Are you wondering why you’re not losing weight, when you’re doing everything that coaches and PT tell you to do? Are there any ungracious extra pounds that you’d like to get rid of but don’t know how? Here are seven reasons why you might not be losing weight, and it’s not about calorie deficits.
When The Ultimate Solution Does Not Work
For decades now, the people in the fitness and the medical industries have been teaching and preaching that in order to lose weight, you had to be in a calorie deficit, period.
The idea is that the calories that you eat and drink have to be inferior to the amount of calories that you burn via exercising, breathing, digesting, and all your bodily functions, etc. It’s a maths problem, solved easily by saying that to be in negative, you need to have more outgoings than ingoings.
While that idea can be a temporary solution, it has its limits, and maybe you’ll recognise yourself in one of the following scenarios.
But first I have to outline something that you need to remember: not all calories are created equal. An avocado is 100 calories, and so is that snack you bought that said “Only a 100 hundred calories!”. In case you’re not sure, the avocado is much better for you than this suspicious snack whose ingredients you can’t even pronounce.
In order for weight loss to be sustainable and long-term, you have to think holistically and take your whole body and soul into account. You’re not the equation of a maths problem, you are a complex human being who can be undergoing lots of stress, hormonal imbalances, inflammation, toxicity, etc.
Read on to see if any of the following apply to you, and what you can do about it.
Exploring Why You’re Not Losing Weight
1. You are under a lot of stress. When you’re stressed, whether it be work, or your life (even counting calories can be stressful!), your stress hormones are switched on. It will release sugar for energy so you can literally run away from your problem. But when the stress is permanent, that constant stream of sugar is doing you no good.
Try and find ways to manage your stress like meditation or yoga, with mindful breathing. This will calm your heart and bring peace to your nervous system. Do it regularly to reap the benefits.
2. You’re not eating enough. Maybe you’ve heard that you should limit your food intake in order to lose weight but if you do this over a long period of time, your body will switch to famine mode. When you’re in that state, your body is trying to stock up because it doesn’t know when the next meal is coming. Not only are you not losing weight, but you’re actually putting it on. So your efforts are doing the opposite of what you want them to do. Not fair, I know.
Make sure you’re getting the proper nutrients of healthy fats and proteins, with starchy and non-starchy carbs, and lots of leafy greens.
3. You exercise a lot. If you are spending a lot of time in the gym and want to see results, you might actually be building muscles – at least you’d expect that. And muscles are much heavier than fat so don’t be fooled by the number on the scale.
Look at the way your clothes fit instead and how much better you feel, and stop focusing on the scale.
4. You might have inflammation in your body. Inflammation can be due to a lot of things: you’re eating too much junk food that your body is not designed to digest and process; you’re not eating enough omega 3s; you could have a food intolerance or allergy that you haven’t yet detected; your immune system is too weak and can’t fight viruses and colds, injuries, etc. ; you’re eating too much sugar, gluten and dairy. The list could go on so I’ll stop here for now.
As much as possible try and eat fermented foods like kimchi, coconut or soy yoghurt (unflavoured), nuts and seeds, eat whole foods and make your meals at home or to take away.
5. Your toxicity levels are high. Your liver and kidneys are responsible for detoxifying your body naturally but when they get tired or used too much, damaged, they won’t do their job properly. Coffee and alcohol have a major and negative impact on the liver and kidneys if consumed too much. Regular medication can also impact the liver and kidney functions. And the simple fact of breathing, digesting, releasing energy for walking produce toxins, so your levels of toxicity are never at the zero mark.
Limit your coffee consumption to 1-2 cups a day, and alcohol only for occasional events. Check with your doctor if your medications have to be long term and if yes, work harder on your detox: eat cruciferous vegetables like leafy greens, cabbage, horseradish, drink dandelion tea, avoid fatty fish that store heavy metals easily (think salmon, mackerel, I know they’re delicious but info sourced correctly, they could impact you a lot).
6. You eat clean during the week but come the weekend you indulge too much. Let’s be honest, it’s hard. When you feel like you’re depriving yourself during the week because you want to “be good”, when the weekend arrives you think you deserve something. And that something turns into a bottle of wine in the evening, brunch plus a cake and a cocktail, a salad and then a takeaway for dinner. If you have been restricting yourself during the week, suddenly your body is receiving all this food and probably going crazy.
Focus on being more consistent and not restricting yourself. It’s not about restrictions, it’s about building sustainable habits.
7. You have an underactive thyroid. This happens when your thyroid does not produce enough hormones anymore, the ones that regulate the metabolism. There can be multiple reasons for it like the Hashimoto’s disease, another autoimmune condition like celiac disease, type 1 or 2 diabetes, rheumatoid arthritis, or lupus. The symptoms are usually, on top of gaining weight, feeling depressed and very tired, constipation, irregular periods, dry skin and brittle hair, constipation.
Consult with a doctor as soon as possible if you think you might be affected by this condition, it is treatable but you need to you need to know which changes in your lifestyle to operate in order to get better.
Build Healthy Habits, Not Restrictions
There are many reasons why you’re not losing the weight you want. I know it can be frustrating, I’ve been there myself. I used to exercise and restrict some foods, but I was terribly unhappy about it all. So from time to time I’d give it all up, until a new diet sparkled my interest. Spoiler alert, they always worked for about a week, and then I’d feel depressed and indulge as much as I could.
But over time, I’ve discovered that when I focused on my health instead and not my weight, life had so much more in store for me. I lost weight without even paying attention to it, I gained more clarity, more purpose in my life, I felt happy much more often.
Now I know I make conscious choices every day about what I eat, how I manage my stress with meditation, I journal every day to make sense of my emotions and my thoughts, and to plan my life and see how I can shape my dreams. And that has changed my life for the better.
If you want help in building sustainable habits and feel better and happier in your life, get in touch, let’s talk ! I give one-on-one sessions following a program I designed to make you reflect on your relationship with food, with your body, and build a plan to help you become the best version of yourself.
