Why Your Diet Is Not Working For Weight Loss

When you’ve been abstaining and exercising for months and the weighting scale needle still won’t budge, it’s the most frustrating thing. Though none of them truly worked for you, you learned something each time a diet plan crashed and burned.There are many factors that affect your daily calorie intake. Any of them could be the reason that you can't lose weight, no matter what. Most likely, the problem is a combination of several factors. Evaluate each of them to see where you can make adjustments. Meal frequency Eating more often may help you to avoid binge eating at mealtime, but eating more often also increases your chances to consume too many calories. If you eat 2-3 large meals during the day and snack often because you're hungry, try 4-5 smaller, calorie-controlled meals. On the other hand, if you have a meal every three hours and you're not losing weight, you may be eating too often. You aren't eating enough You may need to bump up your calories to stoke metabolism. When you dip below about 1,200 calories per day, not only are you not eating enough to get all your nutrients, but your body slows your metabolism in order to hold on to precious calories. Many people assume that if they're not losing weight, it's because they're eating too much. So they eat less. And while this may be the right course in some cases, drastically reducing your calories doesn't work in the long run. When you cut your calories, you can start to lose muscle as well as fat. You can also put your body into survival mode, adjusting to fewer calories by slowing down your metabolism. You reward exercise with food Burning 300 calories during a workout is cause for celebration...but rewarding yourself after exercise with a high-calorie treat doesn't add up to weight loss. You're likely to overestimate how much the workout burned off and underestimate how much you ate. "Even if you're just working out for well-being, you still have to keep calories in check. You're not getting enough water Most people don't drink enough water and get on with a high protein diet. They don’t realize that water plays a major role in metabolizing protein. We need anywhere between 3-5 liters a day. Timing also needs to be perfect. Water should ideally be consumed 20 minutes before or after a meal. Combining water and food, leads to water retention, increasing belly fat. You're not keeping track of what you're eating It seems counter-intuitive, but believing you are on a diet may actually cause more harm. When we think we are on a diet, we avoid certain foods and end up deprived. This leads to constant craving, leaving us more vulnerable to cheating. Instead, you should switch to the idea of turning healthy, and consider weight loss as a benefit of this new lifestyle. When people look at a new change, they think it's a temporary shift. So, for a bit, they may avoid fatty foods or sugary drinks, but end up giving in within a few months. Those, who look at it as a lifestyle change will be able to continue the benefits for longer. You're not eating whole foods Food quality is just as important as quantity. Eating healthy foods can improve your health and help regulate your appetite. These foods tend to be much more filling than their processed counterparts. Keep in mind that many processed foods labeled as health foods aren't really healthy. Stick to whole, single-ingredient foods as much as possible. You're not exercising People say weight loss is 80 percent diet and 20 percent exercise, but if you're only dieting, the sad fact is that your metabolism is slowing. Your body mass and weight largely determine your basal metabolic rate, the amount of calories you burn just sitting on the couch all day. And, since, the more weight you lose, the fewer calories you'll burn per day. What's more, whenever you cut calories, you lose at least a little muscle along with fat. And since muscle is the key to stoking your metabolism, any muscle lost is counteracting your weight-loss efforts. That's why muscle-building exercise is vital to any weight-loss plan.