Why Youre Not Losing Weight... (stolen from Crossfit Landrush) 1. You think you’re eating healthy, but you’re not. Losing weight isn’t as simple as calories in vs. calories out. The quality of the foods you’re eating and the type of exercise you do are all relative to weight loss. Are you eating a great deal of processed or boxed foods, or are you eating real foods? Fruits, berries, seeds, nuts, healthy fats and meats lots of veggies? Are you eating foods that cause you discomfort and you don’t even know it? Is your diet carb heavy, or has too much dairy? Are you simply eating too much? People ask me all the time, what do you eat? My response is always, “real foods”. I eat lots of veggies and fruits, I love nuts and seeds and fruit is always a treat. The meats I eat are either very lean cuts, or grass fed beef. We are lucky enough to have a cattle rancher in the family. I also hear this: “I have done everything possible, I eat right, work out several days a week and I can’t lose a pound.” My response to that is, “well, if you’re being truly honest with yourself, do you work out as much and as hard as you say, and what is your diet really like?” A great way to evaluate your diet is to keep a food and exercise journal, write down everything that goes into your mouth and keep track of your work outs. I like the MyFinessPal app. This will be the moment of truth. Keeping track of your diet will help you to see if you’re carb heavy, eating too much bad fat, not enough good fat, or fruits and veggies. Again, this requires brutal honesty with yourself. You may be surprised with the outcome. Eat and exercise for the size you WANT to be, not the size you ARE. For example; if you’re a 200 pound man and you want to weigh 180, you eat like a 180 pound man. It’s that simple. Don’t over fill your plate; eating too much is just as bad as not eating. Our bodies need fuel, but if you fuel it too much or not enough it starts to retain fat. Not enough and we go into starvation mode; our bodies literally start to eat the protein (muscles) away and you start to see fat in your midsection, it’s science. Too much and your body again, stores this extra fuel as fat to be used at a later date. If your activity levels aren’t high, then you’ll just keep gaining, again it’s science. Find your happy place 2. Too much cardio! Love it or hate it, cardio is the secret to burning calories. We get our heart rate up, we start to sweat and we feel like we had the best workout ever. This has to be great for me, right? I’ll do it every day! The problem with too much cardio is this, when you stay above 75% of your maximum heart rate for extended periods of time, you’re burning glycogen. Your body craves sugar so you eat a ton of carbs, pasta, rice, you get the idea. You will gain weight, lose muscle, your bones will thin and you will release more cortisol, you’ll really notice this in your midsection and those abs you worked so hard for will disappear before your eyes. Incorporate weight training into your workouts, your abs and bones will thank you. 3. Low on willpower, high on excuses. We all have moments of weakness. When Daniel and I started our Whole30 challenge earlier this month I was prepared for failure. I didnt think I had the willpower to say no to the foods I loved, and I knew that people would understand my excuses. But we’re 17 days in and still going strong. I told myself, “You CANNOT have that; you owe it to yourself to have self-respect and stick to this!” It has been one of the toughest things I have every voluntarily done. Ever. But I love myself for being strong. We all fall into this at some point in our lives. It’s just too easy to quit and make an excuse. Don’t do it. If you have a goal, do everything in your power to prove to yourself that you can meet that goal! You CAN do it! You are the only person that can control your actions. 4. You’ve fallen into the routine rut. Are you workouts mundane, sometimes just plain boring? Are you doing the same thing every day? Legs, Core, Upper body M-W-F, cardio on T-Th. Blah!! That’s why I CrossFit, I’m never bored, and it keeps my muscles in a constant state of confusion, they’re ready for anything, seriously. Routine is the enemy. If you’re doing the same workouts over and over, not only is that boring and not motivating, your muscles are not going to respond to it. Change things up, add sprints to your work out, change up the tempo and rep scheme, do something new. You arent going to change doing the same things, the same way all the time. 5. You’re gaining muscle. Have you ever seen that picture of 5 pounds of muscle compared to 5 pounds of fat? 5 pounds is 5 pounds, right? Not so much. The fat is 3 times bigger. You can lose body fat and still gain weight due to muscle gain. Lean muscle is more dense than fat, just like lead and feathers; that hunk of lead is going to be much smaller than the bag of feathers. So a fit woman with 14% body fat can weigh more than her not so fit friend with 30% body fat. Step away from the scale and pay attention to your pants. It isnt about that number on the scale; love your body and the newly found muscle! It took me a while to accept this, but I did and you can do it too! 6. Youve reached your ideal weight. Sometimes you just arent losing weight because you simply don’t have any to lose. Since I started CrossFit I lost 15 pounds and then gained 10 of it back, 10 pounds of muscle. Ive tried and tried to lose weight because that number on the scale really made me mad! I would think, what is the problem? I eat right, drink lots of water and work out 4-5 times a week. I should be losing weight! It’s not that easy. When you reach your ideal weight your body is happy, be okay with it. Sometimes our ideal weight isnt what we think it should be, please refer to item number 5. 7. Rome wasnt built in a day. We live in a society that wants instant gratification. We want a magic pill that transforms us over night. I’m sorry to be the one to tell you, but this doesn’t exist. We have to work and work hard to reach the goals that we set; we can’t just wish the weight away. It most likely took years for you to get into the current state you’re in, whether it’s fit or not so fit. If you’re on the not so fit side, it’s going to take time. Probably more time that you would like. But if you work hard and do the things you know you have to do you will get there, you will see results. The time will pass anyway; you may as well do something for yourself that makes you happy and healthy.
Posted on: Thu, 18 Dec 2014 16:43:51 +0000