Want To Lose Weight? Why You Can’t

You want to look better, you want to get healthier for the sake of your family or your heart or you just want to stop feeling tired and listless all the time.

There may be myriad reasons why you want to lose weight and an equal number of reasons why weight loss is not successful:

We underestimate calories: According to one study, an overwhelming majority of participants of the study were off the mark by 700 calories when told to estimate the number of calories they ate.

Underestimating the number of calories contained in a portion and not keeping a log of all that we eat, is the problem.

Kind of fats we eat: You may be cutting down on fat, but it may the wrong type. There are many fats, such as olive oil, fish oil and certain nuts that are excellent for you, it’s the hydrogenated and transfats you need to avoid.

Not eating breakfast or the right breakfast: Don’t cut out breakfast, it is the most important meal of the day. And make sure you have enough protein for breakfast.

Skipping breakfast is shown to result in an additional 25% calories consumed in a day because there will be more snacks between meals consumed.

Not cutting the carbs: You may be cutting the wrong food groups from your diet. It stands to reason, that if you want to lose fat, you eat less of it.

But it is cutting out the carbohydrates that will help you make the most difference; particularly the refined carbs. And even cutting total calories will not help if you’re not eating enough nutrients in the form of fresh fruits and vegetables.

Don’t starve: Drastic and sudden reduction of caloric intake will result in the body reacting by holding fat and not letting go; resulting in no fat reduction and loss of muscle by consequence. For men and women, 1500 and 1200 calories are required respectively to stop the body reacting as it would to a famine.

Eating at the wrong time: Don’t eat late at night. This intake is stored by the body as fat rather than being expended.

Not making the lifestyle change: Even if you do lose weight now, you cannot hope to keep it off by going back to bad eating habits and a sedentary life that caused you to put on the weight in the first place. Unless you make lifestyle changes, you will not keep the weight off.