5 reasons why you are not losing weight

Find out the 5 reasons why your attempts to lose weight may have failed so far. Find out where you are making mistakes and our nutritionist will tell you how to avoid them.

If the statement “I can’t, I’m on a diet” is regularly coming from your mouth, then you probably have had a weight loss experience that has not necessarily been positive. It’s time to change that! In this article, we look at common problems that many people unknowingly sabotage their path to their dream figure.

“I don’t eat much at all!”

Excessive calorie intake, caused by a lack of awareness, is the fundamental problem leading society to the scourge of overweight and obesity. Most people are unaware of how many kcal they consume in a day, and in reality the amount can be very surprising. 

Advice:

To find out, use the Fitatu app – the simplest calorie calculator. By adding up all the products and foods you eat over several days, you will find out how many calories are behind them. This is the first step to successful weight loss.

“After a workout I deserve a delicious meal”

Many people think that after a workout, they can indulge in something special. Often, such a reward meal has far more calories than the person burned during the physical activity. This is what causes the energy requirement to be exceeded and body weight not to decrease, but even to increase.

Advice:

Pay more attention to what and in what quantities you consume after your workout. The post-workout meal is an important element, both for weight loss and for building muscle mass. It should be a source of protein and carbohydrates and compensate for the calories burned during your workout, not just satisfy an individual craving. To learn more about circadian meals, read the article Pre-workout and post-workout meals – what to eat before and after a training.

“Healthy products are not fattening”

We often come across the idea that if someone swaps regular pasta for whole-grain pasta, sunflower oil for olive oil and crisps for nuts, not only will they not get fat, they will even lose weight. Nothing could be further from the truth! Whether we lose weight or gain weight depends primarily on how many final calories we consume in a day, not what foods we eat.

Tip:

Take note of how many calories a tablespoon of olive oil or a handful of nuts has and consider how to incorporate them into your meals to make your diet well-balanced. To make counting easier, use the Fitatu app. For more on balancing your meals, read the article 4 rules to help you easily compose a balanced meal.

“I’m going to start again on Monday”, i.e. all or nothing

An all-or-nothing approach to dieting can only lead to a poor relationship with food and eating disorders. So what if we stick to a diet for five days a week, if at the weekend we state ‘all hell breaks loose’ and devour everything we feel like. We think it’s a legitimate ‘cheal meal’, but the next day guilt and remorse are sure to come knocking at the door. Such behaviour is a prelude to an eating disorder. 

Advice:

It’s normal to eat a less healthy meal sometimes, even when you’re on a diet. If your diet is 80% healthy, nothing will happen if the remaining 20% of your diet is based on slightly less nutritious products. The important thing is that the caloric value of your menu matches your energy requirements. If you want to find out why a ‘cheat day’ or ‘cheat meal’ is not a good option for most people, read the article Cheat meal or cheat day. A hamburger, pizza or spaghetti carbonara really can be part of your diet. You just need to plan it sensibly!

You eat too few calories

Just as excessive calorie intake is the enemy of weight loss, so too few calories will significantly hinder the process. When we drastically reduce our calorie intake, our body starts to fear whether it will run out of energy and goes into storage mode. At first, you will probably even manage to lose a few kilos quickly. However, this will not be due to a loss of body fat, but of glycogen, the water that goes with it and muscle mass. The body will then begin to defend itself against the crisis situation, causing the metabolism to slow down and fat loss to stall. 

Advice: 

Give yourself a break from “miracle diets” that involve drastic calorie restriction. Even when you achieve satisfactory results in the first instance, they won’t stay with you for long. If you still don’t believe it, read the article Are diets below 1000 kcal bad? and find out how your body behaves on starvation diets. Consult a dietitian for a menu tailored to you. If for some reason you can’t afford it, try your hand with Fitat’s calorie calculator. It will help you to enter the world of healthy and conscious eating.

Effective weight loss

Shortcuts in weight loss may work, but only for a while. To lose weight effectively, you need to approach it calmly, with common sense and patience. The road to your goal will probably not be easy, but that is the nature of it. We hope that the above advice will help you avoid basic mistakes in the process and contribute to reaching your goal.

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