Day a Week: Medium Intensity Cardio

My favorite way to do “medium intensity” cardio is to exercise hop. Aka choose 3-4 different cardio exercises and do 15-20 minutes on each one at a moderate pace. The time it takes to switch from one exercise to the next is enough to bring your heart down to a recovery pace before you start up again.

1 Day a Week: Low Intensity Cardio

This is recovery cardio. Keep it low key, low intensity and fun. My favorite form of LIC is walking my pups. Just remember that this is truly a “reset” cardio workout – so don’t push it too much. You simply want to stimulate your system enough to recover.