Why can’t I lose weight?
There are several reasons why your weight loss efforts may not be working. It can be confusing and hard to be super accurate and there’s so much misinformation. The bottom line is, if you aren’t making progress - meaning the scale isn’t going down, your body circumference measurements aren’t going down, your clothes aren’t fitting differently or your progress pics aren’t changing - you can fix that. It just means something is off. There is something in the calories in vs. calories out equation that isn’t adding up to a calorie deficit (what you need to lose fat).
So here are some reasons you might not be losing weight (maybe these are hard truths) and how you can overcome them:
You’re not paying attention to your nutrition at all. You’re doing cardio and circuit workouts, and paying too much attention to what your Apple Watch says you burned in calories (and likely overestimating). Remember, fat loss needs to come primarily from your diet. We’ve all heard you can’t out-exercise a bad diet, and this is mostly true. Put some energy into making small and sustainable changes to your nutrition, and stop looking at your (highly inaccurate) fitness tracker.
You eat “healthy” and “clean” but you’re not tracking your food to ensure you’re in a calorie deficit. You could still be eating at your maintenance calories or even a surplus (remember fat loss comes when you eat less calories than you burn). You can still overeat calories with nutritious foods. That’s why it’s important to track your food, at least in the beginning, to see where your calorie targets are, and make changes accordingly.
You’re really good during the week, you track your food and stay within your calorie budget, but go off the wall on the weekends. Fat loss requires a consistent calorie deficit for several weeks or months. Not on and off the plan. The weekends can completely undo your hard work during the weekend, push you out of a calorie deficit, and put you at maintenance or even fat GAIN. Instead, make sure you carry your habits into the weekend, don’t over-restrict during the week, and make your weekends look more like your weekdays.
You’re eating back the calories that your watch or cardio machine says you burned during exercise. Your fat loss calories already have your activity level factored into it. There is an “activity factor” used in the calorie calculators you use online - that’s why it asks you for your estimated daily activity level. Adding back calories from exercise can push you out of a calorie deficit. (Make sure if you use MyFitness Pal that this feature is turned off).
Inaccuracy in your food tracking - food tracking errors, not weighing or measuring your food, eyeballing and estimating everything you track, not accounting for alcohol or licks, tastes, and bites of food can mean you’re eating a lot more calories that you think. If you’re going to do the hard work of tracking your food, make sure it’s as accurate as possible.
You’re eating out too much or ordering take out too much. If you’re tracking these meals, it’s a very rough estimate and you’re likely consuming more fat and calories than you realize. I cannot stress enough how important it is to cook at home more when you’re trying to lose weight.
You’re trying to eat less calories but eating the same foods you did pre-diet. You may be cutting portion sizes of the tasty foods you liked before, but the hunger catches up to you and you end up overeating. Instead, you must change WHAT you eat too - whole food carb sources, healthy fats in moderation, and lean meats and lots of vegetables.
You’re sedentary the majority of the day and aren’t paying attention to your NEAT (non-exercise activity). If you sit at a desk all day, you are likely burning very little calories with movement. Adding a step goal to your fitness regimen is key to get more movement and burn more calories. I have a whole blog here about walking for weight loss.
If you’re struggling with weight loss and feel like you just can’t get it right, it’s ok to ask for help. If you’re ready to invest in yourself and stop spinning your wheels, head over to my coaching page here or reach out to me with questions anytime.