Why You Won’t Lose Weight (Part 2)
Last week we covered two reasons why you might not be losing weight. Those reasons were, “You’re Too Lazy” and “You’re Lying to Yourself (and Your Trainer).” For more information on those, please go back and read that article. Here are two more reasons for why you might be not be able to lose weight.
Reason #3 That You Won’t Lose Weight: You’re Not Committed
Weight loss takes time. Losing 20lbs is not something that you can do in a day, a week, or even a month. It takes consistency and dedication to your nutrition and training over months and months to lose weight. Maybe you eat really well for a couple weeks, but because you don’t see the number going down on the scale yet and don’t see any noticeable changes in your appearance, you give up and just resume eating how you did before you began trying to lose weight. This is easily fixed by just remembering that progress isn’t always linear, and that while it will be hard work for a few months, the results will be worth it.
Something else that I feel like this article needs to address is fad diets. These are the diets that you hear about in the news and read about online such as the ketogenic diet, paleo diet, Atkins diet, juice fasting, “detox” diets, etc. Studies have been done on all of these and when it comes to weight loss, none of them are superior to any other calorie-matched diet. So many people hop on the latest fad diet and lose some weight, only to gain it back once they go back to their usual eating habits. This is known as yoyo dieting, and it happens because people look for a quick fix by going on an ultra-restrictive diet that is ultimately not sustainable unless you’re willing to be on the diet forever. Instead of making a drastic change to your current diet by hopping on one of these, I’d recommend just reducing the portion sizes of the things you are currently eating, and making sure that you’re tracking everything that you eat using a food scale and an app like MyFitnessPal. Your trainers can obviously give you more guidance, but this is a good start for most people.
Reason #4 That You Won’t Lose Weight: It’s Not a Priority to You
This kind of encompasses all of the other reasons that I have laid out in the first three sections, but I want to expand on it a bit. You may tell yourself that losing weight is one of your top priorities, but actions always speak louder than words. If weight loss is truly a priority, you will track your calories religiously, you’ll be honest with yourself and your trainer about how much you are eating, and you will stay committed to the process. Deviation from any of these three things shows that you don’t truly want to lose weight. Saying you want to lose weight but not doing these three things would be like saying you want to save up enough money to buy a Ferrari but never going to work and blowing your savings on other things.
Something common is for people to eat relatively well during the week, then go crazy and eat/drink everything in sight during the weekend. If you’re trying to lose weight but you go out every weekend and eat a bunch of pizza, nachos, burgers, wings, and fries, and drink pitchers of beer and margaritas, it almost doesn’t matter if you eat well during the week. You’re doing enough damage in those one or two days to throw off your weekly energy balance. If losing weight is a priority to you, you would eat under your calorie goal all of the time, not just some of the time. You will always have your weight loss in mind, and won’t let yourself get off track. Now I’m not saying to not go out and have fun at all; what I’m saying is to do it in moderation. When you go out, have one beer instead of three. Have one or two slices of pizza instead of five. Eat half of the burger & fries and take the rest home to have another day.
I hope this article has given you some food for thought (pun intended), and it has inspired you to track your calories, be honest with yourself and your trainer about how much you’re eating, to stay committed to the process, and to make weight loss a priority. Always remember that there are no quick and permanent fixes, and that significantly changing your body weight and your appearance will take consistency and hard work over months and years. The results will be worth it.