It’s easy to get stuck.
Whether it comes to strength, muscle gain, or weight loss it’s easy to hit plateaus and not make any more progress. Today on the podcast I’m looking at the issue of weight loss and 3 reasons you may not be losing weight. You may be doing everything correctly or have been making good progress but all of a sudden it stops. What do you do and what are the next steps when you find yourself in this situation.
I’m glad you asked so let’s curl up by the virtual fireplace and get our podcast on…
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In This Episode On 3 Reasons You May Not Be Losing Weight You Will Learn:
- Why getting started can be the most overwhelming part
- Identifying things that may be sabotaging your results
- Why it’s important to eat in order to lose weight
- The misconception about having to eat less
- Why your body craves balance
- How sleep may be affecting your weight loss
- The issue with stress hormone and cortisol
- How stress makes you gain weight and how to manage it
- Tips for better sleep and ways to lower stress
Three Reasons You May Not Be Losing Weight
Many people think that working out is enough.You may have even made good progress but after some time it stalls. You reach a plateau, even though you have been following your workout routinely, after a while, you seem to gain a little or stop losing weight altogether. So, in this article, we will be looking at three things which may be obstacles in helping you lose weight.
Deciding to get healthy is the biggest hurdle to overcome. The mindset change is the most important and overwhelming decision you take for yourself. You may want to try out new food, have a balanced diet, and also keep a fit body. When things do not go right you start feeling defeated. You may not know where to start and there is a lot of information and knowledge on how to lose weight. You just need to do your research properly.
Firstly, you need to find out the factors preventing you from obtaining that fit life. You need to get rid of all the things that will sabotage your ability to lose weight and get healthy. Study about it, identify those factors, or you may also be one of those people trying for years and years, training, exercising to lose weight but somewhere within that time, you might have lost motivation. Somewhere along the line, it got away. Try to notice these signs and get back on track.
There are three reasons why you may not be losing weight. These reasons may be trivial and may go unnoticed by many of you, but they are very essential in maintaining proper health and weight.
A Decrease In Metabolism Prevents Weight Loss
The first reason is perhaps the biggest misconceptions in the history of weight loss. It may seem simple that if someone eats less, he or she will automatically lose weight. But this is not the case. Your body treats you differently for reducing food intake and cutting on calories.
The human body needs to be in a constant state of balance. If you recall what they taught in Biology in high school about homeostasis. It told us that the body needs to regulate itself. For example, when your body gets cold, it starts shivering to get warm, when the body gets tired it tries to sleep.
When it has ingested sugar, the blood sugar level rises and the body tries to balance it. Blood pH is always regulated. If the equilibrium goes acidic or alkaline, the body system tries to balance it and bring it back to neutral. It’s the same thing with food.
When you reduce food intake your body compensates by slowing down your metabolism. When your body is deprived of food, it tries to adjust to its original level by conserving the little amount of energy it has. Since fewer calories are being consumed, the body conserves that amount of energy converting it into fat thus, causing you to gain weight.
The fat in your body is a reservoir for backup energy sources since your body does not know when the next meal will come. putting your body to halt. Any weight loss is a long process. If the body doesn’t get food it thinks it’s in some sort of a trauma. Unless you are aiming for death, your body will resist using its energy.
The Body Needs A Balanced Diet
The exercises, cardio sessions, or weight lifting, all these heavy-duty work without sufficient food slows down the body’s metabolism. So, when a large amount of food is consumed after all the calorie deprivation, your body will be gaining extra weight. As you are on a diet for too long, your body will make you think you need food, so either you will opt for a cheat day or simply overeat.
So, then your body is going to convert whatever you eat into body fat and hold onto that food. This is how a body gains extra weight. So, you need to keep your body constantly fed. Not depriving it of food or cutting down too much of calorie intake.
You need energy for doing heavy exercise, swimming, or hitting the gym. So, eat food with high nutrition for your body to feel better. Sweet potatoes, brown bread are good examples. As they act as fuel and replenishment sources. The rest of the day try having protein and non-starchy vegetables, seeds, healthy fat like avocado, olive oil, or coconut oil.
These are not just nutrients or health-conscious food, but the food which keeps your body full. The 4 things which promote fullness in the body are water, protein, healthy fat, and fiber. These take a while to digest but keeps you full, and doesn’t build up fat.
Lack Of Sleep Is A Problem
People often boast about how they can function on a little amount of sleep. But sadly, this puts weight loss to a stop. A body’s hormonal regulation is disrupted by lack of sleep. Hormones control all metabolic activity. Hormones, especially cortisol which is a stress hormone plays a major role.
Imbalances in cortisol levels can cause damages. Cortisol is a fight or flight hormone, a small amount of it manages to keep the body in good condition. If cortisol is secreted too much by staying awake for long hours can cause damage. 6 to 8 hours of sleep is essential for the human body. If someone sleeps less than 4-5 hours the body starts taking external stress. Unbalanced levels of cortisol and other stress hormones can disrupt weight loss severely.
Factors Which Help You Sleep Better
6-8 hours of sleep is recommended for people who want to lose weight. Sleeping helps to lower cortisol levels and improve metabolism. Sleep needs to be consistent every night. Try not to sleep for 12 hours a day and 4 hours for the following two days. This would put the same stress on your body. Sleep experts suggest that the wind-down routine is the best way to try to get consistent sleep every night.
The wind-down routine is for the body to get accustomed to the shutdown process every day. It helps to keep your body consistent and reminds the body clock that sleep time is near. Staying away from alcohol and caffeine helps sleep. Alcohol causes a person to pass out, but doesn’t help with deep sleep. Tv and electronics act as an over-stimulator and prevent sleep. Blue lights and screens naturally disrupt the body’s melatonin levels and even causes to decrease its secretion. So, if you are having problems with sleep taking melatonin supplements helps too. Darkness helps to elevate melatonin levels which in turn improves the circadian rhythm, controls the biological clock, and maintains your wind-down routine, and helps you get deep sleep.
Chronic Stress
Stress can be of many types of real stress or perceived stress, but both involve the hormone cortisol. Real stress means stress which is gained after environmental disasters or traumas. The human body is first hand seeing and feeling that stress and reacting to it. Perceived stress is the once which we face emotionally or mentally, from work issues or others. Almost all adults suffer from stress in their everyday lives. But chronic stress is damaging. It can result in a stroke, hypertension, diabetes, anxiety, bowel syndrome, insomnia, depression, or obesity. Stress causes an increase in cortisol levels in the blood, which in turn causes you to crave sugar. This results in the addition of extra fat in the body. Obesity soon follows stress. It is a secondary disease that follows heart diseases, diabetes, and other stress-induced illnesses.
Tips To Reduce Stress
Reducing stress is not only important for having a proper waist-line but also for your entire health. However, stress cannot be gotten rid of forever, but you can always try to lessen it. Reducing stress can prevent all these stress-induced diseases and help you lose weight better.
- A consistent amount of sleep helps to fight against stress. Exercise too prevents stress hormones from building up. Endorphins and other feel-good hormones that are released after exercise help you to relax and prevent stress.
- People who do yoga have less amount of stress build up. Yoga is a good practice and healthy exercise for both the body and mind. Yoga is highly recommended for people who feel their stress is getting overwhelming and needs attention. Yoga would be a great solution to them.
- Eating whole food and carrying out a proper diet is also essential for reducing stress. On the other hand, junk food can increase stress and fat storage in the body. Protein, water, and fibers and food with little sugar are highly encouraged.
- Meditation brings peace to the mind, the same as yoga. Athletes and high-performing people carry out meditation as it calms the body. Meditation basically blocks our conscious thoughts. It helps to improve breathing and blood circulation. Most people that are shallow breathers, meditation helps these people breathe deeply and oxygenates most of the blood cells.
- Working out at the gym is also a sort of meditation. People focus more on carrying out the exercise rather than thinking about the bills they have to pay and otherworldly affairs. This helps concentrate on a particular task rather than letting the mind drift elsewhere.
- Psychologists and psychiatrists suggest that the best way to control stress is by recognizing what you are able to control and what you cannot.
Conclusion
There are many other reasons which may prevent you from losing weight. But eating the proper amount of food, sleeping well, and reducing stress can immensely increase the cases of losing weight properly. Working on these three main reasons can help you overcome your problems.
Resources Mentioned In This Episode:
- Episode #127: 5 Ways To Get Better Sleep
- Get my free eBook: The Healthy Eating Starter Kit
- Online health & nutrition coaching with me!: regainedwellness.com/coaching
- My Amazon #1 book: Taking Back Your Health