Why You Are Not Losing Weight!

Assuming you want to lose weight, this article explains the likely reasons why you are not losing weight.

For the large majority of people who do not have a serious medical condition, the following reasons are why:

1) You Do Not Count Calories

When I say count calories, I really mean estimate calories. To lose weight, it is a great idea to estimate the amount of calories you consume. This is because weight loss is all about Calories in vs Calories out.

However, it is very hard to know the exact calories one consumes throughout the day as labels are not exactly accurate and portion sizes can be hard to measure.

Thus, a good tip would be to measure the weight of your food with a weighing scale.

At least do these measurements at the start, it does not have to be forever. After a week or two, you will be able to estimate better.

If you do not estimate calories, but just follow a healthy diet, you may not lose the amount of weight you want.

Speaking from experience, I once tried to lose weight by changing my diet habits. I vowed to eat healthier foods. And so, instead of potato chips, I ate peanut butter bread (Healthy Fats!). Instead of ice cream, I ate frozen yoghurt.

I believed all was well!

Nope! Not a chance!

That didn’t work! You see, although I made healthier choices, the calories stayed more or less the same. Peanut butter is a high calorie dense food.

I loved it so much that I ate a good portion of it and thought that as long as something was healthy, it was fine to eat.

Next, I also ate more frozen yoghurt than my usual amount of ice cream thinking that it was okay as frozen yoghurt was healthy. And since the yoghurt portion size was bigger than the ice cream, the total calories were about the same!

And so, my eating habits changed but the total calories input stayed the same. My exercise routine did not change much, and so, TADA! Little to no fat was lost. Big Surprise??

For fat loss, a caloric deficit is a MUST!

2) You Forget That Caloric Requirements Changes As Your Body Changes

Another reason for weight loss not happening is that you forget that your body changes. What do I mean?

For example, if someone is 90kg and is able to lose weight on a 2500 calorie diet, that same someone might not be able to lose weight at 80kg and 2500 calories. A diet that worked at 90kg may not work at your new body weight as your weight moves.

We always have to adapt our diet to our body’s changes as time goes on.

Why is this the case? Simple. A body that is 90kg requires more energy to move compared to a 80kg body. And so, as your diet works – you slim down. Now you are at a lighter weight, say 80kg. Your body doesn’t need as much energy as at 90kg. Your body’s maintenance calories requirement is lower.

3) You Think Some Calories Do Not Count

You think you can have a cheat day and calories don’t count. You think that if you do intermittent fasting, you can eat as much as you want during the “Special” window and it doesn’t count.

If you do this, you are mistaken!

Those calories do count!

Something more insidious – you made a mistake in your diet and over ate and now you want to compensate OR you plan to eat more for a special occasion and so you want to compensate. So, you decide to do extra cardio.

You think that if you jog and burn off 300 calories, you can then eat 300 extra calories. Only logical right? WRONG!

You see, if you did nothing, maybe you would have burnt off 75 calories in that hour. But instead, since you jogged you burnt off 300 calories. Therefore, your exercise only yielded an extra 225 calorie burn.

Hence, your exercise of jogging did not compensate for the 300 extra calories you consumed. In this example, you have only compensated for 225 calories.

You have to calculate this correctly.

Most exercise apps/machines do not give you the amount of extra calories burnt compared to doing nothing. They simply give you total estimated calorie burnt.

Conclusion

Estimating caloric intake is an ESSENTIAL part of weight loss.

Fitness IQ+3!

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