14 reasons you’re finding it difficult to lose weight
WE all know the basic formula for losing weight: eat less, move more. But almost every dieter has tried that and most of us have failed.
We’re still the same size, just slightly more tired and slightly poorer after forking out on pricey diet-friendly foods.
So what’s going wrong?
We reveal the 14 things that could be stopping you from losing weight – and what you can do about them.
1. Your brain doesn’t want to diet
Scientists from McGill Univesity, Canada, looked the brain scans of 24 participants at a weight-loss clinic, and they found that our ability to diet might actually have a lot to do with which parts of our brain fires most strongly.
What we found is that in humans, the control of body weight is dependent largely on the areas of the brain involved in self-control and self-regulation, said neurologist, Alain Dagher.
That area of the brain has the ability to take into account long-term information, such as the desire to be healthy, in order to control immediate desires.”
During the study, the 24 people were put on a 1,200kcal/day weight-loss diet, during which time they also had regular MRI scans.
Scientists looked primarily at the lateral prefrontal cortex – the part of the brain that’s linked with self-regulation, and the ventral medial prefrontal cortex, which deals with desire.
While undergoing the scans, the volunteers were shown pictures of tasty foods, as well as pictures of scenery.
Researchers found that when they were faced with pictures of appetizing foods, the part of the brain associated with desire and value became particularly active.
Only those who were most successful at losing the weight saw that part of their brain become less active as time went on.
2. Hormonal imbalances
We have two hormones responsible for hunger and seity – leptin (decreases your appetite) and ghrelin (increases appetite).
Obesity tends to result in becoming resistant to the appetite-suppressing effects of leptin. But if you go on a diet which involves continuously under-eating, then you could be messing up your hormone levels too.
To lose weight, you want to have less ghrelin so you don’t feel hungry…but when you try to lose fat, your body can respond by changing hormone levels so that you’re even hungrier.
That’s why short-term extreme dieting doesn’t work – because your body will actively try to keep you at the same weight. The key is to change what you’re eating, rather than how much.
If you’re eating a healthy, whole-foods focused diet full of fresh fruit and veg, then you can eat until you’re full and still burn body fat.
Hunger is the enemy of fat loss.
3. Stress
The more stressed out we are, the more the body clings to fat reserves and muscle mass. If you really want to start shifting body fat, you need to get your body (and mind) to relax.
That’ll get it to release fat molecules, take the pressure off the gut, and allow muscles to grow.
And the best way to change your body composition is to increase the amount of lean muscle mass you have.
4. Prioritising exercise over diet
Ben Claypole, director of City Athletic, told The Sun:
Where most people fail with body fat loss is their inability to have consistent dietary adherence and also guesswork with their calorie intake – not necessarily their exercise regime.
Remember there are likely to be at least three meals per day that you have to get right and only one training program that you have to get right, but it’s important that you spend quality time on both of these every day! he said.
So 75 per cent of your effort will go into the preparation and programming of your nutritious healthy food.Remember, you can’t out-train a bad diet.
5. Eating too much after exercise
Ever come back from the gym and felt like you’ve deserved to eat a whole pizza and a polish off a bottle of wine? Understandable…but not particularly good for any gains.
Exercising doesn’t then entitle you to eat more, PT Harry Thomas told The Sun.
People think they need to start eating protein bars and shakes because they’re training. Protein does help with hunger levels but I’d say try to fight through your hunger until meal times.
Hunger comes in waves when you first start exercising and it’s the first week that’s toughest.
6. Not getting enough protein
A small study involving young women found that eating high-protein yoghurt as an afternoon snack helped to reduce hunger and calorie intake throughout the rest of the day.
Harley Street nutritionist Rhiannon Lambert told The Sun that “protein intake will vary from person to person but ensuring you have protein on your plate (around a palm full) at each of your meals along with protein-based snacks if you’re active, you should be getting enough”.
Adding protein to carb-heavy meals also helps to keep you fuller for longer, and can boost your metabolic rate.
Nutrition consultant and founder of The Food Doctor, Ian Marber, previously told The Sun that high carb meals “with little fibre and protein to slow the digestive process can lead to short-term energy as well as hunger, often within a couple of hours.
As protein, fibre and fat all take far longer to break down in the digestive system, having a breakfast that includes these elements can lead to longer lasting energy.
7. Being scared of carbs/fats
Forget all the scaremongering – you need carbs and fats in your diet. Without carbs, you’ll find your energy dropping and your ability to concentrate seriously being compromised. Good fats are also vital to a healthy balanced diet.
But that doesn’t mean having cheese sarnies every night. Try to get most of your carbs from veg like spinach and kale, and super nutritious things like sweet potatoes.
Fats like avocados, nuts, sugar-free yoghurts are a fantastic way to start the day, giving your body a break from readily available sugars and persuading it to enter into a keto state – using its own fat as energy.
8. Focusing too much on weight
If you start training effectively and eating well, you might not see a dramatic change on the scales. In fact, you may well get heavier – and that’s because you’re increasing your lean muscle mass. It’s only when you do that that you actually start to change your body composition. The more lean muscle mass, the faster your metabolism – and the faster your body will burn fat and calories.
Forget weight, concentrate on getting strong.
9. Not enough sleep
A lack of good quality sleep also slows your metabolism down – meaning that your body doesn’t break down nutrients as fast or effectively as it would normally.
A 2006 study of middle-aged women found that those who regularly had under seven hours sleep were more likely to put on weight in the future – regardless of their baseline weight.
We’re not saying that regular lie-ins alone are enough to help you reduce body fat, but certainly if you are looking to slim down, then you might want to look at how much you are getting.
10. You might have something like PCOS
Clare Goodwin is a nutritionist who specialises in helping women with polycystic ovary syndrome. She told us that most people with the condition are insulin resistant – meaning that our bodies store food as fat rather than energy, which is why it’s incredibly hard to get rid of body fat.
If you’ve been ‘eating healthy’ and working out, but aren’t seeing any results, then trust your own intuition and go to your doctor and ask them to do a test for PCOS, she recommended.
One of the other symptoms that most women with PCOS have is irregular periods, so if this sounds like you then head to your doctor.
When you go to your GP, ask them to not just do a scan of your ovaries, but also to test your hormone levels. One of the defining characteristics of PCOS is that we have higher levels of the ‘male’ hormones or Androgens, like testosterone, and also your insulin and blood glucose levels.
Your best bet? Cut out all sugars and concentrate on eating whole foods like veg, nuts, and fish.
11. You’re still drinking sugar
If so, you’re downing stacks of sugar and artificial sweeteners which act like sugar – without the benefit of any of the vitamins and minerals that come from solid foods.
You’d be much better off clenching your thirst with water, and having a coffee as a caffeinated pick-me-up instead.
12. Not enough sunlight
Scientists from the VU University Medical Center and Leiden University Medical Center, both in the Netherlands, found that low vitamin D was linked to belly fat in women, and fat in the liver and abdomen in men.
The lead author concluded:
The strong relationship between increasing amounts of abdominal fat and lower levels of vitamin D suggests that individuals with larger waistlines are at a greater risk of developing deficiency, and should consider having their vitamin D levels checked.
13. Not taking proper breaks
It could just be that your body is so used to being on a diet that it just needs a break to recover and let go of stress. Constantly undereating is going to lead to your body clinging onto fat and muscle alike.
One weight loss expert, Dr Nick Fuller, claims the key to long-lasting weight loss is actually dieting for a month, and then taking the next four weeks off.
When you’re on your diet weeks, he suggests working out for 30 minutes a day, six days a week. On the off-months, he says that should be taken down to five days.
although no foods are off-limits in his plan, Dr Fuller recommends that meals get smaller as the day goes on.
During weight loss months, he says dieters can have one treat food and one meal out a week – and that doubles during maintenance months.
14. Your body has a weight memory
PT and founder of body transformation gym Salus London, Laurence Fountain, told The Sun: “Fat cells don’t die, so once your fat cell is full, it will create almost like a flower effect and create extra fat cells that branch off that fat cell”. So once you’ve put that fat on, you’re way more susceptible to putting it back on again.
If you’ve grown up overweight as a child,you’re definitely more likely to gravitate towards being slightly heavier.
Laurence says that there’s also a big psychological aspect to it.
People also have different levels of comfort zone. While they might be able to get out it for a while and strip down, most people resort back to residual habits which cause them to revert back to a certain weight, or as a response to internal or external environment.
It’s very rare unless you change the environment that any long-lasting change is going to happen.
source: The Sun
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