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Health & Fitness

5 Reasons You Aren't Losing Weight

1. You are eating out too much.  Excessive eating, dining out, snacks and social events will lead you into an uphill battle.  It is ALWAYS best to eat at home whenever possible, because even if you chose the “LIGHT” meals on a restaurant menu these calories estimates are usually way too low.  People make excuses as to why they need the snacks, restaurant dinners and social events but here is something to keep in mind when you are serious about shaping up:  Your body is unforgiving and does not care about these events.  The simple equation of calories in versus calories out stays true at all time of the day and all seasons of the year.

 

2. You aren’t training hard enough.  One thing that bothers me more than others is when I am training clients and they can comfortably hold a conversation with me.  For weight loss goals, for most cases, this means that you aren’t working out hard enough.  For weight loss goals YOUR HEART RATE SHOULD BE UP THROUGH THE ENTIRE WORKOUT.  I always tell people, “You drove all the way here, why waste your time with a half-ass workout?”  You made it to the gym, now put the hard work in, and then get out.

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3. You are inconsistent. This is another pet peeve of mine as a trainer.  Some people will get frustrated at the lack of weight loss but these are the people that had to travel the week after they started or needed to take a 4 day break because they were sick.  I’m going to be very clear with this right now… Losing weight is not easy, and if you, in the past have not been motivated to workout it is even harder for you.  To expect to lose weight with anything less than 100% would be labeled as preposterous in my book.  If this was easy, we’d all be on the cover of Men’s Health or Women’s Health.   For the vast majority of people, all it takes is hard work and motivation and you can look and feel the way you want.

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4. You don’t understand the difference between  dropping pounds vs. dropping body fat %.  This concept confuses many people.  When you exercise and focus on both resistance training and cardiovascular conditioning you are likely to drop fat and gain some muscle.  For all women out there, please understand that gaining muscle or “bulking up” is very difficult as long as you are keeping up with your cardio and eating correctly.  Muscle can weigh up to 20% more than fat so it is easy for the muscle gains to mask the weight loss.  However size will still be reduced.  That is why a person starting a fitness program weighing 140 pounds may need to get jeans 3-4 sizes smaller weeks later while still at the same weight.  Good trainers will have different methods of seeing how much weight you have lost whether that is skin calipers, tape measurements or body fat analyzers.  Do not confuse dropping pounds vs. dropping body fat%.

 

5. You don’t want it to work.  Sure.  Everyone says “I really want to lose weight”, but if any of the above points pertain to you there are still some issues with how hard you are willing to work.   Your body is a no-spin zone.  You can’t make excuses and trick human anatomy and physiology to work in your favor.  You can’t bargain with your metabolism.  You need to ask yourself if you want to reach your goals and if the answer is yes, you need to buckle down and attack.  If you are working out and still find that this article sounds familiar work on your mental attitude towards health and exercise before pin pointing every other problem that is outside of you.

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