Why am I not losing weight?

Why am I not losing weight? - Perhaps the most common question from clients who appear to be doing everything they can to support weight loss. They are going to the gym, cutting back on carbs and not drinking during the week and yet the kg won’t seem to budge. Here are the most common reasons that you may not be losing weight with the good news is that all of these factors are very easy to adjust and get things moving the right way on the scales.

You are eating breakfast too late in the day
One of the most important things you can remember when it comes to weight loss is “the earlier you eat breakfast, the better”. Waiting until you get to the office to enjoy the first meal of the day is a little late when you consider that breakfast fires up the metabolism for the day ahead. So if you are waiting until 8 or 9 to enjoy your eggs, oats or shake, shift it forward an hour or two and get that metabolism firing.

You are training inefficiently
It may sound harsh but the longer you have trained, the more you are going to have to push yourself in order to achieve the same calorie burn you did initially. Change things around with your training as much as you can and focus on working out intensely for just 20-30 minutes burning 200-300 calories in this time. Change the settings on the machines, swap the order in which you do your cardio and/or weights and swap between different machines and classes. When you have trained for many years, sometimes all you need to do is change the type of training and intensity to get things moving again.

You are having too many extras
An extra coffee or two here, a biscuit there and there you have the difference between losing weight and not. If you doubt what is really going in your mouth spend a day keeping a record of everything you eat or drink. Sometimes the simple act of becoming more mindful is the difference between a few extra hundred calories a day or not.

You are sitting down too much
While it is great to commit to regular training, if you then spend the remaining 14 hours of your day sitting, you are completely negating the benefits of training completely. Start to wear a pedometer and become more aware of how much (or how little) you really are moving. Try and avoid hours sent lying in front of the television at night and get outside at lunchtime and move around because the more you move, the more you burn.

You are overdoing the coffee.
There is nothing wrong with a coffee or two each day but if you find yourself constantly sipping on a latte for most of the day, therein lies the problem. Not only are liquid calories a nightmare when it comes to insulin release and weight gain, but we rarely compensate for them, which means they become extras that many of us do not need. Enjoy your milk based coffee with your meals or as a snack and drink only water or herbal tea inbetween.