Five Reasons You Aren’t Losing Weight Even When You’re Doing Everything Right
You’ve tried every fad diet on the market. You’ve stopped eating carbs. You ate raw. You went paleo. You’ve tried dedicated workouts. You’ve been through medical weight loss programs. Some of these tactics did not work at all. Some of them (such as the medical weight loss programs that were facilitated by a doctor) worked very well, but you still struggled to keep the weight off permanently. If this is you, here are a few reasons you might be hitting weight loss roadblock:
- You aren’t active enough.
When it comes down to it, your ability to lose weight and keep it off revolves around one equation: burning more calories than you consume (or burning as many calories as you consume once you reach the “maintenance mode”). Even if you feel like you are barely eating, if you work a desk job that just doesn’t involve a lot of movement, this equation might be out of whack.
Solution: A step tracker. Using a pedometer will help you keep track of how much you are moving and motivate you to burn some more calories on those low-action days. - Miscalculating calories
If you attempt to lose weight on your own rather than using medical weight loss programs that do the hard work for you, keeping track of all of those calories can be a real hassle. Even if you are religious about recording every single bite you take into MyFitnessPal, sometimes it is easy to misjudge the size of your portions. For example, the number of calories that in a slice of chicken can vary greatly based on the size and weight of it. And to add to it, you have the complication of tracking the food that you didn’t prepare yourself, when you don’t have access to all of the ingredients and calories associated with them.
Solution: Follow a specific diet plan until you get the hang of the portions you need to lose or maintain weight. Some medical weight loss programs provide all of the ingredients needed to prepare your meals within the ideal calorie range to lose weight. - Insulin Resistance
If you have a lot of weight to lose, and despite following an ideal diet and exercise routine, the scale just isn’t budging, it could be due to an insulin resistance. Sometimes it happens if you’ve restricted yourself from getting enough calories in the past, throwing it into “starvation mode.” Sometimes it’s a hormone or chemical imbalance that you need straightened out. Essentially, your body thinks that it needs to store fat instead of burning it for energy.Solution: Visit a doctor who runs medical weight loss programs designed for people with insulin resistance.
- Rushed Eating
Many medical experts suggest that it takes your brain about 20 minutes to register that your stomach is full. When you eat your food in a hurry, rather than taking the time to properly chew and break it down, it’s easy to eat more than your body really needs. This results in ingesting more calories than you really should and preventing you from losing weight. If you have a habit of rushed eating, it’s no surprise that you’d struggle to lose weight and keep it off.Solution: Count your chews. Make sure that you chew each bite 20 times before swallowing. By focusing on chewing, it naturally slows down your eating and helps your brain to register that your full before you overdo it.
- Sleep Deprivation
When you sleep, your body generates the hormones needed to convert your food into energy and burn fat. If you aren’t sleeping enough, your body doesn’t get a chance to develop those much needed hormones, and so your body doesn’t properly process the food you eat.
Solution: Make sleep a priority. We know this is simply impossible with some walks of life. However, at least try to develop good sleeping habits: start winding down at least two hours before bedtime, to get yourself in fat-burning sleep mode faster. Try to give yourself at least one day a week with no alarm, so your body can wake up naturally.
We want to hear from you! Do you know of any other roadblocks in the path to weight loss that we didn’t mention? Please share them below! References.