What if There Was One Simple Reason You Weren’t Losing Weight?
You might not be eating enough
I am always on-the-go. As a self-employed single mother, it’s not uncommon for me to have coffee for breakfast and skip lunch before finally sitting down to eat dinner. So, when the scale started to go up, I couldn’t understand it.
I was sure I had been making healthier choices in my diet, and I was exercising regularly — both on my paddleboard and cycling. In fact, I was doing anywhere from an hour to two hours of exercise a day. How could I be gaining, not losing, weight?
It came as a shock to me that we can actually gain weight if we don’t eat enough. For the level of activity I was engaged in, I should have been eating 1500 calories a day to lose weight. After tracking my diet for a few of my regular days, I realized that I was getting less than 1000 calories per day — sometimes as little as 500 when I skipped meals.
Not only was I gaining weight, but I felt tired and irritable most days. I enjoy food and had no intention of starving myself, but my busy schedule gave me a convenient excuse not to take the best care of myself. I was eating all my calories at the end of the day, and the amount I was consuming was woefully inadequate when compared to my level of activity.
