9 Reasons Why You Aren’t Losing Any Weight (Stop These Bad Habits Now!)

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Do you ever wonder why sometimes you just can’t lose weight? You feel like you got everything down and then you step on the scale and the number has gone up. What could possibly be the explanation? This is where weight loss can feel dreadful. It can even make you want to throw in the towel after a few weeks or even months.

Don’t fret, there is good news! There can be some pretty easy fixes that can significantly help melt some pounds. And- not to mention, significantly boost your momentum. If your goal is to seriously lose some pounds, you are going to have to come at it from all different angles. Stay consistent, work hard, and keep going!

If you some how landed here on this page, I can only assume you are struggling to figure out what’s going on and how to fix it. I’m glad you are here because as you read on, you can hopefully pin point a solution. Here are some reasons why you may not be seeing any results. In no particular order…

{{ Disclaimer: This site may provide information related to health, fitness, exercise, supplements and nutrition and is intended for personal use only. You should always consult a physician or medical professional before beginning, changing your lifestyle or using any new program or information you find here on the site. Nothing contained at The Healthy Girl Hustle should be used as medical advice or as a diagnosis. Use the information  found here solely at your own risk. }}

1. You Aren’t Logging Your Food

If your main goal is to lose weight and change bad habits, then you need a solid plan. It is imperative you log what goes into your mouth. Everything that goes into your body needs to be accounted for.

The main reason for this is to be able to see where you are going wrong. This will enable you to find the problem and tackle it early on. If you are blindly eating throughout the day, eyeing all your portions out and not really paying attention to sauces, drinks, condiments, etc. Then of course you aren’t losing any weight.

A really good habit to start, as mentioned above, is to write down all of your food and drink consumption. Once you know how many calories you are eating in a day then you will at least have a base for your calories you can go off of. Reduce your average daily caloric intake by at least 500 per day and go from there.

Your fitness journey can be a lot of trial and error. I don’t mean to be depressing when I say that you might fail or steer off track. It is rare that a person can get the exact weight loss formula on their own and right off the bat. Having the right coach or trainer will definitely reduce some headaches that you may face when figuring it all out.

If you are already experienced in the fitness world and have nutritional background, then you can still use your food logs to tweak your macros and adjust your sugar and salt levels. Sometimes micro-adjustments can catapult you out of a plateau. In order to manipulate your nutrients, calories , macros, you NEED to log your daily consumption.

2. You Aren’t Eating Healthy Fats

One reason why you might not be losing any weight could be fat. Healthy fats that is. What are healthy fats? And why do we need them for weight loss?

Let me quickly answer these questions. Fats are one of the 3 major macronutrients that our bodies require. Protein and carbohydrates are the other two. Each of these gives your body a certain amount of calories when consumed (fat 9 Kcal, protein 4 Kcal, carbs 4 Kcal).

Fat has more than 2 times the calories when compared to carbs and protein. This is actually a good thing! Why? Fat not only takes longer to digest. It increases Leptin, a hormone that signals to the brain that we are full. Therefore leaving you feeling fuller for longer.  This will aid in decreasing appetite and ultimately dropping pounds.

Make sure you are choosing healthy fats like avocado, nuts, olives, nut butters, seeds, fatty fish, etc. Also, keep in mind that fats are more caloric (9 Kcals per gram) so measuring your portion sizes is crucial!

3. Snacking At Night

This is where your will-power needs to come in to play To stop this bad habit. This will really make a difference in losing weight. Personally, getting rid of my night time snacking really tested my discipline. It wasn’t until I changed my snacking habits that I really saw a huge change in my body. This was even without much exercise and without really logging my food yet.

I know snacking is tempting when you finally sit down on the couch and watch some TV after a long busy day. For me, when I’m into a good show or movie, and there’s a bowl of food in front of me, I can’t resist the urge to blindly shovel food into my mouth. Portion control is essential in this situation. If you really can’t get rid of the snack, measure out your portion before going to the couch. Put the snack in a bowl and resist the urge to get up for a refill!

The thing is, you need to use the time before you go to bed as a recovery period. Only consume food at this time for the mere purpose of muscle repair. When you exercise (I am assuming you are doing this if losing weight is your aim), you break down muscle and tissue. You build muscle when your body goes in and repairs those tears. So you need to make sure your recovery game is solid.

Having a small protein filled snack is a good idea before your head hits the pillow. If you can choose something that acts to slowly release protein throughout the body and that can repair your body as you sleep, then even better! This could be some cottage cheese or a protein shake with casein.

The take away here is…don’t sabotage your whole day of rigorous meal planning with a bottomless bag of chips at night. This could make or break how bumpy your road to success will be.

4. You Are Having Cheat Days (Not Meals)

Cheating in regards to anything is bad. In order to avoid losing your sanity, having a cheat meal is a must! In fact, I highly recommend scheduling a cheat meal into your weekly schedule. This will give you something to look forward to and it’s great to really reward yourself for all your hard work. Celebrating even small successes can give you a much needed mental boost!

The problem emerges when a cheat meal turns into a cheat day or even worst, cheat days. When this fast rolling snowball starts to take off, it could really damage the headway you’ve worked so hard to gain.

Be mindful of limiting indulgences to one meal a week. Once you start making poor choices here and there, it will turn into a normalcy and then you will start to wonder why you aren’t losing weight anymore.

5. You Aren’t Lifting Weights

I’m sure you have heard of the saying- work smarter, not harder! Don’t spend an hour on the treadmill to just see a calorie deficit. Sure, in time, you may see some weight loss. I promise you that you will see better results cutting your workout time in half and adding some resistance training or weight lifting into the mix.

Weight training adds lean muscle mass to your frame. You will not get big and bulky like a man, that is a HUGE myth! Trust me, even if that was your goal it takes years of consistent heavy lifting, sweat, tears, the right supplements and calorie manipulations.

When you lift weights, you not only gain a calorie deficit, your training session will boost your metabolism long after you rack your dumbbells. What that means is, you are still torching calories as you go on about your day! You don’t really get that benefit from cardio.

If lifting isn’t something you can see yourself tackling on your own, I cover how to remove the fear out of the weight room briefly.

6. You Are Drinking Your Calories

Most women don’t realize the power of water. The body is approximately 60-80% water and to get a little scientific, every single cell in your body needs water to thrive.

Water is needed for basically all of your body’s chemical reactions. Without sufficient amounts of this solvent, the body cannot carry out vital processes. Water molecules are needed to break down macronutrient bonds from the food your eat, once broken down they can be digest or used in the body where needed.

Hopefully, I didn’t bore you with some brief biology but the point is, that is the only drink that is essential for life is water. You should consider saying no to other drinks that won’t benefit you if weight loss is what you seriously want.

Of course there are circumstances where you decide to have something other than water which is okay. Just be mindful of the sugar, cream or milk that you add to your coffee or tea. Be aware that fruit juices are packed with sugar and calories, and it helps to always read the labels.

The extra empty calories will only hurt your progress in the long run.

In other words, find out (by logging) how many calories you eat in a day on average, then reduce that amount by at least 500 and you will start to see a dip in your weight.

Once you are doing this for a while you won’t have to be so rigid with logging, you will learn what your body needs to maintain your ideal weight.

7. You Haven’t Found Your Motivation

Another reason why you aren’t losing weight could be because you aren’t visualizing yourself at the finish line. Although adopting a healthy lifestyle is a marathon, you need to have short term goals in your fitness transformation. Being able to see yourself overcoming hurtles, pushing through plateaus and navigating pass each small goal attained, will give you that drive needed to keep going.

Setting up small steps can really help your brain process the big picture. Being nice to yourself and allowing yourself to recognize small achievements in your journey does wonders for your self-confidence.

You need to know the reasons why you started your new lifestyle and always repeat them to yourself along the way. Write it down if you need to. I personally have a list of reasons why I work out, that way I can go back and I can find my momentum again. Pinterest is an amazing tool to create motivating boards for yourself to reference when you need a pick-me-up. Figure out why staying fit and being active is a priority for you.

8. Your Meal Plan Consists of Too Much Fruit

Yes- fruit is healthy! Fruit is full of antioxidants that fight off damaging free-radicals. They contain anti-aging properties, nutrients that enhance your beauty, immune-boosting agents and so much more.

The bad news is… if your day is full of ingesting too much fruit, this can cause a surge in your sugar intake, and ultimately your calorie intake. Just 1 medium size banana contains over 100 calories, 27 g of carbohydrates and 14 g of sugar!

If this doesn’t mean anything to you, that’s okay. The take away here is that sugar and carbs add up very quickly. If you are aiming to stay under a certain number, as you should be, then you really have to pay attention to the amount of fruit you eat.

Choose fruits with low glycemic indices and that are low in calories, for example, grapefruit, berries, apples, oranges or cherries. These are better choices and won’t cause such a spike in your blood sugar levels.

The saying- Everything in moderation is crucial in this circumstance. So you don’t have to completely remove fruits, just make the right choices and watch your portions.

9. You Aren’t Eating Enough Calories

We all need to face the facts. Anything that seems too good to be true- is. There are rarely quick fixes when it comes to fitness and health.

In terms of weight loss, cutting your calories by too much won’t get you anywhere for long. You want sustainability. This means you need to make gradual changes in your lifestyle in order to create good habits.

Essentially, this will mean you can live happily with some variation of your fitness and nutrition plan for the long-term.

Experts believe that reducing your caloric intake below 1200 calories a day, can hurt you more than benefit you.

Your body needs energy for your workouts and daily life. Your body gets energy from food. If you aren’t getting enough, your body will start tapping into vital muscles and other tissues to extract energy from.

You don’t want to lose muscle mass. I repeat, you do NOT want to lose muscle mass!

Firstly, it’s hard work to build. Secondly, (as stated in point 5), the more muscle mass you have on your frame, the more calories you burn just sitting on your couch. Who wouldn’t want that??

Not eating enough may also throw your system into starvation mode. If your brain recoginzes that it’s not getting enough nutrients for vital functions, it will start to hold on (for dear life!), to any fat that you have on your body.

Not eating enough will make it extremely hard to lose the adipose tissues that you, in the first place, so eagerly wanted to get rid of. This type of thinking is counterproductive. Fat release will be your body’s LAST priority.

Finding the optimal calorie range that allows you to lose weight and easily release fat is a lot of trial and error. Like I said earlier, if you have a professional to help you then this becomes easier.

Everybody is different. There are several variables to take into consideration when finding the right calorie range for your specific goal, these include: your body composition, your activity level, medical conditions, hormones, etc.

Your Next Step…

Now you’ve hopefully got more insight as to why you can’t seem to get rid of those stubborn pounds. Consider everything you know and take in all the above points and I’m sure you will start to see some results. Consistency is key, be kind to yourself and hustle hard!