3 Reasons Why You’re Not Losing Fat
You step on the scale, it’s the same.
You triple check your measurements, they’re the same.
You begin to loose faith in this health and exercise stuff, and want to curl up in a blanket burrito, while eating a piece of pizza.
Well, you might be doing something that’s strong arming your success!
Over the years training clients I’ve seen many struggles and successes. I know the difference between them, and also know what it takes to reach certain goals. Even with difficult situations where clients feel hopeless and can’t get past a plateau, there is a light at the end of the tunnel, you just need to trust the process. Below I will share my three reasons why most people can’t loose weight, and what to do about them. It’s not anything new, or ground breaking, but it’s how to get shit done!
1. Nutrition (see how I didn’t put diet?)
This is one key element in your success.
I will elaborate on my first comment about nutrition vs diet. I had my fair share of clients and people ask me “what diet works?” Honestly they all work, but you end up gaining all the weight back. Why? Because you create a ridiculous calorie deficit and eating 800 calories with nothing but cabbage and lemon water.
Obviously you’ll loose weight, but the moment you go back to regular eating, everything comes back, and worse, you loose your hard earned muscle mass, ending up with more fat than before.
Then you decide you’ll try a different diet, probably same concept, low calories, but this time, fat load, or protein load, or whatever the key ingredient is for the diet you read about. You end up in this vicious cycle of yo-yo dieting, causing metabolic damage to your body. What does that mean? The shit-storm that you created in your body prevents it from following the rules when you finally decide to eat properly.
So what should you do?
Stop believing that the next diet you read is going to solve your problems. The only diet that will solve your problems is what I like to call “The Hard Work Diet.” It’s where you eat balanced meals throughout the day, and you loose any where from 0.5lbs to 1lbs per week if you do EVERYTHING perfectly during the week. Sounds hard right? Well, that’s life isn’t? If all those diets out there worked, you’d see every single person on the street shredded to bits and not needing personal trainers, gyms, etc.
Get your nutrition in check! Make sure every time you eat you have:
- big portion of protein
- bigger portion of vegetables
- small portion of healthy fat
Have these three things every time you eat for the next month and I guarantee you will loose some weight, or just overall look and feel better!
By the way, did you notice there was no alcohol on that list?
2. You Need To Move More
Being active for 1 hour per week won’t cut it I’m sorry. Every single client I have ever trained that only trained one hour a week, ended up quitting and saying they were going to “train on their own.” I do keep in touch with those clients and see them on Facebook here and there, and you know what? They still haven’t met their goals.
To be fair, I do have a handful of clients that train with me once a week, but are very active on their own. They will swim, bike, hike, run, walk, yoga, weight train on their own, etc, and see amazing results with my guidance. Again, that takes dedication and hard work, but it works!
Many people ask me what the recipe for fat loss is. Well let me tell you again: two days of weight training, where you focus on full body movements and not isolation exercises, and two days of metabolic circuit training, during which your heart rate elevated for a prescribed time, and rest for a prescribed time. A side note for the metabolic days, that was just one example, there are many different ways to structure a workout like that.
In total that’s 4 hours per week of training. That’s a huge commitment, but it’s your health, and it should be top priority.
3. Sleep
This is a gatekeeper to your success. If you’re not getting 8 hours of solid sleep, you’re body will have a hard time loosing fat. 5,6, and 7 hours of sleep won’t cut it. I know this sounds like a lot, but it’s achieve able. Think about it this way, if you went to bed 30 minutes earlier every day that’s 3.5 hours more sleep a week, and 14 hours of sleep a month. I think that’s a huge improvement and you’d see huge improvements.
Maybe you get close to 8 hours a night, but you are a night owl. This isn’t optimal for your body. Your body runs on a circadian rhythm which dictates your bodily functions of your internal clock. Your body needs to sleep as the sun is setting, and waking up when the sun is coming out. So, if you’re going to bed at 1am and waking up at 9am, this might not be the best for fat loss goals. This is why shift workers tend to have trouble loosing weight, as their internal clocks are messed up and are in constant battle for homeostasis.
There you have it, my three “secrets” to success! Now, go out there and try to focus on one until its perfected, and move on.
Remember, you will need to create a habit which takes time. There’s a reason why it’s so difficult to start flossing your teeth every day when your dentists says you should. It’s a new habit to develop, and it takes a full month of every day practice to have it stick.
Be easy on yourself, and just practice one thing at a time until it’s part of your daily living!
