hit a plateau?

You probably know exactly how I feel when I say I plateaued in my exercise routines. Routines. That's why I hit a plateau. They say consistently doing the same workouts end up not giving any results. 

I found with training for the half marathon I was just doing the exact same routine; arms/legs and then some cardio followed by some really long and slow runs. It's not the arms and legs thing that is the problem, it's doing the same exercises over and over again that makes your body too used to the exercise. You could say our body gets bored with it. 

After having to swap up dresses the other night because one was too tight, yup, too tight I decided to step it up a bit. A dress that fit just last August should still fit me! Thankfully I found another dress and it fit so I finished getting ready and went to the Gala dinner. 

So. What to do when you hit a plateau with fitness? Change it up, do something different from your typical routine. I personally like intervals and feel like I've really worked it when I do a treadmill workout focused on high intervals. 

Here's a little workout I made up and I think it's going to break a sweat pretty quickly. I plan on doing this workout this morning.

the shoulder raise-to-squat move

I searched and found a 20 minute HIIT treadmill workout. Focus on the 20 minutes because the treadmills at my gym have an auto cool-down at 20:00 so it's a little surprising if you're cruising at speed 7 and then boom. cool-down. Plus, 20 minutes at high intervals is pretty good!

source

*Consult your Doctor before trying these exercises, I am not a personal trainer. *

Questions:

1. My hubby is heading to Jacksonville, FL tomorrow and he's going to make a Trader Joe's trip for me, any suggestions on what to pick up? 

2. What do you find helps you get out of a fitness plateau?