Why Am I Not Losing Weight!
Dieting And Still Not Losing Weight?
Always
Always consult your doctor before changing your living habits. Especially when you are trying to improve your life. You will be surprised that your doctor may even become your personal cheerleader always willing to help you. There are medical conditions that can keep you from your weight loss goals. If you feel you may have a medical condition you should talk to your doctor. You can take with you a detailed list of the exact amount of calories and what you have been eating.
Never
Unless you are under the close supervision of a medical professional you should never try to go on ultra low calorie diets. Never starve yourself for weight loss, there are many ways to lose weight. Always live Healthy.
When dieting, the whole weight loss part of it can be incredibly frustrating specially when that number on the scale just refuses to move. But, let’s go over why. Actually finding out why you’re not losing weight may actually be so much easier than you may have thought. Some of these reasons may have seemed too obvious, but here they are.
First Reason! (defective diet planning)
Again these reasons may just seem just way too obvious, but here’s the number one reason.
Even though you may be trying so massively hard to eat healthy, your diet may just be defective from the start. There are hundreds of apps and methods to measure all sorts of criteria for what you’re eating, but simply try this.
Process
I know it will feel so obvious just to use your phone or any of the apps available to measure your daily calorie intake. But, just use a simple pen and paper. Even if you find this so difficult, just do it for a few days even.
Reason One
FIND THEM CALORIES!
Again even if you do this just for a few days. Write down EVERYTHING you eat and drink. Even if it sounds healthy, KNOW what is actually in your foods and drinks. You may find foods that are listed as “healthy” “all natural” “fat burning”. But, it doesn’t matter. Look for the calories.
Just about every food or drink item has a calorie count. Never just assume that two items with the same name will contain the same amount of calories. To find the calories on just about everything, simply look at the packaging. If you out enjoying a tasty snack somewhere. Simply look up what you’re eating or drinking on their website.
Just An Example.
Example 1
I use to be this person so I understand just how easy it is to over look.
Just one large drink can’t be that bad right? I even made a deal with my self. I would get a large water along with my sugary drink to help cut down the sugar…
You know them large cups that are offered at your local gas stations. They come in 32, 42, and even 64 oz cups (a 2 liter is about 68oz). Every time I had to go out in 100+ degree heat, I would stop at my local Wawa to pick up an ice cold drink “it was only one”. When I finally just looked up how unhealthy my drinks were, I was amazed! Did you know that that just one 42 oz fountain Coke has about 560 calories! If the calories alone don’t sound alarming enough. My 42 oz’s of Coke contained about 140 grams of sugar! That’s about 35 teaspoons of sugar! And I thought one less spoon of sugar in my morning coffee was going to help…
If you use the 3,500 calories per pound of fat. One 42 oz Coke a day can be equivalent to more than 4 pounds a month.
In terms of calories and work outs, a rough estimate for runners is about 100 calories per mile. That means you need to run about 5.6 miles to burn that single coke. I say opt for the water and save yourself a ton of calories.
Example 2
The unhealthy healthies?
Nuts
Most of us have herd that we must always look for healthy foods. So when I say that even foods that are healthy can actually make you gain weight. Some may think this must be nuts “ha”.
Foods such as nuts (pecans are my favorite) can be incredibly healthy. They can provide you with tons of valuable vitamins and do an amazing job and helping to curb your cravings. But, did you know that just a 1/4 of pecans have about 200 calories. Thats feels like a handful! So if you like to snack on pecans, pistachios, cashews, and just about any other nut. KNOW the quantities you are eating. People trying to increase calorie intake sometimes choose these.
Milk
People like to believe that replacing unhealthy snacks and drinks with what we believe are healthy. But, did you know that milk actually has a lot of calories AND sugar?
Let’s put this into context and compare milk to an obvious unhealthy option.
| Milk (12 oz) | Coke (12 oz) |
| 225 Calories | 140 Calories |
| 18 Grams of Sugar | 39 Grams of Sugar |
| 4.5 Teaspoons of Sugar | 9.75 Teaspoons of Sugar |
As you can see from above you really should look at what your eating and drinking and the quantities.
Reason Two
Snacking
When you really think about it. This “Reason Two” can still be considered part of step one. But, snacking can really ruin any diet plan when you don’t account for the amount your snacking and what your snacking on.
If you use our example of pecans from above. You can see that if you decided to take a cup of pecans to work and snack on them. This little cup can be more than half your daily calorie target at about 800 calories!
We have two awesomely useful posts about snacking and calories that I’ll list here
Awesome Healthy Snacks At Work!
Here we give a few great snack ideas and the calories in them. Worth a read!
Easiest Calorie Calculator Ever! and How Many Calories Should I Eat?
Here we go over how many calories you really should be consuming. Also a great read!
Reason Three
There are going to be many people that believe this to be untrue but I will link to studies in the National Center for Biotechnology Information.
Artificial Sweeteners
Even though Artificial Sweeteners don’t contain any calories. This doesn’t mean that they don’t have any effects on our body. Artificial Sweeteners can be several hundred times sweeter than regular raw sugar. These sugars can greatly alter our cravings, causeing us to snack and eat foods that ultimately cause us to consume more calories.
Artificial Sweeteners overtime has been linked to altering the good bacteria in our bodies. And, this can have an entire host of issues and lead to weight gain here (nih.gov)
Statistically, people that consume more artificial sweeteners tend to actually gain weight versus losing it. (nih.gov)
Our bodies treat sugars as an addictive drug and when we feed our bodies artificial sweeteners. We only increase its tolerance to sugar and just cause our body to crave even more sweetness. (nih.gov(1)(2))
Here is a post about sugar.
Reason Three Conclusion
When the topic of artificial sweeteners comes up. It may be best just to limit them altogether. If you’re trying to kick sugar and your dependance on it. You should understand if you can kick it for just a little while you will notice that your tastes with drastically change in even a relatively short time. I recommend reading our post on How To Kick Sugar In Two Weeks.
Conclusion
If you find that you aren’t losing weight many times you will find that your diet can use some adjusting. It is best to go over everything that you are consuming on a daily basis. Make sure you account for everything! Even count the calories in your coffee creamer, ketchup, those little snacks, and even those little sugar packets. I understand that there are plenty of apps and sites that can help you document all the calories you are consuming but nothing will be as accurate as using a simple pice of paper and pen.
Just Simple Calories!
Understand that all calories are not created equal and you really should focus on consuming healthy foods. But, when trying to narrow down why you may not losing weight you can use simple calories as a guide into see how much you truly are eating.
Final Point
You don’t have to starve yourself in trying to lose weight. The trick is to find foods that you truly enjoy that are just healthy. Here is a post that helps finding these healthy foods and never being hungry on a diet again.
Click Here How Not To Be Hungry On A Diet