Lola Akingbade: You’ve Been On this Fitness Journey With No Signs of Weight loss? 6 Reasons Why

Have you started a fitness program and believe you are staying dedicated , but still not seeing results? Often times, we all embark on a fitness journey with high hopes to lose weight, tone up, lose fat, build muscle e.t.c, but weeks later we do not see any progress right? So what might be the reason? There are several reasons that you may not be losing weight, so let’s jump right into it:

You are underestimating the number of calories you consume
You eat your meals throughout the day and then assume you ate only a certain amount, meanwhile you ate a lot more. I see this so frequently and I am sure most trainers can agree. For example, a client says they only eat about 1500 calories a day; you decide to take a look at their daily intake, guess what, it’s way more than that. Sometimes this is due to ignoring all the condiments used to cook such as oils, or its the toppings, dressings for foods especially salads. Most people also ignore the BITES, LICKS, TASTES that go on throughout the day. For instance, a taste of your child’s food, a taste of a meal you are cooking or a friend’s food, a quick bite of something as you head out to work.

Sometimes, the servings are underestimated; for instance, thinking you ate only 2 servings when you ate 3. It may not matter initially, but throughout the day and the week, it begins to add up. Imagine thinking you only ate 2 servings of a meal which maybe is 500 calories but you actually ate 3 servings, that means you ate 750, not 500 calories like you thought. For that day, it’s fine; but if you repeat the same thing every day, you can see why it becomes a problem.

Overestimating calories burned
Sometimes you walk a lot throughout the day or workout or go running and think you burned 1000 calories when it was actually 500. You then proceed reward yourself by eating back the 500 calories because you think hey, I burned 1000, so if I eat 500, I will still have saved 500calories. But, you overestimated your calories burned, so at this point you have eaten back what you burned.

Not properly tracking your food intake
This is why I always encourage weighing with a food scale. I know it sounds like a lot of work and I honestly do not do it on all meals. But trust me, it’s way more accurate than using a measuring spoon or a cup to measure or eyeballing your food. For instance, most people fill the spoon or cup to a little above the rim. If you weigh your food and compare it to using a measuring cup, you will be shocked at the differences.

Eating healthy foods in excess
Too much of anything is not good period. Some people think drinking a protein shake has some sort of magic ingredient in it so they pack it full of bananas, milk, peanut butter etc. If you combine all of these into a protein shake, you can end up drinking about 600-700 calories while if you drink the protein shake alone with water and ice, you end up with less than 200 calories so it’s best to keep it light if trying to avoid extra calorie intake. A protein shake is only meant to be a convenient source of protein, not a magic drink. This is great if you are maybe trying to bulk up or something but if you are trying to lose fat, it’s not. Or maybe you think eating an excess of fruits is fine because they are healthy. Take a salad, for example, people put chicken, bacon, croutons, cheese, nuts and all sorts on it which obviously defeats the purpose if you are trying to avoid excess calories.

Water retention
This could be due to a woman’s cycle every month or sometimes due to birth control methods or pills. Some people’s weights could go up by like 10 pounds due to the monthly cycle. Water retention could also be due to excess sodium consumption or inadequate water intake.

Underlying pre-existing health factors
Finally, some people are just not losing weight due to pregnancy, or some underlying health issue for instance thyroid issues could prevent you from losing weight. Some people that have underactive thyroids, may find that they have a hard time losing weight due to low basal metabolic rate. This would be something to get checked by your doctor.
When checking your progress, it’s best to use progress pictures or a measuring scale as opposed to a scale. Also, check at the same time and day maybe once a week. For instance, every Monday at 8 am. Daily scale weights do not show an accurate picture because weight fluctuates a lot. A weekly average would be more accurate to go by.

If you think you are doing everything right and wondering why you are not losing weight, look over some of the above and be honest with yourself, you might find the reason here.