why am i not losing weight
Weight loss is one of the most common health and fitness goals. While it might seem relatively simple, it’s not uncommon to encounter obstacles along the way.
For sustainable, long-term weight loss, several key factors must be considered, including:
Nutrition
Activity
Sleep/Recovery
If you’re not addressing all of these areas, your weight loss goals may remain out of reach.
At its core, weight loss requires being in a calorie deficit, meaning you consume fewer calories than you burn. When you burn more calories than you consume, your body will tap into its energy reserves, ideally drawing from fat stores.
To achieve a calorie deficit, you can reduce your calorie intake, increase your energy expenditure (by being more active), or ideally, do both.
A common pitfall for many people is not accurately tracking their calorie intake, or not tracking it at all. Without an understanding of how much energy you’re consuming or burning, it can be difficult to make the necessary adjustments to your lifestyle to meet your goals.
The Role of Sleep in Weight Loss
The relationship between sleep and weight loss is complex. Numerous studies have shown a positive correlation between adequate sleep and successful weight loss. On the other hand, insufficient sleep can disrupt the hormones leptin, which signals fullness, and ghrelin, which stimulates hunger. This hormonal imbalance can lead to an increased appetite, making it harder to lose weight.
While various factors may contribute to weight loss challenges, the root cause often comes down to energy balance.
Scenario 1: Dieting But Not Losing Weight
The term ‘dieting’ can mean different things to different people. If your diet involves a planned calorie deficit, you’re on the right track. However, if it simply means avoiding certain foods without monitoring your calorie intake, your results may be inconsistent.
If you’re ‘dieting’ without tracking your calorie consumption, you’re essentially working blind. The first step should be to accurately track how much you’re eating. From there, you can adjust your intake or activity levels to achieve a calorie deficit.
You might be surprised by how much you’re consuming without realising it. Often, foods perceived as ‘healthy’ can be high in calories. For example, nuts and avocados offer significant health benefits and are nutrient-dense, but they are also calorie-rich. Swapping crisps for nuts might seem like a healthy choice, but it could unintentionally undo your calorie deficit.
Another common oversight is liquid calories. Failing to account for the calories in your drinks, as well as your food, could mean you’re undermining your efforts without realising it.
Ultimately, if your diet isn’t yielding the desired results, it’s likely because you’re consuming more calories than you burn, or there may be an underlying medical issue. The only way to rule out the former is by accurately tracking your calorie intake.
Scenario 2: Dieting and Exercising But Not Losing Weight
If you’re dieting, exercising, and generally leading what you consider a ‘healthy lifestyle,’ yet not seeing the expected weight loss, you might be underestimating your calorie intake and overestimating your calorie burn.
Overestimating how many calories you burn during exercise is a common issue. A hard hour of strength training, which might leave you feeling exhausted, typically burns only a few hundred calories. This becomes problematic if you overestimate the calorie deficit your workout has created, only to negate it with a post-workout shake.
The type of exercise you choose can also impact your results. If you’re pushing yourself to the limit every day without adequate recovery, you might actually see fat gain. This can be due to elevated cortisol levels, known as the stress hormone, which can promote fat storage.
It’s also important to clarify what you mean by ‘weight loss.’ For most people, a more accurate goal would be ‘fat loss.’
If you’re in a calorie deficit, focusing on cardio while neglecting strength training, and not seeing the results you expect, it could be that the weight loss is coming from muscle rather than fat. Without resistance training, your body may prioritise muscle loss over fat loss, leading to a situation where you lose weight but don’t see a noticeable difference in your body composition.
Scenario 3: Weight Gain Despite Dieting and Exercising
If you’re gaining weight despite dieting and exercising, it’s likely due to one of two reasons.
Firstly, your calorie balance might not be where you think it is—you could be underestimating your intake and overestimating your expenditure.
Secondly, you may not be considering body composition. This could mean you feel like you’re gaining weight because your body fat percentage has increased due to muscle loss. Alternatively, and ideally, the scales might be going up because you’ve gained muscle mass.
What Does an Effective Weight Loss Programme Look Like?
An effective weight loss programme should prioritise strength training. While it’s easy to burn a large number of calories in a cardio session, this alone won’t set you up for long-term success. High-intensity cardio can increase cortisol levels and be hard to recover from, often leading to reduced activity levels for the rest of the day. Your body prefers stability and will resist change, so pushing too hard may lead to a decrease in Non-Exercise Activity Thermogenesis (NEAT), your day-to-day, non-exercise activity.
By prioritising strength training, you’ll build muscle mass, improving your body composition—often the true goal behind weight loss. This will also increase your Basal Metabolic Rate (the calories your body burns at rest), setting you up for sustainable, long-term success.
However, weight loss isn’t just about your workouts. What really matters are the other 23 hours of the day outside of your training session.
During that time, you’ll need to focus on:
Calorie Consumption: Your trainer can help you determine an appropriate daily calorie intake, along with tips for healthy swaps and strategies to avoid overeating.
Daily Activity: One of the most effective weight loss strategies is to increase your daily activity outside the gym. This doesn’t necessarily mean jogging every day, but rather increasing your general movement—taking the stairs, walking more, etc. This will boost your calorie burn without adding extra stress that could undo your hard work.
Sleep: As mentioned earlier, even if you get everything right during the day, sleeping only five hours a night adds a significant hurdle to your progress.
This is just an overview of how a personal trainer can help you achieve your weight loss goals. There’s much more to consider—not least the increased motivation and accountability that comes with having a personal trainer.