By David Tepera, April 15, 2026

For all of you who started a new training or diet program this year, are you still making progress? Hopefully, there is success, but at some point, you will plateau and get stuck.

Our body possess multiple systems that allows it to adapt to all stress it’s battling. Bottom line, the body’s job every day is to survive.

When we get cold, the body will shiver to create heat. When the body starts to overheat, it produces perspiration to cool down.

At night, while we sleep, the body goes into repair mode to conquer the stress from the day. Growth hormones can exceed up to 500 times to help repair muscles and bones. This is also why it’s important for children to get a good night’s rest.

If you’ve become stuck in your weight training, are you still doing the same routine? If so, your body made the required adjustments and survived the stress. Because you’re still doing the same thing over and over, the body is just going to chill and hang out. You must trick the body into another survival by changing the routine.

For example; try lifting a little heavier with less reps for a few weeks, include changing machines that target muscles at different angles. This will jump start the muscles into growth for survival.

For those stuck in a dieting program, the body needs a wakeup call.

Again, which ever special diet you are currently involved with, the body has already lost the weight necessary for survival, so now, it’s on cruise control and will not lose any more weight.

During Tina, Dylan and my body building careers, the diets were very specific for growth and recovery. I’m not going to bore you with the anatomical science involved, but we also would plateau and needed a shock treatment.

I’m sure most of you are familiar with a cheat day. For us, it was only a cheat meal. You see, once the body is deprived of nutrients and loses a certain amount of weight, the metabolism will start shutting down for survival.

People make a mistake by thinking they need to perform more cardio to lose weight. Nope, you will only over stress the body, and the metabolism will shut down.

I apologize for any confusion. I answer all emails each week, along with follow-up phone calls.

Remember, if you are stuck, change it up for new results. I promise, it works every time.