Nothing is more frustrating than seeing your hard work go unrewarded. It’s hard to stay motivated when the scale won’t budge despite you having done everything right such as exercising regularly and following a healthy diet.
Don’t give up yet. Check out if any of the sneaky reasons below may be secretly messing up your weight loss aspirations.
Skipping Breakfast
Skipping breakfast is one of the worst things you could do for weight loss since it causes your metabolism to slow down. When you don’t eat, your brain shifts into a survival mode. It quickly sends a message to the rest of the body to conserve energy. As a result, your body starts holding on to the stored fat that you’re trying to get rid of.
Skipping breakfast can make you overeat during other meals. Moreover, when you skip breakfast, your body does not burn as many calories until lunchtime as it could.
Eating within an hour of waking sparks the metabolic process called thermogenesis that turns the food you eat into energy. A high-fibre, protein-packed breakfast can help you feel full longer. Try chickpeas-based breakfast dishes (chickpea scramble or dosa). Eat apples, bananas, raspberries, or oranges for fibre, and drink black coffee in moderation to boost your metabolism.
Eating Too Less
Eating very little portions or skipping meals can backfire and actually make you gain weight in the long run. This happens because your body slows down your metabolism. Following a low-calorie diet or crash dieting can signal your body to start conserving energy by making you burn calories more slowly. The truth is that most people who eat fewer than three meals usually end up eating more calories during the course of the day.
You might also be more likely to indulge in binge-eating which makes weight loss all the more difficult.
Lack of Sleep
Research found that skimping on sleep can also derail your metabolism. It can also make you irritable and stressed which increases the levels of cortisol in your body. Cortisol is the primary stress hormone in your body. Increased cortisol levels lead to more visceral fat due to a spike in blood sugar and insulin levels.
When you are exhausted, your body lacks the energy to do its normal day-to-day functions, which includes burning calories. As a result, your metabolism is automatically lowered. If you are chronically sleep deprived, don’t be surprised if you gain a few kilograms without eating a morsel of extra food.
What’s more, when you are tired, you are more likely to make poor diet choices such as choosing sweets over fruit. People who don’t get enough sleep end up eating about 300 more calories per day than those who got more rest.
Stress
Even if you are sleeping well, you might still have elevated cortisol levels from all the stress you have been taking about losing weight itself. This is more than enough to send your cortisol levels soaring. Chronically high cortisol levels halt fat burning and may increase belly fat storage.
Other hidden stress factors in your life might also be a hindrance to your weight loss aspirations. You can lower your stress by managing the ‘trigger’ such as a person, situation, idea etc., or by managing your ‘response’ to that trigger. Ideally, try managing both. You can also listen to music, take a walk, read a book, meditate, or do anything else that brings you peace.
Lack of muscle mass
When you lose weight, you lose muscle and fat. The more muscle you have, the more calories you burn. When your muscle mass declines, the rate at which you burn calories does too. People with lean, muscular bodies burn more calories than people with a higher percentage of body fat.
Try including weights at least thrice a week in your workout routine to get past the weightloss plateau that you might have hit.
Thyroid Problems
Your thyroid plays a key role in everything from your metabolism to your energy levels. An unexplained increase in weight is one of the most common signs of a thyroid disorder known as hypothyroidism. This means that your thyroid gland is underactive.
The hormones released by your thyroid gland help regulate your metabolism. When you have an underactive thyroid, it can lead to salt and water build-up in your body. This can subsequently lead to weight gain. Some of the weight gain is fat, but much of it is the fluid build-up.
The most important thing you can do for weight loss and your overall health is to get proper treatment for your hypothyroidism. Consult a doctor and take thyroid medicines as prescribed.
DISCLAIMER
The priority, in this blog, is to supply the reader with clear and unambiguous information. However, neither The New Me nor Gagan Dhawan makes promises, or guarantees regarding the completeness of the information found here. The content is not a replacement for advice of a licensed professional. The opinions expressed in this blog are solely that of the writer’s.
