DIETING, EXERCISING, BUT NOT LOSING WEIGHT. HERE IS WHY.
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You may have tried several weight loss tips, recommendations, and programs, seen results at first but then come to a standstill. It’s more likely you hit a plateau in your weight loss journey. You are no longer losing weight no matter your efforts to eat healthily, exercise, and your walking routines. Wondering what's going on?
For a fact, weight loss goes beyond just exercise and diet. Several other factors affect weight loss. Some of which may include: your starting weight, gender, age, and genes among others. Therefore, before you give up your weight loss efforts, it’s better you first get to clearly understand what's hindering your weight loss efforts and how to go about gender
According to weight loss and obesity expert, Dr. Matthew Weiner, MD, bariatric surgeon at Tucson Bariatric, he recommends that one of the best ways to get to know how much weight you can lose easily with diet and exercise alone is about 10% of your starting body weight.
Therefore, if for example, your current weight is 100 pounds, you can expect to lose just about 10 pounds for the start with just exercise and diet alone. After this, your body tends to come to a standstill as it will tend to resist losing much more than that by preserving your day and energy stored. To lose more than 10%, other factors that are discussed below have to play a great role.
Even when the facts are like that, it is also known that young people can even lose 20% of their body weight with diet and exercise alone, while it can only be around 5-7% for older people especially for women after menopause. Also, men tend to lose w weight much faster than women. For example, a 10-pound range of weight lost by men in 1-3 months can take women to lose the same weight in 5-6 months.
Having cleared the air on some important physiological factors that play a huge role in weight loss, let's look at other factors and mistakes that are influencing your weight loss goals and how you can overcome them.
1. You are not getting enough sleep.
Having good quality sleep is one of the many factors that play role in your weight loss journey. Not only is sleep important for your weight but also important for your health and mental well-being.
Good sleep is anywhere between 7 to 9 hours of sleep. Getting too little or too much sleep is both bad for your weight since it can both lead to weight gain either way.
In one study done on 276 adults from the Quebec family over a period of 6 towards to determine the relationship between sleep duration and its effect on one's weight, it was found out that both short and long sleeping times presented a risk of weight and fat gain in adults. (2).
In another study done on 10 overweight none smoking adults over a14 day period, it was found out that lack of enough sleep compromised the efficacy of dietary interventions for weight loss (1)
A study at the North American Association for the study of obesity also found out that less than 4 hours per night of sleep led to a 73% chance of obesity when compared to the usual 7-9 hours of sleep.
Sleep affects the way your body secrets hormones such as Cortisol which is responsible for your appetite and in turn hunger. In this way, keeping awake for most of the time at night in a way triggers your body to release this hormone and therefore you are most likely to snack at night.
This in a way can lead to weight gain even when you are exercising regularly. Working in the night shift puts you at a greater disadvantage regarding weight loss. And then when it comes to alternating between night and day shifts, it becomes a nightmare to your weight loss efforts since there is a continued disruption to your sleep cycle.
You can try to tailor your work shift to be online with your weight loss goals by discussing it with your boss or employer.
In a 2019, 12 months study done on 2000 participants by the international journal of obesity, it was found out that those whose sleep patterns didn't vart much, were most successful in their weight loss efforts compared to those whose patterns varied greatly. And also in THIS STUDY sleep deprivation was greatly linked to an increased incidence of Obesity.
It's better to have a regular sleep pattern and also avoid certain stimulants like caffeine several hours before going to bed when you are trying to lose weight.
Not only does too little sleep affect your weight loss efforts directly but it can also affect you indirectly in many other ways; Sleep deprivation leads to low self-esteem and less willingness to stick to your routines. This means that you are most likely to make poor decisions when it comes to food.
In addition, staying awake for the most part of the night leads to this lazy feeling of not wanting to exercise the next day since the body feels weak since it hasn't got enough rest.
Other medical conditions like diabetes, obesity, cardiovascular diseases, depression, and mortality cream also creep on you if you are in a continuous state of sleep deficiency. (3)
Bottom line.
Sleep is one of the most important weight loss aspects that shouldn't be under looked when setting your weight loss goals. It is as influential as any other weight loss aspect.
2. You are not keeping track of what you eat.
Also, there is a saying that your body shape is a representation of what you put into it. It's in our nature to underestimate the caloric value of food. Remember that the rule of Calorie-in Vs Calorie-out plays an important role when it comes to weight loss.
In regard to the above, one study done on 1877 adults and 330 school-age children across 89 restaurants in New England and the US, it was found out that 95% of participants underestimated the caloric value of fast foods by almost 175 calories per serving. (5, 6)
Therefore, it is important not to judge the calories you consume by just your eyes. It’s vital to keep a record of what and how much you consume at least for a few weeks to get a clear understanding of the calories you consume and burn daily.
A food diary whether manual or online can be a great tool to help you achieve the weight loss success that you want.
Below are some useful tools that you can use to help you track your calories to easily reach a calorie deficit.
• My net Diary App weight loss, diet, and nutrition assistant app.
You can use some of the above free calorie tracking services or opt for paid services with detailed analytics of your eating behaviors or buy an affordable meal plan ebook for detailed guidance.
Baseline
Be aware of what you are eating. It will help you reach your weight loss goals much faster and will help you breakthrough that plateau that you have hit.
3. You are not having enough exercise.
Yeah, I know you might argue that you do cardio, walk every day and sometimes go to the gym but the scale seems to be stuck and you are no longer losing weight. Well, you should be aware that both the intensity and duration of exercise matter a lot in your weight loss efforts.
Specialists recommend 60-90 minutes of exercise daily if you are to see significant weight loss results. However, Mayo Clinic recommends 150 minutes of moderate aerobic activity and 75 minutes of vigorous activity (10).
But if you are involved in a vigorous exercise like a high-intensity workout, the duration could be further decreased to 30 minutes. In this Research it was found out that high intensity and high duration exercise produced significant weight loss results over low intensity and low duration exercises.
On the other hand, this isn’t a recommendation that you over-exercise as you will burn out easily since your body isn’t prepared enough for such a challenge. Walking a few miles a day is great in several different ways, it improves your heart rate and metabolism but does little when it comes to weight loss.
Many of us work on an 8hr day job where we spend most of the day sitting at the table. This leads to a redundant lifestyle that favors weight gain despite the little exercise done during the evenings to counteract the many hours spent seated. (11)
As a result weight loss is difficult to achieve even with the exercises done during the evenings and through a gym membership. However, your weight loss efforts may be futile even when you are doing enough exercise.
This is because your body tends to cope up and adapt to the exercise routine that you have set up. It is therefore important to challenge your body with new workout tasks to continue losing weight. For example, you can do strength training, go cycling, swimming, alternate between jogging and splinting, lift weights, get home gym equipment, and many others.
In one study done on 484 participants, it was found out that hours spent on work (job) impacted greatly on the weight loss efforts of the participants, participants that spent 60 hours per week or less lost more weight than those that worked for 90 or more hours per week. (12)
Conclusion.
If you have hit a plateau in your weight loss journey, do more cardio or change your exercise routine to challenge your body in order to continue losing weight.
4. Your diet has some issues to fix.
Let’s say you are eating less and you are mindful of your calories, but you are still wondering why you are no longer losing weight.
The problem may arise from several factors. Theses may include;
• Eating less but still making unhealthy food choices.
• Not eating enough plant-based protein.
• Eating too often.
• Having food addictions and binge eating.
• Cutting out whole food groups.
Now let’s look at each of these factors in detail and look at some ways you can fix them to get back on your weight loss journey with ease.
Eating less but still making unhealthy food choices.
Take for instance eating your lunch from a restaurant. You can easily track the calories delivered to you but won’t be able to get the right quality of the same. This is because many restaurants fry their foods with oils that aren’t good for your body especially when trying to lose weight.
Preparing your meals would be a great way of counteracting this issue. This way, you easily monitor the quality and quantity of food you eat. Or, another option would be opting for healthier lunches prepared using fewer oils and dressings even when you eat out.
Eating out is one of the many eating habits that hinder weight loss and promote obesity (13). Therefore, no matter how specific you are in tracking your calories, you won’t see significant weight loss results as long as you enjoy eating out.
You are not eating enough plant-based protein.
Protein is one of the most important nutrients for people trying to lose weight. In a study at the American Journal of Nutrition, it was found out that greater satiety, weight loss, fat mass loss, and/or the preservation of lean mass are often observed with increased protein consumption (19)
Protein on its own has numerous health benefits. It helps you build muscle, smoothens skin, and promotes healthy bones, and boosts metabolism. It’s better to eat more protein for breakfast. You can try to look at better and healthy ideas for breakfast either by looking at our previous articles on healthy breakfast, from some popular dietitians or on the internet.
Protein helps keep you full for most of the day thereby reducing the number of times you have to reach out to your plate. In this way, promotes weight loss. (14 , 15)
However, not all protein is good for weight loss. It is recommended that you cut back on animal protein like red meat and substitute it with plant-based protein like nuts. This is because animal fat tends to come along with the fat that will lead to weight gain and other health conditions such as cardiovascular problems and diabetes.
Plant-based proteins can easily be consumed without worrying about any side effects. I’ve tried to look for a study implicating plant proteins as causes of health problems but have failed. If you have ever come across one, you can drop it down in the comments section.
Last but not least, eating enough protein can help you not only lose weight but also keep it off for good. (19)
Baseline.
Protein helps your body build muscle and also provides many other health benefits. Cut back on animal-based protein and eat more plant-based protein. This can help revamp your weight loss efforts.
Eating too often.
I know you have stumbled upon information promoting eating many times a day as long as the food is in small portions. Yes, this has been indicated to provide some weight loss results. But research shows that eating fewer calories then followed by periods of fasting provides way much greater weight loss results compared to the latter.
This is because, in the fasting state, your body resorts to fat stores for energy production. This not only helps you lose weight but also helps you to lose fat with ease (16). However, the key to success with this plan lies in consistency. I myself have lost 10kgs over an 8monthsperiod with Intermittent fasting.
You can consult your doctor if you face difficulties in scheduling your intermittent fasting. You can also get a free ebook copy on how to lose weight through intermittent fasting. Just subscribe to this blog and you will have the book delivered to your inbox in just a few minutes.
Food Addictions and binge eating.
Food addiction is yet another hindrance to weight loss. You may find that you have developed strange food cravings and you are struggling with this issue and it’s disrupting your weight loss program and exercises.
Food addiction not only leads to weight gain but also binge eating. Binge eating on its own is a risk factor for obesity. If you are unable to control your food addictions, you may end up adding more weight than you are trying to lose.
Food, especially sweet foods may have similar effects on the brain’s pleasure centers of feel-good centers and lead to the release of dopamine neurotransmitters when you eat a specific kind of food, just like cocaine does. With the continued release of these neurotransmitters with a specific kind of food, more urge to eat that specific food develops over time which leads to addiction.
How do you know that you are getting addicted to a certain food? Here, you usually tend to feel the need to eat that food even when you are not hungry. You feel like you can’t perform anything without taking it. Or sometimes you feel like you want to eat whenever you see that kind of food that you are addicted to.
Many people deal with this issue unknowingly. However, for some, they are already aware of their food addiction but have failed on controlling it.
Below are some tips you can use to break free from food addictions.
• Therapeutic fasting: This helps reboot your brain (the way you could reboot a hard drive). Yes, periods of water only will help your body to reduce cravings for certain trigger foods. You can do this over a period of one month while going for healthier food choices after fasting.
• Taking a break: Just take a break off your trigger foods. As in, cut them completely off rather than eating them in moderation. If you can cut off your trigger food from your diet for at least 3 weeks, your cravings will diminish greatly and you may end up leaving it for good.
• Don’t worry about the withdrawal symptoms: Unlike other addictions, food isn’t one of those that cause withdrawal symptoms. Cutting off sugar won’t cause withdrawal symptoms the way cutting off alcohol would.
Yes, at some point you may experience a setback in your efforts but that doesn’t mean you just give up. Just try as much as possible to put away any trigger foods for some time and don’t worry about the withdrawal symptoms.
Read more on how you can overcome food addictions. CLICK HERE.
Now let’s look at binge eating in much detail. Binge eating is when one develops uncontrollable episodes of eating large quantities of food with no much time between a meal and another.
Binge eating leads to a disorder called Binge Eating Disorder. You will know that you have this disorder when you start having a certain strong urge to eat large quantities of food even when you are not feeling hungry, and this urge to eat is somehow beyond your control. (21)
Binge eating disorder is one of the major causes of overweight and obesity(22). Even when the binge eating burden can seem uncontrollable, there are some strategies which when used correctly can help you overcome this challenge as shown below;
Steps to overcome binge eating.
• Look back and monitor: What do I mean, take a step back to observe critically what is triggering your binge eating behavior. This is the only sure way you will tackle the problem from its grassroots.
It’s advisable that you get a pen and paper and start recording some of these details. Record details like the time and date, where were you, what did you eat or drink, did you consider it as a binge or?, how were you feeling at that time (were you hungry or).
And record any other details that you think can help you better understand your eating behavior. Once you understand those little details, it’s much easier to regain control over your eating behaviors.
• Don’t skip meals: Yes, the most mistake people do when trying to lose weight is to skip meals. Unless it is medically approved fasting, never skip your meals.
Skipping your meals will let you feel hungry easily and force your body to develop cravings, the end result might be binge eating.
Eating 3 times a day is one way to combat binge eating with ease. Don’t skip breakfast. Instead chose better and healthier breakfast choices. Eating breakfast will help you stay full for most of the day and will help prevent the snacking tendency.
Also, planning your meals will help you better gain control of what, when, and where you eat from.
• Handle your food anxieties: Are you relying upon avoid lists? That’s one of the causes of binge eating. Take the example of Chocolate. If you love it but due to a certain condition, you have to stop eating it, you will eventually feel that strong urge whenever you see it.
Instead of relying on such avoid lists, it’s better to look for ways on how to eat small and considerate portions of your tasty foods. Moreover, no single food on its own causes considerate weight gain.
• Accept and Meditate: Have you tried meditation before? Meditation can be one of the ways that could help you overcome your bad habits. Recent evidence shows that mindful training has proven effective in overcoming overeating disorders (23)
Getting back to the point, food addictions and binge eating will hinder your weight loss efforts even when what you are eating is healthy. This is because both of these habits will lead to eating a lot of calories that won’t be utilized by the body.
No matter how hard you try to exercise and also limit other factors, if you have unresolved food addictions, it will be hard for you to get significant weight loss results.
Cutting out whole food groups
Whole foods are vital to the body and overall well-being. Quality Vs quantity is the main point here. Your body needs Macronutrients as well as micronutrients to function properly. Cutting any of them out from your diet may lead to malnutrition which is also a serious medical condition.
It’s not wise to go for a diet that tells you to cut out completely Carbohydrates, proteins, or fats from your diet. These are as important as Vitamins, minerals, fiber, and antioxidants. Your body needs all of these to function properly.
The main issue should be on their regulation rather than cutting them out completely. It’s advisable to go for organic unprocessed foods since they provide the right nutrients and calories in an unchanged way.
You can consider starting with medium proportions and later reduce them gradually depending on your weight loss goals. For example, the ideal would be starting with 50% Carbs, 30% Protein, and 20% fats.
For fats, you can look at healthier options like avocado, omega 3, and some plant-based oils. Though you should aim at using as little fat as possible.
The whole idea of whole foods rotates on eating as much organic food ( in smaller portions ) as possible and then reduce the refined foods as much as you can. This is because many refined foods have more calories and less nutritional value.(21)
Therefore, cutting out whole food groups will do more harm than good. Look for a way to manage your portions rather than cutting them out at once.
5. Your weight loss goals are Unrealistic.
Let’s be honest here. We all know that gaining weight is a process. Then how do you expect to lose the weight you gained over 1-3 years just in one month? Actually, before you freak out and complain that your scale seems stuck, and change your diet thinking that it hasn’t worked for you, try to look at the bigger picture.
Are your weight loss goals realistic? Are they simple and achievable? If your sincere answer is yes, then don’t worry, you will achieve them. But if your answer is no, try to revise and suit them to your weight loss efforts.
Weight loss should be a journey, not a marathon. Otherwise, you will just lose the weight in a few weeks only to regain it back in a few months or years. If you can understand this, you will refocus your goals to suit your perfect body shape over time.
What’s better. Losing many pounds in 1 or 2 months but then regain them or even more in the next few months OR sliming down healthfully over time and then keep off the weight permanently?
Many of us look at opting for weight loss as a quick fix to being overweight. We forget that being overweight is a long-term problem that should be dealt with in the long term. Many people that have lost weight and kept it off for good have achieved it in the long term rather than the short term.
If you feel it’s becoming harder for you to easily set up simple and achievable weight loss goals, talk to your doctor about some of the reasons you feel you want to cut weight. You will be guided on how you could lose it with ease and less frustration.
6. An Underlying Medical Condition.
To lose weight, there are many factors involved, some of which we may or may not control. For example, you might be able to control your body’s activity level, diet, and other behavioral modifications. But, it’s much harder to control one’s genes, gender, and hormonal (20) activity of the body.
Any variation of the hard-to-control factors of the body may make it much harder to see any results in regard to weight loss even when all other factors like diet and exercise are in check.
Hormonal problems like hypothyroidism and some diseases like diabetes, hypertension, and polycystic ovary syndrome can easily hinder your weight loss journey. Not forgetting any other disease that limits your ability to move and or exercise.
So, if you are in a category of people that know that you have modified your diet and exercise to best suit your weight loss goals but you see that there is no progress being registered even after months, it’s time you visit your doctor to rule out any medical condition that may be preventing you from losing weight.
Not forgetting, some medications promote weight gain. For example, medications used in the treatment of stress and depression, anticonvulsants, and corticosteroids are some of the many medications that promote weight gain.
Therefore it also becomes much harder to lose weight on some of those medications. Make sure to check with your doctor for more professional advice.
Even some injuries may be due to accidents may also hinder weight loss since they decrease someone’s ability to move and exercise.
Depression and stress can also be discussed under the medical conditions that hinder weight loss. Have you heard of stress eating before? It’s a real thing. This is where one is triggered to eat uncontrollably due to a stressor.
When you are stressed, you tend not to mind calorie counting and exercises. This is because, during that period, you tend to have low self-esteem. The result will be weight gain and the inability to lose weight no matter how you try.
Depression on the other hand goes a long way than just stress. Stress can be short-lived but depression can persist for months or even years. It has been studied that mild depression tends to make people eat more, a reason it’s harder to lose weight when depressed.
Consult your doctor on how to control your stress levels, avoid stressors and get a personal trainer to help you through the journey. This Fitness Coach will help you pass through your ‘very low’ times and help you achieve your weight loss goals with ease.
7. Drinking too much alcohol, sugary drinks, and less water.
Okay, coming back to the concept of calories, it's for a fact that alcohol and Sugary drinks are loaded with calories. More so, your body doesn’t compensate for such calories in drinks and beverages.
If you are trying to lose weight, alcohol and Sugary drinks should be a no-go zone. But if all comes to the worst, you should stick to a few calorie-free drinks. And these should also be taken in very minimal quantities.
Alcohol alone has been well known for promoting weight gain. A few bottles (2 or 3) daily can be enough to restrain your weight loss efforts. Also, alcohol will interfere with your judgment especially when it comes to food. You are more likely to eat more when ‘drunk’ since your judgment in relation to calories will be crowded.
A bottle of soda contains too many calories and won’t promote that feeling of fullness. Hence, when you take a soda, you will be just adding to the calories in the food. You’ll find that at the end of the day, you have taken too many calories than you expected.
Let’s talk about water. I know you’ve ever had this saying that ‘water is life’. Water helps nourish your body, helps remove antioxidants, and also promotes the satiety feeling.
You are more likely to eat less when you fill up with a glass of water. Over the years, research has been conducted to assess the relationship between drinking water and weight loss. Many results have indicated that drinking water plays a big role in weight loss.
8. Old age is knocking.
As we grow old, it’s harder to shed even 10 pounds off our weight. It even becomes much harder in women that have already reached menopause. This is because their body is no longer producing some hormones that are important in weight regulation.
This doesn’t mean that old people don’t lose weight either. Weight loss can still be achieved even at old age. All that is needed is to look at exercises that target building muscle mass and also look for ways to boost your metabolism.
You can boost your basal metabolic rates by taking some organic dietary supplements and lose more weight and fat easily.
Some weight loss supplements that have been shown to boost Metabolism and cause weight loss include some of he listed below.
1. Meticore.
Meticore is completely plant-based and manufactured in an FDA-approved plant.
It guarantees success and there have been many positive customer reviews about the same. They provide 60 days money-back guarantee and so on. You can get Meticore weight loss pills at a discount from their official website Meticore.com
2. Okinawa Flat belly tonic.
This is a leading weight loss drink. It boosts digestion, and improves fat burning properties of the body.
Okinawa flat belly tonic supplement uses a potent dose of plant-based herbal extracts, probiotics, polyphenols, vitamins, and minerals to target belly fat
You just get a spoonful of this tonic powder and mix in your water or shake and drink. Okinawa flat belly tonic comes with; a 21 days flat belly manual (ebook), Okinawa flat belly tonic drinks ( herbal drink recipes that you can prepare at home to lower the C relative protein ), quick start nutrition plan, 100 flat belly recipes for a flat belly.
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3. Biofit.
4. Resurge.
Apart from boosting your metabolism, you can also focus on strength training and any other High Intensive Training Programs that focus on building muscle mass. Also, try to reach to a personal trainer to tailor an exercise routine that best suits your age and weight loss goals.
9. You might be too focused on the scale.
You might find that all your focus is on the changes made on the scale. For some people, it takes much time to notice a substantial decrease in their weight. This doesn’t mean that they are not losing. Actually, you might be losing without noticing it.
It’s better to not only depend on the measurements of the scale but also to take note of small changes. For example, look at your clothing, you might find that you have slowly started fitting into some of the clothes that you had earlier kept as non-fitting. That shows progress.
Also, you might have lost some fat in some of your body parts like the waist, but you are too focused on the scale to see that small change. It’s better to also consider other measurements for the lost weight other than readings on the scale.
10. You are rewarding yourself with treats.
For some, after an intensive and tiring exercise routine, they get a treat. To me, that’s no work done. As in, why do you lose calories to later top up on the lost calories? It makes no sense.
Some take weekends off and chill. It’s better to continue your routines be it for diet or exercise. Though, you could eat your favorite food in a controlled manner and also go for less energy-consuming exercises like simple aerobics on weekends.
But if you want to continue losing pounds day in day out, take control of your diet and exercise even on weekends. Stop rewarding yourself with food after exercises.
Instead, you could decide to enjoy other fun activities like camping, swimming, cycling and any other activity that interests you. In this way, you are still rewarding yourself for an achievement you obtained but also keeping track of your routine.
Final Remarks.
The weight loss journey has factors that we can control and others are beyond our control. Before you blame your weight loss program and jump onto another, take your time to look at other factors that may be hindering your weight loss efforts.
It’s time to say bye,
A lot has been talked about in this article. Let me know if I have left behind any important consideration.
Which strategy are you going to try first?
Let me know in the comment section.
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