Dieting and not losing weight? This could be why.

If you have started your fitness and weight loss journey and still aren’t losing weight, or if you started off well but your fat loss has plateaued, it might not be anything obvious that is holding your progress back. Today we are going to pop the hood on your weight loss and fine tune some of the most common but less immediately obvious reasons that your results have stalled out. 

You’re overeating healthy foods. While it’s critical to focus on eating healthy, whole foods and eating ‘clean’, if you are eating too many healthy calories, you will start to see your weight loss progress slow or even reverse. 

100 calories of French Fries and 100 calories of steamed vegetables is still 100 calories. Think of it this way. 100 pounds of feathers weigh the same as a 100 pound cannon ball. 100 calories is 100 calories from an energy perspective. How your body processes french fries and vegetables will be very different. In terms of the nutritional properties of each food, the veg is packed with vitamins, minerals, and fiber, which is obviously much better for you than fries, but it's still 100 calories out of your daily budget. Going over budget is what contributes to weight gain. 

It’s very common for people to lose track of their calories when they are eating healthy, which is why there are overweight vegetarians and vegans. If you are following a decent, common sense meal plan, you will be eating healthy delicious foods in a balanced way - if you are winging it on your own without the structure and guidance of a plan, pay closer attention to your daily intake - you might be overeating. 

You’re not eating enough protein. When people start to try and lose weight, 99% of their nutritional focus typically goes to eating low-calorie, healthy carbohydrate foods. This is great, but it’s an approach that is missing a key ingredient to weight loss - protein. Women in particular seem to have an aversion to protein. As a vital nutritional component to a healthy, balanced diet, protein has somehow taken on the aura of something that is ‘male’ gendered - something for men. Given how important protein is to weight loss, supporting the development of fat burning lean muscle mass, and the healthy functioning of your body in general, not getting enough protein into your diet is not doing you a favour. 

The fastest way to ensure that you are getting enough protein on a daily basis, follow a meal plan that does the heavy lifting and balances your protein out for you as part of your daily routine. Increasing your lean (or plant based) protein intake and even changing up your go-to meals with some easy to make, healthy recipes can often jump-start your fat-loss progress and get you back on track.

You are not getting the daily fiber that you need. Again, if you are following a decent meal plan, this shouldn’t be an issue. If you are out there on your own without the support and structure of a plan that provides grocery lists and recipes that specifically support your weight loss goals, remembering to get your daily fiber can be a struggle. Most fast foods, processed or ready made meals, refined carbohydrates - almost any food product that is cheap and easy to grab on the go - has been purposefully stripped of most of its fiber. Why? Because fiber helps to signal that you are full, and that you don’t need to eat (or spend) further. When food is being sold as a packaged, engineered and proceeded product, fiber becomes the enemy of the bottom line. The more you eat, the more money corporate food makes - why would they ever want you to feel full?

Chances are that you are not getting anything near to your daily fiber requirements, which also leads to irregularity, bloating and a lack of energy and a feeling of sluggishness. Get more fiber into your diet, or get on a plan that takes care of fiber so that you don’t have to.

You can’t trust your gut. Gut bacteria plays a key role in weight loss. The wrong kinds of gut bacteria can affect how optimally your system digests fats and proteins. When your gut bacteria is out of balance, it can affect hormones that increase hunger, which typically leads to overeating. The balance of the right foods, starting with your grocery list, can ensure that you can trust in your gut again. 

You stop your diet as soon as you start to see progress. I call this the one step forward, two steps back cycle and it’s maddeningly common. It plays out something like this: as soon as you start to see some progress, you pull back your efforts to ‘celebrate’ and cut yourself some slack or worse, you go full self-sabotage mode and erase your progress. Whatever the reason, it’s important to change your perspective on ‘dieting’. There is a reason that we called our BodyRock Meal Plan bundle a ‘Meal Plan’ and not a ‘Diet Plan”. Diets are fixed in our culture to describe a short term strategy or fix to lose weight. Diets are temporary. A Meal Plan, CookBook and Nutrition Guide (all 3 books are included with our Meal Plan bundle) are long term, lifestyle approaches that allow you to start to establish a healthy, balanced and goal oriented approach towards food and weight loss. A diet typically has no long term runway, so as soon as you stop or pause - the pounds return (often with additional ‘interest’). To break this cycle, you have to decide that eating healthy foods is just how you live your life now. Break yourself free of the start-stop heartbreak of the diet industry. 

You need to move with purpose. If you are walking and taking your active steps everyday, great, but to really see the changes that you want in your body, commit yourself to doing a workout program. I know what you are thinking to yourself - maybe I can make this work without having to exercise. Maybe. But adding an exercise program that helps to support your goals will allow you to fly with 2 wings instead of crazily flapping with just 1 wing. The most powerful prescription for fat loss is bringing a common sense, easy to follow meal plan together seamlessly with the right workout program, luckily we have done just that. Our Beginner Bootcamp is a 30 day program that has been designed to get you up and moving again - even if its been years or decades since you last exercised with the purpose of working out. The workouts are between 15-20 minutes each, and include HIIT and Strength Training - the most efficient forms of exercise for fat loss. This program has been designed to be challenging but achievable - which means that it will also develop your confidence. We have a bunch of beginner level programs on BodyRockPlus.com that you can do anywhere. If you are looking for a place to start and you like the sound of the Beginner Bootcamp, you can get a full year of access for just $69 with code: NY22. Let’s get you up and moving again. 

These are some of the most common traps and pitfalls that people find themselves in when they have actively started their weight loss journey and find that their progress is slowing or has stalled out completely. Give this list a read, and re-visit it once and a while to help fine tune your efforts. Remember - you are capable, and you can achieve anything that you set your intention on - you might just need a little bit of support and guidance. Don’t try and do it on your own - it’s too much to take on alone. If you reach out to us, we will be your support, showing up for you each day with helpful advice, a fresh workout and coaches and trainers that care about your progress. 

Best,

Freddy