7 reasons you’re not losing weight and how to fix them!
If you’ve changed your eating habits and gotten serious about your workouts, you probably expect to start seeing results. You show up daily to the gym, you get in your cardio, you prioritize healthy eating, but you’re not losing weight. And that’s because weight loss is WAY more complicated than calories in and calories out. Healthy eating and exercise alone are not enough for women to lose weight, gain muscle, and maintain their health.
Here are 7 reasons you may not be making progress:
You’ve been dieting too long.
This is the most common issue I see with my clients. You label foods as good or bad or cut out certain foods, and you’re constantly worrying about what you eat. You’ve found yourself in this mindset that if you work out really hard, do hours of cardio, and eat 1200 calories you MUST lose weight. But this just causes more issues and can actually make you put ON weight.
Your body adapts to what you feed it. If you’re eating 1200 calories (basically starving yourself) your body will start to store anything it can as fat to prepare for famine. Your metabolism will slow down making it very hard to burn calories throughout the day.
The fix?
Track your food for a day to see how much you’re actually eating. Your body needs a balance of nutrients: protein, carbs, and fat, to survive. Prioritize protein, and then find a ratio of the other two macronutrients that works best for your body. Make sure you’re eating enough food to actually grow muscle, heal your hormones and metabolism, and feel good every day.
You’re eating too many highly-processed foods
What you eat matters. Heavily processed foods often include unhealthy levels of added sugar, sodium, fat, and chemicals. These ingredients take a huge toll on your health and can lead to obesity, heart disease, cancer, and diabetes.
People tend to eat way more food when it’s processed. Think about how fast you can eat a bag of chips, compared to eating a salad and salmon. That bag of chips won’t fill you up because of the lack of nutrients, leaving you feeling hungry even after you eat 300 calories in chips. The salmon and salad dish may have the same amount of calories, but you end up feeling satisfied as it is a nutrient-dense meal packed with protein.
The fix?
Reach for whole foods and limit sugar and overly processed foods. Prioritize protein first, and then pick healthy carbs and fats. If you’re cooking food at home with whole, natural ingredients, you are taking the right steps. Always check the ingredients and nutritional values of packaged foods.
Your hormones are out of whack.
You feel like nothing is working. you’re overwhelmed, tired, have sugar cravings, and are stressed out.This is because most diets don’t work for women, as they fail to address the hormonal root causes that are the most common reasons for weight loss resistance, like excess cortisol, insulin and/or leptin blockage, estrogen dominance, a sluggish thyroid, or low testosterone.
High cortisol causes belly fat deposits, PMS, and a short fuse. If your leptin is blocked you’ll find yourself always hungry. If your thyroid is not functioning, you may be retaining water.
Weight loss resistance is nearly always hormonally based in women.
The fix?Get your hormone levels checked. Start redesigning your lifestyle and making sure you get enough nutrients. Work with a professional to find real solutions. Lower your stress levels and make sure you’re getting enough sleep. Then watch the magic happen!
You’re not eating enough protein
If you usually eat a smoothie or avocado toast for breakfast, you probably need to boost your protein intake. A protein-packed breakfast can help manage hunger, which will help you stay feeling full for longer so you don’t snack throughout the day.
Protein is important at lunch and dinner, too. If you’re eating salads or soups without any protein accompaniments — like a boiled egg, yogurt, beans, meat, poultry, or fish — it can lead to declining muscle tissue over time. You need muscle tissue growth to get stronger and to live a long, healthy life. Furthermore, without enough muscle tissue, your metabolism will start to slow down and make it harder for you to lose weight.
The fix?
Aim for 25 to 35 grams of protein per meal (a portion about the size of a smartphone). It’s common practice to aim for 1g of protein per 1lb of body weight in a day (140lb female would eat 140g of protein in a day). Keep in mind that you also have to consider how many carbs and fats you’re eating, and what works best for your body.
You’re not sleeping enough.
Think about the last time you were so tired from poor sleep. How did that day go for you? You were most likely reaching for endless coffees, and sugary foods to keep your energy up. You also may have eaten more than normal, AND missed a quality workout.
This is due to the fact that lack of sleep actually changes your appetite-regulating hormones. Ghrelin, the hunger hormone, increases when you don’t get a good sleep causing you to feel hungrier than normal. Lack of sleep also decreases Leptin, your fullness hormone, which makes it really hard to feel satisfied. This combination causes you to eat too much food, which leads to weight gain.
Lack of sleep also changes the types of food you crave. There is an increase in levels of the reward circuitry in your brain, so ice cream and cookies are more irresistible.
The fix?
You need at least 7.5 hours of sleep each and every night. Skip the afternoon caffeine pick-me-up so your body naturally starts to wind down. Turn off your phone 1-2 hours before bedtime, and try to set a chill mood instead. Stay consistent with getting into bed at a decent time, and avoid getting up earlier than you have to. With better sleep, you’ll be more efficient at getting work done during the day, so there is no need to get up extra early to be productive, as that will have a reverse reaction later on.
You’re exercising to lose weight.
If you have little to no motivation to move your body and have to drag yourself to the gym, you’re working out for the wrong reasons. Many women are working out just to lose weight, or look a certain way. They spend hours on cardio machines, and dread the idea of lifting weights, but force themselves to do so. Their mindset is just about what they can lose.
If this is you, you need to change your mindset.
There is so much to gain from daily movement. Working out makes you strong. Strength and muscle growth leads to a long and healthy life in a fully-functional body. Exercising produces endorphins, the feel-good hormone, and it should be something you look forward to.
The fix?
Find activities that you enjoy doing. If you hate cardio, don’t do it. Your body doesn’t need to be on the treadmill for an hour a day. Walking outside in nature with people you love is WAY better for your mind and body. Sign up for different exercise classes and try different styles of workouts to find out what you enjoy doing. Show up to the gym with excitement to grow muscle, improve your health, and feel good. You’ll get health benefits from as little as 15 minutes of exercise a day, and you don’t need to spend more than an hour to see real lasting results.
You’re stressed out.
Remember when I mentioned cortisol before? Cortisol is a stress hormone, and when it’s high it can lead to an increase in appetite, poor sleep quality, and make you crave the wrong foods. Just think about what you crave when you are stressed out.
And guess what? Restricting foods also ups your stress and cortisol levels, meaning you need to think about this as well. This is why I love reverse dieting so much (a topic I will dive into in a later post).
In short, high cortisol levels make it really hard for you to lose weight and feel good on a daily basis.
The fix?
Learn to manage your stress levels. Try things like journaling, meditation, yoga, daily movement, vitamin D and supplements to feel relaxed and at peace. You can also get your hormone levels checked so you can see where you’re actually at and whether you should be making some big lifestyle changes.
The last thing I want to leave you with is to have realistic expectations. All of the things I mentioned above are things that take time to learn about and to implement in your life.
Trying to lose 10lbs in 2 weeks is not going to happen. Losing weight is a patience game and you have to trust the process. Sometimes the number on the scale doesn’t change as you gain muscle and lose fat.
Make sure you work with a coach to discuss your goals and make a plan to achieve them in a healthy, sustainable way.
And if you’re ready to improve your health, losing weight in a healthy manner, and achieving your strength and performance goals, I am here to help!
Love Leah Marie
xo
