You have a strict diet you've been following for six months. You exercise 6 days a week for 45 minutes. To date, you have lost 20 pounds, but for some reason, you cannot lose any more. You have not stopped exercising, and you are stricter about your diet than ever, convinced that you must be eating something different that is preventing further weight loss. So what do you do?

The weight loss plateau is one of the most frustrating things to deal with when losing weight. The simple truth is that your body has stopped responding to your diet and exercise routine and has reached a plateau. There are several ways to deal with this problem, but the general idea is that you have to vary your routine to give your body something it isn't used to. Variety can be done with your diet or your exercise routine, and once your body realizes something different is taking place, that weight will start to drop once again. With a constant diet plan, once the weight comes off and nothing changes with your diet, the body goes into storage mode because it senses it is not getting as much food.

With an exercise routine, your body may stop responding to the same exercises day in and day out and your body will stop building muscle. Following are five diet strategies and five exercise strategies that will help you beat that plateau and lose the rest of that weight!

Diet Strategies:
1) Increase your caloric intake slightly to provide more fuel for your body to burn.

2) Drink more water to help stabilize your metabolism.

3) Add more protein and fiber to your diet to help your body's metabolic functions.

4) Eat more frequent, smaller meals so your body's metabolism can stay constant and burn more calories.

5) Vary one of your snacks; instead of eating a carbohydrate as a snack, eat a protein.

Exercise Strategies:

1) Add strength training to your exercise routine. Strength training builds more lean body mass, which leads to higher metabolism.

2) Vary your exercise routine. If you usually do 30 minutes on a treadmill, do 30 minutes on a stationary bike instead. Or, you can vary your routine by day. If you usually do a bike 5 days a week, do the treadmill three days a week and a stair machine two days a week.

3) Decrease your exercise time, and increase your exercise intensity. Instead of running on the treadmill for 30 minutes, do 20 minutes at a higher speed.

4) Increase the frequency of your exercising. If you are working out three days a week, add a fourth day.

5) Play a sport, rollerblade, skateboard, or just incorporate something different into your routine. Most sports you play will target different muscle groups than exercising alone does.

Weight loss plateaus are no doubt extremely frustrating, but using one or more of the above strategies should pull you out of your slump and put you back on track to achieve your target weight!