Dieting & Exercising But Not Losing?
Dieting and exercising but not losing?
You keep getting on that scale, knowing that you're eating better and working out, but it's not budging. Seeing those numbers either going up or staying the same can deflate your ego before the day even begins. It's very frustrating, and you know you'll soon throw the towel in and say forget it. Before you do, take a step back and read this article carefully. These simple tips will have you busting through your plateaus before you know it.
BE HONEST
When you begin working out and eating better, you want to see your body respond immediately, we all do. When I started working out, I'd get up every morning and weigh myself and walk away steaming mad that I hadn't lost a pound. I was sure that the scale should be letting me know that I was doing a fantastic job and keep it up. Instead, it just stared at me. Day after day, it would stay the same. I'd quit working out and would binge eat everything in sight. Maybe I wasn't cut out for losing weight? Was there something wrong with my metabolism or even my thyroid?
What I didn't realize was that I wasn't honest about my workouts or my diet. If I were, I'd see clearly why I wasn't getting any results. But we all have a starting point, and I was just one that kept revisiting the starting point over and over again. So let's save you the time and heartache, stalling at losing weight, can bring you.
To get real results, you have to log your food. Not sometimes or part of your diet. All of it. Everything you eat and everything you drink. You must take the time to weigh and measure every morsel that goes into your mouth and track it. I know this sounds obsessive, but it's the only way to know exactly what you're consuming in a day. You can't guess at this. I'm not giving you a life sentence with tracking your food, and there is a light at the end of the tunnel. Once you've established your diet, with weight loss, you'll soon learn how to eat without giving it a seconds thought. In the meantime, it is vital that you track, weigh and measure everything. It will be well worth it.
There needs to be honesty and accountability when it comes to exercising as well. Again, I was guilty of this too. I'd head to the gym, slowly walk on the treadmill then lift a couple of dumbbells, barely ever breaking a sweat and head home. I'd pat myself on the back that I put another day in at the gym. I felt accomplished and entitled to results. My plan wasn't working.
Once I had an honest conversation with myself, I realized that I wasn't ever going to get the results that I dreamed of repeating this cycle, so I buckled down and starting pushing myself from within my comfort zone. It was uncomfortable and miserable at times. I doubted myself daily but continued to advance. I was so frustrated at times that I failed to realize that results were happening right before my eyes. My body started changing, my mood was better, and I slept better than I had in years. Now here's the surprising part; the scale was not dropping. I'll explain more about that later in this article, so stay with me.
Putting my renewed way of dieting and exercising together, I went to levels I never thought possible. I transformed both mentally and physically. Had I continued meandering around with my food and exercises, I would've failed and quit altogether. Fitness is who I am, and it has carried me to heights I never thought possible.
If you're dieting and exercising but not losing weight, take a step back and get real honest about your daily efforts. Can you see where you could tweak a few things and get the rewards you want so bad? I bet you can.
WHAT ARE YOU DRINKING?
No, I'm not talking about alcohol. I'm talking about water. So many think they consume enough water throughout the day but are falling short. The health benefits of water are endless. Here are just a few:
Prevents headaches Increases brain power
Flushes out toxins Maintain regularity
Boosts your immune system Improves your complexion
Increases your energy Promotes healthy weight loss
If you've changed your eating habits to lose weight, there's a good chance you've increased your protein intake. Increasing your water intake will aid your body in digesting the protein and keep you from being bloated. Adding a lot of protein when you're not used to it, can make for an uncomfortable stomach when first starting. Water can alleviate this discomfort, so drink up.
Start logging the amount of water you take in, and you might be surprised by how little you’re drinking. A good rule of thumb is the 8x8 method — eight ounces of water, eight times a day. If you're exercising hard, sweating a lot, I'd recommend more. I always shoot for a gallon of water per day, and I have to say, it's hard. I have to work at getting that much in. I will tell you when I do reach that goal, I always wake up feeling more energized, and my stomach is a lot tighter. So log your water and increase your h2o. Your body will thank you!
ARE YOU A NIGHT OWL?
I love nighttime. When nighttime arrives, I feel better, I have tons of energy, and I feel super productive late in the evening, which can be both a good thing and a bad thing! I tend to start projects about the time I should be going to bed. When I eventually do go to bed, that alarm clock is not a welcome sound I hear bright and early. I struggle to get six to seven hours of sleep a night, and I can feel the effects during the day. I feel sluggish and unproductive.
I've started to focus on getting more sleep. Just like water, there are a ton of health benefits from sleeping. Our bodies do a lot of important work for us while we are sleeping. When it comes to weight loss, I want you to think about your cortisol hormone. Let me break this down, so you really understand the importance of this hormone.
Have you ever noticed when you have a late night, going out or watching a tv series until the wee hours of the night, the next day you're starving all day, and you munch on junk food? Yep, you can thank that cortisol hormone for that.
The cortisol hormone likes to sleep. Cortisol triggers the reward center in your brain and increases your cravings for food. If you're depriving your body of sleep, you'll produce more of the stress hormone Cortisol.
When you do increase your sleep, you'll produce more growth hormones, which helps burn fat as well as repair your muscles so that you can improve your strength and lose more weight.
Outside of the science of sleep, you'll be more productive during the day and be more willing to stick to your fitness regimen. Feeling sluggish when heading to workout can lead to you just skipping the workout altogether. So don't work against your brain and your body. Get more rest. It will pay off.
ARE YOU GOING STRICTLY BY THE SCALE?
The scale can be a tricky tool to use. When it goes down, you feel vindicated by your efforts. You're excited, happy and sing praises for the scale. When it goes up, you feel defeated, frustrated and full of failure. You depend on that scale to tell you-you're doing a great job, that your hard work is paying off. When it doesn't, you start to slip on both your fitness and nutrition. Each passing day that the scale doesn't reward you with falling numbers, you begin to cave into your old habits.
Having an unhealthy relationship with our scales is common, and you must end it, once and for all. I'm all for weighing yourself to keep yourself on track and helping you move forward but only if you can treat the scale with a grain of salt and not the end all of be all. If it mentally breaks you, stay away from the scale altogether.
There are many factors to what the scale is showing you. Remember me saying that my body was transforming, but the scale wasn't budging? That's because I was building muscle. I was losing fat but was gaining more muscle mass than the amount of fat I was losing. The scale isn't going to tell you that. The scale isn't going to tell you that you lost three inches from your body. The scale isn't going to tell you that you consumed too much sodium yesterday and you're retaining extra fluid.
I could go on and on why the scale is going up, down or nowhere. You have to be aware of this and use it sparingly. However, if you aren't sticking with your diet and exercise, that scale will creep up. Use this as a way to get back into the game, not bench you. You need to recognize that you're not consistent enough so you'll have to dial in your regimen. Get off the scale and get to work. Don't let it derail you. It will eventually be where you want it to be.
HOW ARE THE WORKOUTS GOING?
When you are dieting and exercising but not losing, you may need to rethink your workout plan. I explained to you earlier how I used to putz around the gym with the hopes that my body would magically transform. It wasn't until I worked with a trainer, came out of my comfort zone and pushed my limits that I completely transformed the composition of my body.
Being a trainer myself, going to the next level requires being uncomfortable. Now, I'm not talking every time you workout you need to be soaked in sweat and feeling like you're going to die. No one will stick with that kind of plan. Instead, you need to find a program that pushes you but just enough that you not only return, but you become addicted to the workout and keep returning to do more of it.
If you're currently working out with a routine you love, but know that you need to progress, I'd suggest adding more weight to your routine and add more intensity to your cardio, if only little bits at a time. You don't need to do anything crazy, but add two and a half pounds to your next shoulder press, bicep curl or go up ten pounds with your leg extensions or hold heavier dumbbells with your lunges.
If you're on the treadmill, add ten minutes to your time, increase the incline or increase your speed. The same routine but by adding these tweaks changes the entire dynamic of your workout. You'll shock the body into working harder that in turn, will increase your metabolism. This could be just the trick to busting through your weight loss plateau.
HAVE YOU READJUSTED SINCE LOSING WEIGHT?
If you've lost weight and your scale seems stuck, you may still be dieting as you were when you first started. It's easy to find a rhythm of eating, and you stick strictly to that. You fall into a rut of eating the same thing, day in and day out. I'm a creature of habit myself and being super busy, repeating my daily food routine helps me to stick with my nutritional goals.
However, you need to be aware that your nutritional needs at one weight are entirely different than another weight amount. If you weighed 200lbs and lost 25lbs, you calorie amounts must be adjusted. You won't require as many calories, and your metabolism is working differently now that your weight has changed. This is why you see so many people lose, gain and gain some more.
You need to readjust your daily calories that reflect your current weight to ensure your body is using the calories correctly. If you continue to use the same calorie numbers, not only will your weight loss stall, you'll eventually start gaining weight. No one wants to go backward.
Adding more exercise while sticking with the same calorie intake won't work either. You can't out exercise a bad diet, period. So while adding more to your exercise regimen is excellent, if you're taking in too many calories, you're only working against yourself. Be sure to get results, not defeat and frustration.
Transforming your body is science. It's fun, but if you're not doing it correctly, it can be the most aggravating thing you'll ever do. You don't need to do anything extreme and by all means, don't take food groups from your diet. Your body needs a combination of foods and depriving yourself of carbs or fats or restricting your calories too much, will only backfire. Your body works hard to take care of you, so please return the favor.
Stay on track, be consistent and continuously adjust your workouts and nutrition, to keep that weight loss coming. It takes hard work and dedication, but it's well worth it. You get one life, one body and it's up to you how you will look and live.
If you'd like a quick tip sheet of why you're dieting and exercising but not losing, download it now. Sometimes we get lost on our journey and start veering away from what works and need friendly reminders of how to get back on track. Keep this sheet handy and reflect on how you can make tiny changes to see significant results. I'd love to be in your corner, cheering you on and reminding you how to get there! Best of luck to you on your fitness journey! You can do this, one step at a time.
Aimee Schwinabart is the founder of The Purely Fit—online workouts, nutrition, and fitness coaching that actually work! She specializes in short (super effective) daily workouts combined with customized nutrition plans to help real people shed excess fat and reveal toned, lean muscles. The Purely Fit approach to looking and feeling great prioritizes small, steady, super efficient workouts and nutrition upgrades to help you stay with it once and for all!
