Login:

Search blogs:

---

10 reasons you're not losing weight - Part two of two

Posted: 06/09/2009 at 08:04pm by Rich Leigh, founder of Fat Free Fitness

Yesterday's blog pulled in a lot of traffic, with many people emailing to ask how they can make small changes to help with their weight loss.

Today, we're going to be rounding off the top 10 list of reasons you're not losing weight, starting with number 6...

6. Working irregular hours

If you are a shift worker or work nights, you may find your mealtimes are all over the place, snacking where possible as opposed to eating a proper meal. After all, who wants to eat their 'evening' meal at 4am in the morning? For this reason, the vending machines may well be your favourite ally.

Also, as most night workers get less sleep than people who work more regular hours, chances are, energy reserves will be low. To that end, you'll be pulling out the chocolate and high-calorie energy drink way before you dig into your pre-prepared salad box.

7. Stress

Comfort eating is a well-known and much publicised side effect of stress. It's also Ben and Jerry's biggest marketing weapon! People experiencing chronic stress tend to crave more fatty, salty and sugary foods.

If you're stressed, you're much less likely to cook a balanced meal for yourself and much more likely to stop by at the nearest McDonalds drive-thru. This is because increased levels of cortisol (the 'fight or flight' hormone triggered by stress) can not only make you crave unhealthy food, but excess nervous energy can often cause you to eat more than you normally would. A hectic day at the office may well keep you working through your lunch hour and let's be honest, the majority of people won't reach for a banana, but a Mars bar or a bag of crisps when time is against them.

As well as the all the above, a stressed person is probably a busy person. Busy people aren't known for being regular exercisers off their own back, which is one of the biggest reasons they take on personal trainers such as ourselves.

Something must be said about busy people who spend most of their day out on the road. When service stations are your only respite other than meetings, your car can very quickly become a haven for pie crumbs, high-calorie cappucino cups and crisp wrappers. Planning ahead and preparing food the night before a busy day can be the difference between hundreds of unwanted calories and your weight loss.

8. You don't need to lose weight

All too often, we're approached by people adamant that they are morbidly overweight, when in reality, they are a healthy weight although often malnourished due to an obsession with fad dieting.

If you don't need to lose weight, your body will do everything it can to keep hold of it. If your weight loss has slowed down or stopped, have you thought that it could be because you no longer need to? Or never needed to in the first place? The much-publicised BMI (body mass index) scale; which plots your weight against your height to categorise you into one of a number of bands, (including 'normal' weight, 'overweight' etc) isn't perfect, but is a great and quick way of checking to see whether you're at any health risk due to your weight.

9. 'Healthy alternatives'

For every unhealthy food choice, there's a healthy one to replace it. Although sometimes, upon inspection, the ones marketed at us may not be as healthy as we first hoped.

Do you remember an ad campaign by Jaffa Cakes, stating that every biscuit/cake (which are they anyway!?) had just 1 gram of fat in it? It worked wonders. People thought 'wow, I could have 12 (a pack) Jaffa Cakes and only have eaten 12g of fat?', which is roughly equivalent to one doughnut. However, 12 Jaffa Cakes equals over 100 grams of carbs, or just under half of the average recommended daily amount.

So, whilst companies may trumpet their food's low fat content, it could be extremely high in sugar (namely simple carbs). Keep an eye on this, it could be holding you back when you are otherwise doing well.

10. You're eating too much

It's perhaps the simplest reason of all, but sometimes, a problem that many ignore, or maybe convince themselves doesn't exist. It's the first thing us trainers check for, as a client training with us making no progress due to over-eating is damaging to our reputation as well as our ability to effectively help them.

Perhaps you overload your plate without thinking about it, or somebody else cooks for you and you'd feel rude if you didn't finish it all. Whatever the reason, if you're eating more calories than your body needs, your weight will suffer.

We've got a great blog lined up to show you in easy terms how to work out how many calories per day you personally need - it'll be going up early next week, so check back. It may surprise you how many more calories than you need you're eating, and it could be the springboard you need to reach your ideal weight.

Thanks for reading our '10 reasons you're not losing weight', we hope they've been useful in pointing out where you may be able to improve! If you have any additions, please post them in the comments section below, there really are many more reasons, these are just a snapshot of an obviously much bigger picture.

Add Comment View Comments

Comments

Currently no comments.

Add a Comment

Name: *
Email: *
Website:
Message: *
Enter the security code: *

Newsletter Signup

Sign Up For Free Tips & Advice

Enter your e-mail address:

Top 5 Blogs

Guest post - Why do we overeat? Includes tips on how to beat it!

Guest post: Male fitness cover-model David White gives his diet alternatives!

Rich gives guest interview to online fitness magazine finalfitness.co.uk

Real life story - How Fitness Changed My Life

Good news: a big bum = healthy! Health, Diet and Fitness Today - 12/01/10

Have you read these?

Just 5% hit UK exercise targets - Health, Diet and Fitness Today - 18/12/09

Cheryl Cole's weight a 'big concern'

Would you tell your partner if they put on weight?

Fat Free Fitness Health, Diet and Fitness Today – Monday 7th December 2009 - The 'fat gene' in children

Fat Free Fitness Health and Fitness today - Thursday 3rd December 2009

Fat Free Fitness Weight Loss