I'M Losing Weight But Im Eating

“I feel like I don’t really eat much, but I’m not losing weight.” Sound familiar? If you’ve been feeling this way, let’s talk about some sneaky reasons why we sometimes don’t lose weight as expected.

—is different. There is a long list of potential reasons why people hit a weight loss plateau, but here are a few of the most common ones I see with my patients.

It is possible that you have a condition called insulin resistance. With insulin resistance, the cells in your body stop responding to insulin, causing high levels of sugar in your blood (also called high blood sugar).

How Your Thinking Affects Weight Loss

If your body builds up insulin resistance, that extra blood sugar will be stored as fat instead of as an energy source called glycogen. This makes it more challenging for us to lose weight despite good dietary habits.

The best way to fight insulin resistance is by exercising and generally living an active lifestyle. However, sometimes medications can help initially, so please consult your doctor for evaluation and treatment options.

Stress can produce excess levels of a hormone called cortisol. Cortisol shifts your metabolism to store fat. It also increases your appetite and can cause cravings for sweet, fatty and salty foods. Trying to lose weight while constantly craving those “cheat day” foods is practically fighting a losing battle.

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So, stress management and caring for your mental health are important in reaching and maintaining a healthy weight. For simple ways to start taking better care of your mental health, read this.

Are you drinking anything other than plain water? Sugar-free and “zero-calorie” drinks have artificial sweeteners, which significantly increase ghrelin levels. What’s ghrelin and why is that a problem? Ghrelin is a “hunger hormone” that stimulates your appetite, meaning it can cause increased food intake and fat storage.

You may ask, how about sparkling water that doesn’t have any artificial sweeteners? Unfortunately, the carbonation in the liquid also does the same thing—it increases ghrelin.

Foods To Eat To Help You Lose Weight

Plain water is the best thing to drink (in general and especially for weight loss). But some of us just can’t stand the taste of plain water, and I get it. Instead of using sugar-free flavoring drops, try infusing water with fresh fruits and herbs such as:

Snacks in between meals can add up. While snacks are sometimes necessary and can be helpful in keeping you from getting too hungry between meals, try to snack smart.

Of exercise. For example, doing too much cardio without any strengthening training will make it difficult for you to gain muscles, and muscles help increase metabolism.

Why Diets Don't Work

Another potential reason to consider is that you’re doing the same workouts over and over. If you are always doing the same routines, your body gets used to it and will hit a plateau. We need to push our bodies out of their comfort zone and get a little uncomfortable.

How? Try adding in some high-intensity interval training to mix things up. Change up your routines, increase repetitions or the number of sets in your workout. These small changes can have big results.

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How Many Carbs To Eat To Lose Weight

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Ready for healthcare news to inform you? Advice to empower you? Stories to inspire you? Enter your email address below to receive the latest health updates and tips from Baylor Scott & White.Rewind three-and-a-half months to January. You’ve woken up, feeling the after effects of last night’s celebration, and resolved to make a change in the new year. The goal? To lose weight. Fast forward to today. You’ve cut out the fast food, revamped your diet and committed to an exercise routine. But the numbers on the scale haven’t budged at all. What gives?

I’ll be the first to tell you that I’ve been there. For most of my young adult life, I weighed in just under the average for my age and height. Then, when I turned 25 I started taking an anxiety medication that catapulted the scale upwards a full 45 pounds — despite not having changed my diet or exercise routine. While I definitely have been hard on myself over the eight months since the weight gain, I took it upon myself to re-up my gym membership, sign up for ClassPass to give myself some variety and make more conscious food choices.

How Much Protein To Eat To Lose Weight

Over the first few months, I saw a couple pounds drop off, but in the last four months I’ve seen next to nothing. Not seeing those numbers steadily decline despite feeling like I had been sacrificing my favorite foods and spare time to log hours at the gym, was definitely discouraging. So much so that I became less motivated with my pursuit, almost wanting to throw in the towel. What was the point of putting in hours of hard work multiple times a week if I had nothing to show for it?

I know I’m not alone in the never-ending cycle of hard work, lack of results and discouragement and frustration. To get to the bottom of it, I consulted Bonnie Taub-Dix, RDN, creator of BetterThanDieting.com and author of Read it Before You Eat It — Taking You from Label to Table, about mistakes people make that hinder weight-loss progress. Get ready for a reality check — and a sigh of relief.

Knowing that eating too many calories likely led to your unwanted weight gain, it may seem like a good idea to cut back — been there, done that — but you should think again. “Very-low-calorie diets may create a quick initial weight loss, but when hunger, boredom or life circumstances get in the way, these unrealistic plans can become too hard to stick to, ” Taub-Dix says. “This could lead to that familiar diet/binge cycle of eating, causing someone to feel badly about themselves for failing instead of being their own cheerleader to help them achieve their desire to look and feel their best.” Sound familiar? I, for one, have struggled with this a lot ever since I first saw my weight flare up. I’d meticulously log all my calories and count my macros, and begin to restrict myself from eating more calories once I’d reached the magic number, despite how hungry I felt. Like clockwork, I would inevitably come home late one night and end up binging, ordering all my favorite Italian dishes from my neighborhood pizzeria — enough to feed multiple people — and eating it almost entirely on my own.

I Eat Healthy, Why Am I Gaining Weight?

With this experience in mind, Taub-Dix explains that when you really cut back on calories, your body thinks you’re in trouble, urging it into starvation mode, and it slows down a lot of the functions that are necessary to burn calories — including your thyroid, metabolism and blood pressure. What’s more, as a woman, it can make your period irregular, which can affect your hormones and lead to weight gain. And at the end of the day, the battle of the binge is a hard one to win.

We have enough decisions to make each and every day; so many of us resort to relying on avoid lists to take the guesswork out of which foods we can and can’t eat. Taub-Dix explains that while a lengthy avoid list may seem like clear guidance at the start of a diet, it can lead to resentment and misinformation. I’ve tried adhering to more of these lists than I can count, thinking it won’t be so bad cutting out only carbs or avoiding fried foods. But I end up finding it more difficult than ever. It leads me to seek comfort in other unhealthy foods, while giving myself false praise for having successfully avoided the one food I deemed “off limits” even though I’m still not eating ideally. Knowing that I needed to find balance, I tapped Taub-Dix for her advice.

“Foods that may need to be limited when one is trying to drop a few pounds is not the same as complete avoidance, ” she says. And this includes labeling your favorite indulgences as off limits. “Instead of cutting out foods you enjoy, try watching your portion sizes or save richer foods for special occasions, ” Taub-Dix says. “You shouldn’t punish yourself by cutting out

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