The Top 10 Reasons You're Not Losing Weight!

-By Mark Woodgate

(Owner/ Manager of Bay Bodyfit Health & Fitness Centre,
Fitness Director of Body Blueprint Personal Training)

Having difficulty losing weight despite exercising regularly and keeping an eye on what you eat? Here are some reasons you might not have considered.

To shape and sculpt your body, focus your efforts on preserving lean muscle. This can be accomplished by training with weights 2 or 3 days per week.

Without resistance training it’s highly likely you’ll face an uphill battle trying to lose weight. Why is it so important to maintain lean muscle? Because the more lean muscle you have, the faster your fatburning metabolism operates!  

Side note: Contrary to popular belief, women who train with weights do not become big and bulky – in fact, the opposite is true! This is because muscle is more dense and takes up less room than bodyfat. When you put on muscle you can expect to lose centimetres and shrink in size!

Are you spending hours every week jogging, biking, swimming etc in order to burn more calories? Baffled as to why you’re not losing weight? (and in some cases actually gaining weight?)  The reason is simple. Cardio performed to excess results in a loss of muscle tissue.  

When you lose muscle your metabolism slows down and you burn less calories. This would mean that you need to work out longer to burn the same number of calories. Not only is this approach unsustainable, it exacerbates the problem even further!   

Despite what you might have been led to believe, conventional ‘go slow’ cardio is NOT the best way to burn bodyfat.

Try substituting a long duration cardio workout (40 mins or more) for 20 minutes of interval training. Interval training simply involves alternating periods of high and low intensity within the same workout.)

Not only will you continue to burn calories after your workout - up to 48 hours in some cases - you’ll markedly improve your cardiovascular fitness. This is something that traditional low intensity cardio does not achieve.

One of the secrets to a faster metabolism is eating small amounts of protein throughout the day. Protein produces a ‘thermic’ effect. This means that the body has to expend more calories to digest protein that it does to digest carbohydrate or fat.

Plus, eating protein every few hours makes you feel fuller and stabilises blood sugar levels. Protein is an essential ingredient for weight loss!  

If you routinely skip breakfast, eat on the run and/ or eat infrequently, it can be very difficult to lose bodyfat on a consistent basis. Whenever the body perceives a ‘famine’ it will slow your metabolism and store excess calories.

To turn your body into a fat burning machine, eat 5-6 times per day and space your meals/ snacks 2-3 hours apart.  

‘Stress’ in itself is not the problem – it’s the way we deal with it!   

Unresolved chronic stress releases a hormone called cortisol which slows the metabolism and is associated with weight gain. (Cortisol is also known as the ‘fat storage’ hormone.)

Prolonged stress can also interfere with blood sugar levels, cause mood swings, hyperglycaemia and fatigue. 

When stress is left unchecked we tend to crave more fat, salt and sugar which in turn can lead to unconscious or ‘emotional eating.’  

Deal with stress as soon as it arises, and in constructive ways that won't sabotage your weight loss efforts. 

6) Lack of intensity!

Many people sell themselves short by staying within their comfort zone. In doing so, they never give their bodies a reason to change. To lose weight on a regular basis you’ll need to challenge yourself by attempting to:

a) Cover a greater distance in the same timeframe

b) Add more repetitions

c) Increase weights

d) Reduce recovery times

7) Alcohol!

As alcohol can’t be stored, its energy is metabolized until all the alcohol is cleared from the body. This means that less energy from body fat stores is used while alcohol is in the bloodstream. In other words, people who drink frequently may have increased potential for weight gain because a higher percentage of the energy from food eaten during the day is converted and stored as fat.

Also, alcohol is very calorie dense. Compare the amount of energy in alcohol compared to other nutrients:

 

1 gram of carbohydrate  =   4 calories

1 gram of protein          =   4 calories

1 gram of alcohol          =   7 calories

1 gram of fat               =   9 calories

Alcohol contains almost twice as many calories as a gram of carbohydrate or protein - and almost as much as fat! No wonder alcohol is so fattening! 

 8) Shift work! 

This one might come as a surprise...

Shift work, especially working through the night, interferes with our natural circadian rhythms (internal body clock) and disrupts our hormone balance.

According to sleep researcher, Simon Smith, “biologically we’re designed to be awake and running around during the day and asleep at night.” Graveyard shift workers tend to gain weight more easily than their daytime counterparts. This is because we digest food more efficiently during daylight hours and our metabolism slows down at night.

9) Fad diets!

Low calorie, fad diets slow your metabolism making it progressively more difficult to lose weight and keep it off. (This condition is often referred to as Metabolic Syndrome or Syndrome ‘X’)

If you can’t sustain a nutrition plan week after week, month after month, year after year, then by definition it’s a DIET!

Avoid fad diets like the plague and stick with a long term healthy eating plan instead.

10) The Wrong Mental Attitude!

As Henry Ford said, “Whether you think you can or can’t, you’re right!

Believe in yourself, be willing to try a new approach to weight loss, and be consistent and persistent with your weight loss efforts.

With the right mental attitude you simply can’t fail!  

 

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