A lot of books make it seem like it’s so easy to get going with a weight loss program. While it’s not so hard to start a program, sticking with it until the end is another story altogether.

Most weight loss programs will give almost immediate results. Because of the changes to your diet or lifestyle, your body (and your weighing scale) will start showing the fruits of your labors almost immediately. After the period of quick weight loss, though, you’ll notice that the process begins slowing down. After a while, you’ll notice the weight loss coming in at a dead crawl.

It is usually at that slow point when a good number of dieters and weight loss program adherents ‘lose faith,’ so to speak. The plateau, as it’s called, is a point in time or period wherein the standard program stops giving you the results it once did. Plateaus are potentially dangerous to your weight loss program because it’s a very demoralizing time, and it’s when the most number of people drop their diets altogether.

You’ll experience the same thing if you work out regularly at the gym. You’ll feel that your workouts simply aren’t as effective or exciting as they once were. It’s a problem that’s both mental and physical. The mental aspect comes from boredom, plain and simple. Exercises and diets are both repetitive by nature and, done for a long enough span of time, it seems twice as difficult to do the same amount of work because of the tedium.

At the same time, it’s also a physical issue. Remember that the human body is very quick to adapt and grow. Once it gets used to the load or weight of a workout, or to the reduced nutrition of a diet, it begins adjusting operations to suit those activities, effectively negating their effects.

Stay tuned and watch out for the next post for tips on how to deal with plateaus in your weight loss program.