Weight Loss Rules

Viewers who wrote Bob say their biggest weight loss problem is shedding those last few pounds! Judy, who has lost more than 100 pounds, says she'd love to lose more...but she can't seem to get the scale to budge!

Judy says she's been battling obesity for years. At age 21, she lost 100 pounds. Then she gained it back, and at 30, she lost the same 100 pounds. Finally after gaining the weight once again, at age 45, she took off 119 pounds. Now, Judy is 48, and she's only 30 pounds from her goal weight. "It's just infuriating," she says. "To work out...to eat right and the scale still doesn't move!"

Bob says a person's weight naturally plateaus at a certain point so the body's organs can adjust. Once this happens, you can start shedding those last few pounds by increasing the intensity of your workout.

Activities such as aerobics may help you lose weight at first, but eventually those workouts become less challenging. He suggests working out on a treadmill, which allows you to increase the pace and the incline over time.

"It's physics," he says. "You at your given body weight today are exercising with a 3 percent hill at 3.3 miles an hour—that's great. Your weight's going to adjust and come down. ... But, you need to increase the workload, and most important, the pace. [You can] methodically break through each plateau by increasing how fast you move."