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You do your best – exercise actively and eat right – and yet somehow your weight stays the same, or worse, even increases. With what it can be connected? Why hard work on yourself does not bring results and you cannot lose weight? There are quite a few reasons why people do not lose weight, even if they exercise and eat right. Do not worry. Perhaps you will understand that some of them concern you and can find a way out of this vicious circle.
Why do we gain weight
A year ago, you could eat charlotte at night without consequences for your figure and polish the dessert with sweet soda, and today it seems that the waist increases from looking at fried potatoes. What happened? Why are the arrows of the scales slowly but surely creeping up? Why is it difficult to lose weight?
Violation of the hormonal background
Hormones control the female body like the conductor of an orchestra. The conductor’s “mood”, or rather the “behavior” of estrogen and progesterone (female sex hormones), we feel in full – from sudden mood swings to dramatic changes in taste preferences and appetite.
The first hormonal “burst” occurs during puberty. The second is associated with pregnancy (up to 4 months of pregnancy, the production of progesterone and estrogen increases). The third stage of hormonal changes awaits in the period of premenopause and menopause (the ovaries produce an insufficient amount of hormones, so fat in the abdomen and thighs can “stay” at an incredible speed).
Metabolic slowdown
To the question: “Why can’t you lose weight?” you can often hear the answer: “It’s a matter of metabolism.” It is known that every 10 years metabolic processes slow down by almost 10%. The point is a decrease in the amount of muscle mass with age, an inactive lifestyle, a decrease in the quality of the diet.
Use of hormonal contraceptives
Changes in eating behavior (decreased appetite, increased appetite) is a possible side effect of hormonal drugs designed to prevent pregnancy.
Yes, in modern contraceptive hormonal drugs, the level of estrogen is two times lower than in the “first generation” drugs, but it is impossible to completely exclude their influence on carbohydrate metabolism. Often, women who use oral contraceptives are advised by experts to monitor their appetite more closely and maintain a balance between the intake of calories and their expenditure.
Long-term use of “serious” drugs
It is no secret that long-term treatment based on taking antibiotics and immunomodulatory drugs can negatively affect the functioning of enzymes that promote the breakdown and normal absorption of food. In addition to such unpleasant symptoms as flatulence, diarrhea, constipation, fermentopathy directly or indirectly provokes excess weight gain.
The habit of eating on the run and “whatever”
What could be easier, faster and more convenient than a sausage sandwich breakfast? Of course, bread and ham. You will have to cook porridge for 20 minutes, and you will eat a sandwich on the way from the apartment to the parking lot. Indeed, such a start to the day promises you at least 10-15 extra minutes, but will such a menu be useful? Another marshmallow in chocolate appears in the mouth “absolutely imperceptibly”. But after a couple of weeks of such snacks, it becomes clear that your favorite skirt has become tight at the waist.
Why can’t you lose weight
“I want to lose weight, but I can’t. What to do?” – Perhaps this is the most frequent question on the Internet. Indeed, sometimes desire, iron willpower, and certain actions on the way to a dream figure are not enough to say goodbye to the hated kilograms. Why is it difficult to lose weight?
Top 5 mistakes that prevent you from getting thinner
- We are constantly under stress
Our body’s relationship with stress is very distinctive. Stress triggers the production of cortisol, a hormone that breaks down muscles, lowers insulin resistance, and promotes fat storage.
Stress is a useful response to human survival in emergencies, but today such emergencies are extremely rare. However, we suffer from daily, sluggish, exhausting stress – waiting in traffic jams, excessive physical activity, worries about work, children, nagging bosses, etc. This means that your body is constantly under stress. It constantly produces cortisol, causing the body to store fat as it thinks it will need fat in the future.
If you train intensely, it may be time to replace some of your loads with yoga (but not intense but barbell yoga, but something more peaceful and preferably in combination with meditation – for example, kundalini yoga, Iyengar yoga, qigong), add to a daily schedule of walking in nature (at least cover the distance from the metro to your home not by tram, but on foot) and look for ways to eliminate stress from your life. Not only do you need this to lose weight, but also to reap all the other benefits of a stress-free life.
- You are not eating as well as you think.
You may be buying groceries from health food stores, the organic section of a supermarket, or a farmer’s market. But if it’s mostly diet sodas, low fat, “organic” chips and sweets, bread and pasta, your diet is full of mindless fast carbs. You are helping yourself to relieve your guilt by purchasing these from a healthier store, but let’s be honest: these foods are not real food.
I recommend eating a whole food diet: veggies, fruits, grains, legumes, fish (as always, I recommend my mobile recipe app for inspiration). If you eat meat, then it should not be industrially processed (that is, not dumplings, minced meat, cutlets), but cooked by you at home from a whole piece of meat, preferably the best quality available …
- You eat too little
A simple rule of thumb for losing weight is to eat fewer calories and exercise more. However, this is not always so easy, because the body is much more complex. It is a smart, lively, breathing, adaptable creature that understands that it is “starved” when you excessively reduce the number of calories consumed. And while you may think that the less you eat, the faster you will lose weight, this theory may work against you. Your body will respond to less food by making you feel hungry, and it will adjust to it by lowering energy expenditure so you feel less hungry.
- You don’t get enough sleep
Remember the anecdote, when the doctor’s question is whether you get enough sleep, the patient answers – where do I get enough sleep? So, lack of sleep is stress for the body. Astress triggers the production of cortisol, which promotes fat storage. Chronic sleep deprivation can also trigger the release of cortisol, which we know causes the body to store fat instead of burning it. Another reason why you just need to get enough sleep (for some, this means sleeping 7-8 hours a day) is that most of the work of burning fat actually occurs during the deep sleep phase! So if you don’t get enough sleep, you are missing out on a great opportunity to lose weight.
- You avoid fat
For a long time we were told that fat is the enemy. Therefore, it is very difficult to go against everyone and start eating fat, especially when the media, doctors, “experts”, friends and family are convinced that fat will destroy us. However, there has long been a mass of scientific evidence that the right fats do not kill us and do not act, contrary to belief, the cause of cardiovascular and a host of other diseases.
their carbohydrate and fat content, all your weight loss efforts are in vain. Good fats, such as those found in avocados, coconut oil, nuts, vegetable oils, and more, not only provide you the much-needed energy on a low-carb diet, but they also help you lose weight!
Top 5 Reasons Why Diets Fail
Every second woman asks herself: “Why can’t I lose weight on a diet? What am I doing wrong? It turns out that these “not so” are abound.
- You choose the diet yourself
The diagnosis “practically healthy”, which doctors give to most of us, implies the presence of some contraindications. However, not everyone, having made the decision to start a new life on a fashionable diet, goes to the doctor to pass all the necessary tests and check how safe a particular method is for him.
If you choose your own nutritional system, do not be surprised that soon you will be interested in why diet does not help you lose weight. And that will be the lesser evil. A bigger problem can be the negative consequences that your body experienced after testing an illiterately selected nutritional system.
- You blindly try to achieve illusory ideals
Of course, it’s great if you can easily button up jeans purchased 15 years ago. But, if you face the truth, such cases are rather the exception. There is such a thing as a healthy weight – the weight at which the body feels as comfortable as possible. It’s about the comfort of the body. In this case, dreams of a waist like Bella Hadidego don’t care at all.
The famous French nutritionist Pierre Dukan urged to always and in everything take into account the “opinion” of the body. The expert assured that almost everyone can achieve any desired figure. But, having lost weight with a height of 180 cm to 50 kg, the body will try in every possible way to “recoup” and give SOS signals (dizziness, menstrual irregularities, a sharp deterioration in the quality of hair and nails, etc.). It is impossible to maintain weight in this mode for a long time, and it is shortsighted, because the body can not only return to its healthy weight, but also, against the background of stress, “please” with additional reserves in the form of extra pounds.
- You only monitor the calorie content of foods
It seems to you that maintaining the balance of calorie content in food is the very proper nutrition that everyone is talking about. However, you constantly wonder why you can’t lose weight with proper nutrition.
Scientists have long proven that blind and meticulous calorie counting and safe weight loss are not synonymous.
The recommendation to consume 1200 kcal per day can be perceived in different ways. Someone will try to keep the balance of protein, fat and carbohydrates on their plate. And someone will prefer to follow the prescription, choosing as a daily diet a couple of chocolate bars with nuts and nougat (their calorie content will be close to 1200 kcal).
- You feel hungry all the time
Think back to those moments when you were desperate to cope with the urge to sleep while drinking your fifth espresso, or the feeling of thirst after eating tom yam. As practice shows, in the fight against physiological needs, you will not be the winner. The same thing happens when a person is in the grip of hunger. Experiencing an acute need for food (glucose, vitamins, nutrients), the brain begins to work in such a way that at this moment a person cannot think of anything else except how to urgently satisfy his need. We will not even talk about bad mood, irritability and loss of strength.
This is one of the reasons why you cannot lose weight in any way. By seriously limiting yourself in food (and, in most cases, doing this on the basis of your own choice, and not on the instructions of a specialist), you risk dooming yourself to a constant feeling of hunger. This means that there is an almost one hundred percent risk of falling out.
- You see diet as a panacea
Now I will suffer, and an amazing result is guaranteed – every second girl who decides to lose weight thinks. Probably, with strict adherence to the dietary prescriptions, with a significant reduction in the calorie content of the daily diet, with the rejection of fast carbohydrates, you will quickly reach the cherished ideal. But can you keep the result? Hardly.
Typically, power systems developed by specialists consist of several stages. They take into account the need to achieve the desired performance, the period of “consolidation” of results, and the importance of maintaining the optimal weight for a long time (often stretched for a long time). Are you ready to admit that diet is a way of life?
Looking for the right approach
Yes, exactly the approach. Why can’t women lose weight? They use “solo” methods as their main tactics. However, as we have already found out, even the most severe mono-diet cannot cope with extra pounds alone, and even more so in such ways it will be impossible to keep the desired weight. What needs to be done to get the weight off the ground?
Contact the specialists
If you are unable to attend a qualified expert consultation, make an appointment online. Many doctors, as well as authors of methods, have special services where, in real time, losing weight can consult a doctor with any questions and track their progress. This kind of “online weight loss” is usually much cheaper than a doctor’s appointment at a prosperous clinic.
If you decide to lose weight on your own, thoroughly study the nutrition system by which you decided to lose weight. The main thing is to draw an adequate parallel between the chosen diet and your well-being.
Having problems with the gastrointestinal tract, you should not choose a menu where there are sour fruits and vegetables, or those foods that provoke the occurrence of flatulence and other unpleasant symptoms. For people suffering from kidney disease, it is better to refrain from diets based on proteins (especially if they are proteins of animal origin).
Play sports wisely
Often, even those people who regularly go to a fitness club are often faced with the fact that they cannot lose weight while playing sports. What to do – trainers know and the latest technologies that allow you to choose the right and adequate load for a person, at which the hated fat will be burned. With the help of fitness testing (this is an ECG under stress), the expert will be able to determine your level of physical fitness, find out the framework of effective work in the heart rate, and select the degree of training intensity. By the way, in many fitness clubs, when buying a subscription, such consultation is free of charge.
Set goals and reward any victory
Keep a diary where you will write down your daily diet and set goals for the future. Not “I want the internal muscles of the thigh to get stronger, and the arms to become prominent”, but “after 10 workouts, stand in the bar for 1,5 minutes, and in 60 seconds 150 jump the rope”. If you reach your goal, reward yourself with something that gives you pleasure – new leggings, a massage session. If the goal remains a dream, keep working.
Don’t ignore sports gadgets and smartphone apps
They can not only keep track of the number of steps taken and the heart rate, but also become your personal assistant: remind you to drink water, take the necessary vitamins, have a snack, go to workout and even provide recipes for healthy meals.
In addition, many applications have a “share results” feature. This is especially true for those whose diet is not devoid of a competitive principle.
Connect your family to your weight loss process
It’s hard to lose weight when your home resembles a pastry shop and your loved ones are eating aromatic apple pie at dinner, while you are savoring radish salad. Try to “infect” the family with your desire to eat right. Cook, replacing unhealthy foods with healthier ones: if children cannot live without mayonnaise, cook it yourself, if your husband loves rich pork borscht, offer him an alternative with turkey meat, and serve grilled vegetables instead of mashed potatoes. Gradually, your family will “get a taste”.
When to expect results
The human body is a very complex mechanism. He hates strict rules and will try with all his might to keep the accumulated “wealth”. Don’t give him overly ambitious goals. Yes, maybe you will be able to get rid of 10 kg per month (through incredible efforts, of course), but you should definitely not expect gratitude from the body in the form of excellent health for such feats … Remember, rapid weight loss is stress, and stress is a hormone cortisol, which not only accelerates fat gain but also breaks down muscle.
Experts like to say that you need to choose a diet that then a person can adhere to throughout his life. It turns out that the body has a “defense system” in case of hunger times (that is, a diet with low calorie content). At the moment of calorie restriction, our smart body begins to accumulate fat for future use, so often when a person finishes a diet, it not only returns the lost kilograms, but also begins to gain new ones with a vengeance.
According to the WHO recommendation, the optimal weight loss that does not harm health is 2 kg per month (that is, 500 g per week). Keep this in mind when you dream of wearing a dress two sizes smaller in a week.