Why Am I Not Losing Weight?

This question might be on a lot of people’s minds.

After been able to lose some weight in the early stages you find that you might have hit a plateau and your weight is refusing to go down, this can be frustrating and demotivating.

There are a number of reasons that could affect your progress. Lets go through some of the common reasons that could affect this and help you break through that plateau.

1. Not Counting Calories

In order to lose weight we are required to eat at a caloric deficit. This makes tracking our calorie intake very important.

When we are hungry and want to eat more food we often underestimate our calorie intake by a significant amount.

If this is your case then you should try weighing your food and track your calorie intake for a while and see if it will make a difference.

You can use a calorie calculator to find out how many calories to eat to enable yourself to lose weight. Then using an app to keep track of the food and calorie intake for each day.

In general it is not necessary to count calories and weigh everything for the rest of your life. But once in a while using this techniques can get you back on track and give you a feel of your food portion sizes.

2. Eat More Whole Foods

The quality of food you eat is as important as the quantity.

Eating healthy foods will improve your health and regulate your appetite. Whole foods are lower in calories and are much more filling than processed food. Which will make eating at a caloric deficit much more easier.

Keep in mind that some of the packaged foods that are labeled as “healthy food” might not be healthy at all. Read the food labels of the packaged foods before you buy them. See what ingredients are used and what it contains.

I recommend sticking to whole and single ingredient foods as much as possible.

3.Diversify Your Exercises

To lose weight effectively you need to combine cardio and resistance training into your exercise routine.

Resistance training, such as weight training can help you maintain or gain muscle mass. This will increase your metabolic rate which will aid you to burn fat. You will also be more toned and have a better physique.

Cardio exercises increases your heart rate and helps you burn calories. It is an effective way to improve your health and to burn fat.

Make sure to track your workouts. Doing the same workouts might lead to a plateau. Try different workout programs once in a while. You could try different cardio workouts, fitness classes, or for weighted exercises you can change your intensity, duration, type of workout or even frequency of the workout.

4. Focusing on the Scale

Just because the scale is not moving does not mean you are not making progress. It is possible for beginners to be gaining muscles while at the same time also losing body fat. It’s good, because we want to be losing body fat and not just weight.

There are other ways to see results other than the scale. You can measure your body circumference, body fat percentage and take a progress picture once a month. You can even tell by the way your clothes are fitting differently.

5. Nature Defying Factors

There are a lot of factors that are involved when it comes to weight loss. You need to consider things such as your diet, exercise, activity levels, stress levels and sleep pattern, this are the factors that we can control. There are also things we can’t control such as genes, hormones, age, and body type.

If you are doing everything right and still not seeing any changes, you might want to consider seeing a doctor to rule out any medical conditions. Some medical conditions and medicines makes weight loss harder or even worse it makes you gain weight.

6. Binge Eating on the Weekends

Treating your self once in a while is fine, but do not end up binge eating. Binge eating is common for dieters. Especially when you have stuck to your diet during the week and decides to reward yourself a little during the weekends, which end up being binge eating.

Even if you binge on healthy food, the amount of calories consumed still counts. Depending on the volume of the binge, it could ruin an entire week’s worth of dieting.

I know you will want to have fun and not worrying about planning and tracking. That’s why it is fine to do so once in a while during special occasions or events, but for a normal weekend which you just want to treat yourself a little you can plan out your meals and calorie intake to avoid binge eating

You can even try avoiding rewarding yourself with food. Reward yourself by going to the movies, a massage therapy or even a new pair of running shoes.

Final Thoughts

Lots of factors can bring your weight loss to a standstill. When you change your diet and start exercising, your body also starts to change and adapt to the changes, at times even fighting back.

Change your diet, exercises and routine once in a while so that your body does not adapt and avoid plateaus.

Make sure the targets and goals that you have given yourself are realistic, and that you have given yourself enough time for the results to show. It takes years of bad habit to gain weight, so don’t expect it all to go away in just a few days or weeks.

If after a while you still not getting the results you expect, check the list in this article and see if it’s something here that you are doing or not doing, but make sure the expectations are realistic.

Remember been healthy will require self-discipline and consistency. Turn healthy living from a task into a lifestyle!