8 reasons why you’re not losing weight

Focusing on quantity not quality

Simply relying on counting calories as a way of losing weight can encourage the wrong type of eating. There are fewer calories in a bar of chocolate than a bowl of porridge and fruit, for example, but the latter is likely to fill you up for much longer, reducing the amount of calories you’ll consume over the course of the day. And, needless to say, the porridge is far more nutritious. Choosing foods that fill you up, such as fibre-rich wholegrains, fruit and lean proteins, is more likely to set you up for healthier eating patterns throughout the day. Meaning you’re much more likely to see the results you want.

Not eating after exercise

It’s easy to be inspired by totting up the calories you burn on a run,and then trying to stave off hunger for as long as possible afterwards, fearing that you’ll simply put the calories straight back in. Unfortunately, this is short-term thinking that’s likely to send you straight to the biscuit tin, as your blood sugar plummets after training. The only way to control your inner cookie monster is to eat a healthy snack as soon as possible after training, to aid recovery and rebalance your blood sugar.

Saving the calories for the evening 

If you don’t eat much during the day in an attempt to save your calories for a large meal in the evening, you’re not doing your body a favour. This is really counterproductive. Long periods without eating cause your body to compensate by releasing fewer metabolism-boosting hormones. If your body has been starved of food during the day, it’s more likely to store the fat from your evening meal as part of its natural survival mechanism. If it thinks food is in short supply, it responds by storing fat for future ‘lean periods’. Over time, this is a sure-fire way to slow down your metabolism and gain fat. Not what you want!

Eating to few calories

Consuming too few calories accelerates muscle loss, as does missing meals. Not only will this affect your running and body tone, because muscles are more metabolically active than fat, you’ll burn fewer calories. Aim for a modest reduction in calories, ideally between 250 and 500 per day at most. Generally, eating fewer than 1,200 calories is difficult to sustain, and is unlikely to leave you with enough energy to exercise. Hardly the way to support a healthy lifestyle!

Relying on the scales

When you measure your progress on the scales, a sensible diet is likely to only deliver very modest results on a day-to-day basis. For example, a loss of half a kilo after one week on a new eating plan can easily be masked by an extra half kilo of fluid, which doesn’t offer much motivation to continue. Don’t use the scales as the only indicator of how much weight you’re losing. Instead, take bust, waist, hip and thigh measurements. This will allow you to see changes in your size that are sometimes not visible on the scales, and this will provide you with greater motivation to continue.

Being thirsty!

Water is vital for weight-loss as well as for your general health. If you’re dehydrated, your body will mobilise fat less efficiently and make you even hungrier! When you’re hungry or thirsty, your brain releases hormones that trigger your appetite or a desire to drink. But thirst signals can easily be confused with hunger signals, making it harder to keep to your eating plan. If you feel thirsty, you’re already dehydrated, so avoid this by drinking water regularly throughout the day. Six to eight glasses is plenty, with an additional 750ml of fluid for each hour you spend running.

Not being prepared

If you don’t have healthy food with you at the office, it stands to reason that avoiding the office doughnuts is going to be more of a challenge. Make a weekly shopping list and buy all you need for healthy packed lunches and snacks, so if you’re at work or away from home for any length of time, you won’t be tempted by unhealthy, fat-laden foods. And keep cupboards at home well stocked with nutritious snacks, so evening munchies won’t ruin your good intentions.

Having no time out

If you have a penchant for particular foods, it can be difficult to totally avoid them. According to research published in the Journal of the International Society of Sports Nutrition, building in a ‘re-feed’ day once every week to 10 days, where you simply eat what you like, not only provides a mental break and the freedom to treat yourself occasionally, but also stimulates your metabolic rate to burn more calories, helping you avoid weight- loss plateaus.

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