I have been there and I get it. You made a decision to eat healthier. You cleaned your kitchen cupboards of all the cookies and chips. And you even bought a smoothie blender. It felt so good in the beginning. You were feeling lighter and happier and all was good in the world. But after the initial success, no matter how much you were persisting, you were not losing weight any more.
The good news is that there are many things you could be doing wrong. What do I mean by “good news”? If you can identify the things you are doing wrong, you can correct them. Read below for the list of 4 probable reasons why you are not losing weight based on my personal experience.
Just promise me one thing. When you start losing weight again (and you will), don’t get lost in the process. There is such thing as too much of a good thing. I know from experience that when you struggled for many years to find an effective way to lose weight, once you find it, it can become very tempting to just keep going on.
Instead, find a healthy balance where your weight is optimum, but you are still able to enjoy everything else in your life. Weight loss should not be an overpowering thing that dominates your life. As long as you feel good and have the energy and confidence to enjoy yourself, you don’t need to keep on trying to lose weight forever.
1.Unrealistic goals
Maybe the problem is not that you are not losing weight at all. Just that the kilograms are not going off as quickly as you want them to.
We have all been there – summer is coming and we bought a really nice bikini. Or our friends wedding is in a month and we want to squeeze into a short satin dress. There are plenty situations to make us feel the urge to lose a lot of weight, right now. Don’t trust that urge.
There are plenty of ads promising to lose 10 kg in a few weeks. Is it possible? Yes, of course. If I used to eat junk food 3 times a day and all of a sudden I am doing the celery and chamomile tea diet (I just made that up, don’t try it ;), of course I can lose 10 kg in no time. But will it be sustainable? Of course not. Best case I will gain them back in a few months. Worst case, I will eat so much, because I was fed up by the restriction, that I might even put on more than 10 kg.
Most experts, whose work I follow, will agree that anything around 0.5 kg per week can be considered healthy and sustainable. Also, this is an average. There will be weeks where you lose a bit more and others where you lose less. Life events, even your menstrual cycle, will all have an influence. So if you are consistent with your efforts to eat healthy and exercise, don’t despair if you are not losing weight in a single week.
2.Eating too little
I am sure you heard this many times – you can only lose weight if you are in a caloric deficit. It is 100% true. But going too low in your calories can actually lead to not losing weight. How is that possible? Our bodies have mechanisms to help us survive. If we are constantly sending them a signal that food is scarce, they will adapt. Most credible sources will agree that anything below 1,200 calories per day for a female is too little and not healthy.
If you want to lose wight, the consensus seems to be that you should calculate roughly your maintenance calories (how much you need to eat per day without gaining or losing any weight) and then subtract 500 calories. I disagree.
Most of the readers of this blog are mothers. I cannot imagine anything more irritable than a mom on a 500-calorie deficit. Don’t do this to yourself. Or to your kids. Based on my experience, a deficit of 200, maximum 300 calories, can still give good results while you also carry on with your life and not obsess over a diet.
3.Overconsuming healthy foods
If your goal is to just live healthy, have energy and feel good, then any wholesome food, full of nutrients is a wonderful choice. But if you have aesthetic goals, overindulging on healthy foods can very well be the reason why you are not losing weight.
4.Drinking your calories
There was time when I did not count calories coming from liquids. For some reason I decided they don’t count. I was putting efforts in eating healthy and in moderation but I was still not losing weight.
Here was a typical scenario: for my weight and height, I needed to get around 1,500 calories daily to lose weight. My “drinks menu” was consisting of:
- 2-3 lattes (around 400+ calories)
- a fruit juice with lunch (around 150 calories)
- a sports drink (around 140)
- If I went out with friends that night and had 2 cocktails (i.e. 250 calories each), I would have drank around 80% of my total calories for the day
I only started seeing results when I was mindful of my overall caloric intake. I personally always go for food 🙂 So I mainly switched to teas and naturally carbonated sparkling water as my “fancy drink”. But if you cannot live without your morning latte that’s perfectly ok, as long as you don’t forget to count it as I used to do.
If you are not losing weight, try to take an honest view of your approach and evaluate if some changes might help.
Putting realistic targets for yourself, eating healthy nutritious food in moderation and making sure you are not drinking your calories can all help you break through the plateau and see results to match your efforts.
Important: All numbers mentioned are for reference only. I am using them to serve as an example so it is easier to illustrate a point.