Struggling to lose weight despite your best efforts? You’re not alone. “Why can’t I lose any weight?” is one of the most popular questions online.
Weight loss can feel frustrating, especially when you’re eating healthier, exercising, and still not seeing results. The truth is, there’s more to shedding pounds than just cutting calories and hitting the gym.
Why Can’t I lose Any Weight?
From hidden habits to underlying health issues, there are several factors that could be holding you back. Let’s dive into the eight most common reasons why the scale isn’t budging and what you can do to finally break through those barriers.
8 Reasons You’re Not Losing Any Weight
1. You Are Not at a Caloric Deficit
You may have read that you can lose weight without counting calories, and that is true.
However, without knowing how many calories you are consuming each day, you don’t know where you are in the dieting journey.
If you’re finding it impossible to lose weight, you are probably not in a caloric deficit.
That means you are not burning more calories than you eat. There are two ways to get your body to a caloric deficit;
- Use more calories through physical activities than you eat
- Consume less calories than you burn in your day’s activities
Forget the magic pills and empty promises. Forget spending money on lose weight schemes and books.
Burn more calories than you eat. There is no other way.
My advice is to go here first: Calorie Calculator and see how many calories to eat every day. It will show you how many calories you need to maintain your present weight or to lose weight.
Next, spend some time on this website: Food Calorie Counter. This is a great way to see how many calories are in the food you eat.
2. Your Metabolism Is Low
Metabolism is the process that your body uses to convert food and stores to energy.(Calories you don’t use converts to fat cells)
The higher the rate of metabolism, the easier it is to convert food or fat cells to energy. When your metabolism is low it’s so hard to shed pounds that it’s easy to give up.
A lot of things affect your metabolism. Here’s a few of them:
- Age. The older you get the slower your metabolism gets. That means you’ll need regular physical activity to keep it stoked. No matter your age, any physical activity you can get will increase metabolism.
- Muscle Mass. Muscle requires more energy than fat stores. So one of the best ways to increase metabolism is to increase muscle mass. That’s why exercises like resistance training works so well for weight loss. But, even a regular walking routine builds muscle and increases metabolism.
- Gender. It’s true! It can definitely be harder for women to lose weight than men. Their metabolism is generally slower than a man’s.
- Diet. Did you know that some foods raise your metabolism and some tend to lower it? Eat more protein, peppers, and legumes to increase metabolism naturally.
- The pace of exercise. Most any physical activity calls for your body to increase metabolism. But speeding up the pace, or exerting more energy, speeds up metabolism. One way to do that is with HIIT workouts.
When you speed up your metabolism, you burn calories faster! Increase the rate you use calories, consume less food, and lose weight fast.
3 Ways to Speed Up Your Metabolism and Slim Down
- Incorporate Strength Training
Building muscle boosts your resting metabolic rate, helping you burn more calories even while at rest. - Eat Protein-Rich Foods
Protein requires more energy to digest and can temporarily increase your metabolism through the thermic effect of food. - Stay Hydrated with Cold Water
Drinking cold water can slightly raise your metabolic rate as your body uses energy to warm the water to your core temperature.
3. You Are Not Drinking Enough Water
If you can’t lose any weight, you may not be drinking enough water, and you’ll be wondering why weight loss is so difficult.
Your body is about 60% water. Most every function of your body, including burning fat stores, requires water. The more hydrated you are, the easier it is to lose weight.
Staying hydrated is important to any weight loss goals.
- Water is an appetite suppressant. Drinking water before a meal reduces your appetite for that meal. Less appetite, fewer calories consumed.
- Proper digestion and elimination of waste requires water. Your digestive system needs water. It depends on water for digestion, soft stools, and to keep waste moving through and out. Part of that waste is fat.
- Under hydrated makes your body keep water. Don’t worry about water adding extra pounds. It’s the opposite! If you’re not drinking enough water, your body will retain fluid, adding pounds to the scales.
- You need water to help burn fat stores. Lipolysis is the process the body uses to break down stored fat cells. There’s evidence that upping your water intake can increase the results of this process.
- Drink water instead of snacking. If you are under hydrated, your brain can think you are hungry. Not only will a glass of water help curb the need for a calorie laden snack, it can help suppress your appetite.
The bottom line is that your body needs water to stay efficient in everything you undertake. Not getting enough can be preventing you from losing weight.
Drinking water alone will not generate any significant weight loss. Yet, staying well hydrated must be included in your overall strategy.
4. You Are Not Consuming Enough Fiber
High fiber foods are low in calories, more filling, and more satisfying — which leads to easier weight loss. If you are not eating enough fiber foods, you will be unable to lose weight.
When your diet includes plenty of high fiber foods, you’ll stay full longer and eat less junk food. (High fiber foods are fruits, veggies, whole grains, legumes, dried fruit, nuts and seeds.)
Because dietary fiber takes a long time to digest it stays in your stomach longer.— That means you fill full and satisfied longer.
Include plenty of fresh vegetables, whole grains, and dried fruits in your diet. Even though whole fruits are packed with fiber, they are also packed with carbs that stall your diet.
5. It May Be Too Soon
We all hate to hear it, but you may be expecting results too soon? We want to lose the weight as fast as possible. That makes it easy to fall for the false advertisements claiming miraculous results.
But the truth is – a couple of pounds a week is realistic weight loss. More than that is setting your up for failure and discouragement.
Realistic and permanent weight loss can be slow and seem grueling. Especially when you’ve set unrealistic goals.
If you need to lose 4 or 5 pounds to look your best for a high school reunion, you can do that in a week. Just put yourself on a strict fast from food for a few days. Most of the weight loss will be water, but still, the pounds will disappear.
Of course, this is not a permanent weight loss solution. The 4 or 5 pounds will be back next week
6. You Are Carb Sensitive
I doubt if you are a stranger to all the buzz about low carb diets? First came the ever popular Atkins Diet with Keto diets fast on it’s heels. Personally, I think most overweight people are carb sensitive and should limit carbs when trying to lose any weight?
What is carb sensitive?
In the simplest terms, it means your body has trouble metabolizing carbs in a normal fashion. (what ever normal means?)
Any time a body consumes more carbs than their body can handle, a couple of things happens. First the pancreas overloads the body with insulin which helps your body store fat.
Next, your liver gets involved. Now it takes in all the carbs you didn’t use for energy and turns them into fat stores. When this happens, it usually leaves you bloated and chronically fatigued. And you will find it impossible to lose weight.
Those are two good signs that you are carb sensitive. You are eating too many carbs to lose any weight.
What to do if You Are Carb Sensitive?
- Stop drinking soft drinks and energy drinks.
- Replace all white bread with whole wheat or rye bread.
- Forget fruit juice.
- Give up snacks that aren’t nuts, raw vegetables, or small amounts of cheese.
- Replace breakfast cereals and donuts with eggs.
- Break the sugar addiction with Stevia, Erythritol, or Xylitol. These will sweeten foods and drinks without raising blood sugar levels.
- Eat far less potatoes.
- Look for low carb foods.
Most research indicates that going on a no carb diet will help you lose weight rapidly but doesn’t produce permanent results.
The reason is simple: It’s easier to give up an addiction for a short time than making lifestyle and healthy eating changes.
7. Your Cortisol Levels Are High
Sometimes we do all the right things to cause weight loss, and still don’t know what’s stopping me from losing weight?
That could be due to high cortisol levels.
Cortisol is a stress hormone that plays a part in many body functions, as well as controlling blood sugar levels.
With an overload of the hormone Cortisol, some people feel hungry constantly with no way to satisfy their appetite. In fact, Cortisol sends signals to your body to store more fat, and is the reason you can’t burn off fat effectively.
— How to Lower Cortisol Levels
Cortisol is the body’s main stress hormone, so stress is it’s primary activator. Here are 6 ways to take an active part in lowering Cortisol levels:
- Stick to Healthy Food. Sugar is a primary cortisol trigger. Removing sugar from your diet should be the first consideration for anyone seeking weight loss.
- Exercise, exercise, exercise. Unless you move to a far away cave by yourself, there’s little chance of removing stressful situations from life. Regular exercise will not only help get you to a caloric deficit, it is the best known way to reduce stress.
- Relax. Most stressed out people never learned methods to relax. Exercises like walking, meditating, turning off the TV, computer, and news, reading, yoga, hobbies, and relaxing music can help you relax.
- Sleep. The amount and quality of sleep influences Cortisol levels. All science and research still indicates that we need 8 hours of uninterrupted sleep to be at our best.
- Get a Pet. There are numerous studies proving that getting and nurturing a pet reduces stress, Cortisol, and makes for a happier person. Goldfish don’t count. You need a pet you can touch.
- Take Fish Oil Supplements. Omega-3 Fatty Acids are proven to reduce the body’s Cortisol. Fish oil supplements are the easiest way to consume enough fish oil for both lowering these hormone levels and bettering overall health.
8. Why Doesn’t My Weight Change No Matter What I Do?
We all know what inflammation is when it comes to a wound or sore knee. But less people know about chronic inflammation, what causes it, problems associated with it, or what to do about it.
Chronic inflammation is responding to internal problems, and is linked to almost all major diseases. We know it plays a significant part in heart disease, type 2 diabetes, cancer, and weight gain.
Chronic inflammation is a major and rampant health problem, and when it comes to losing weight, it is a a major stumbling block.
The good news is that you can take action to stop inflammation. Most of the preventives measures are directly related to losing and maintaining a healthy weight.
— How to Reduce Inflammation and Lose Weight
- Stop Eating Sugar and Processed Food: Processed food is anything packaged or canned. Processed foods look great and last much longer than fresh food due to the chemicals, sugars, and other additives. Limit canned foods as much as possible, and always thoroughly rinse between the can and pan.
- Regular Exercise: Regular exercise that aids in the reduction of inflammation, weight loss, and better health means 30-45 minutes 4-5 times a week. And if you can do something that raises your heart rate and makes you breathe just a little harder, you’ll receive all the benefits.
- Reduce Stress Levels: Learning and implementing ways to reduce pent up stress in our body every day. Like we mentioned earlier in this post, things like exercise, yoga, relaxing music, hobbies, gardening and more is the answer.
Conclusion
If you’re wondering why your weight loss plan isn’t working, I can tell you that losing weight can be a real battle for most of us. But, I can also assure you that it’s not impossible to lose weight.
We are all different with different responses to changing anything about our life. But if you are serious about losing weight-you will get serious.
If you’re asking “Why Can’t I lose Any Weight?” you should get to eating smaller portions, stay on a diet of wholesome foods that are rich in nutrients, and get to exercising. Break the habit of eating foods that have no nutritional value, become health conscious, and make losing weight easy and permanent.