Maybe you are wondering why you are not losing weight even if you are doing your best to eat healthily and exercise. Or maybe you don’t see the results that you’ve hoped for. Either way, this article will help you out by pointing where do you have a problem, in simple terms, and what is the solution.
You see, everything that is way too complicated, tedious or stressful for us won’t be very effective in the long term.
Ok, this probably shocked you a bit, but having a healthy lifestyle and being fit doesn’t have to be stressful and painful for us. In fact, the only way for it to be 
effective is to be fun, easy to do and to have a plan of action.
So maybe you just started on your journey to create healthy foods, maybe you count your calories, do the workout routines, drink plenty of water and everything that is required to be healthy and fit. But still, you are not losing weight? There must be a reason for that. And the good news is that it’s simple.
I have over 10 years of experience in exercising and dieting, and most recently I can say that everything got diluted to maybe a dozen key aspects of weight losing. And I needed all these years of experience to dilute it and simplify it this way.
You see, when you first start to read about this kind of things, trying to find out how to lose weight properly without starving yourself, and how to workout, the information overload is incredible. I mean, there are tons of so called “experts” and nutritionists that point out in different directions.
Some say that eating animal protein is essential in developing your muscles, and thus helping you to lose weight, some say that going vegan is the best way. Some say that discipline is the key to achieving anything, including a great body, some say that your genetics are important in determining how you look. Some say that focusing on the quality of your foods is the most important aspect, some say that you can lose weight by counting calories, even if you eat junk food. (I agree with the first statement in all cases.)
No wonder that makes you confuse. Information pulling you in different directions, you don’t know what to think anymore, the belly fat is still there, you are tired and stressed, probably even hungry after all those depriving diets, you don’t like what you see in the mirror and all you want right now is to say “I’m done with this” and get a nice juicy burger.
I get you. But hold on, there is great news. It DOESN’T have to be that way.
In fact, your body craves and it’s designed to be fit and healthy. You are born to be that way. It’s written in your DNA.
All these fake foods, fake quick losing weight tips, the intention to look for shortcuts and an environment that supports vices instead of soul and mind lifting, has sabotaged our own health and well-being from childhood.
Of course, we are not here to talk that much about the problem. We are solution oriented people. That’s why I compiled 5 reasons you are not losing weight even with dieting and working out, to help you identify the roadblocks and help you find a solution.
1. You are making it way too complicated
Like I said before, everything that is overly complicated only stresses ourselves out and makes us quit. In fact, we make it way too complicated so we can have an excuse to give up on it.
“This can’t be so simple”, you might think. But yes it is.
Simple disciplines repeated every day creates huge results.
We don’t have to make it complicated to lose weight and be fit. In fact, the simple the better.
The solution: Instead of trying too much too quick and overwhelm you, add simple and easy disciplines every day.
Drink a glass a water with lemon when you wake up. Eat an apple a day. Go for 30 minutes of walking around the block. Drop the sodas and drink water instead. Take the stairs instead of the elevator. And the examples can go on. All these things look simple, but their cumulated effect when done daily is simply amazing. Want more ideas like this? Read my article 50 Simple Things You Can Do to Get in Shape.
2. You don’t rest enough
This is a mistake that I’ve done in the beginnings, and I saw very few people giving this advice while looking for and studying how to lose weight.
Here is the deal: Overtraining and overfatigue are a serious and dangerous thing. Your body needs to rest, especially when you workout and put even more physical and mental pressure on it.
The physical aspect of it is quite easy to see, but many of us engage in it. We start to workout and diet, and we want to see the results fast, which is not how our body functions. We get frustrated and we think to ourselves that if we workout even more and harder will have a positive impact. Which can’t be more wrong.
Our muscles are broken down in the training. Our muscle fibers get ripped, literally, during the exercise. And it is in the resting period when they get to rebuild, thus becoming better and stronger.
If you don’t rest properly, your muscles don’t have time to recover and you start losing them. As you lose more muscle mass, you gain more fat, because the muscles are the ones that burn most of the calories. You get more exhausted, you train less and you feel like you’ve been hit by a bus. And in this stressful state of body and mind will be very easy to comfort yourself a little bit with unhealthy foods.
“I am not a bodybuilder, why do I care about muscle recovery?” Well, it doesn’t matter if you are not. If you are a human being, you need the muscles to function properly and be healthy. Women need it too, those that run marathons need it too, and basically everyone.
Yes, bodybuilders have more muscle mass than anyone else because they choose too, but even if you are a skinny person those muscles are the only ones that keep your body from falling down like a human skeleton model. In fact, if you are skinnier than a bodybuilder, you are more susceptible to feel the effects of muscle loss. Because you have less. A body builder has a lot of muscle mass to burn before starting to wear down completely, but a normal physique no.
The mental pressure is even more powerful as it is subtle in effect. Your brain has to deal with a lot when you change your habits and lifestyle. There is a new pattern to install, a lot of positive changes, old habits to remove etc.
Your brain needs rest to cope us with all that is happening, both on the outside and in the inside of your body. Not to mention that sleep deprivation can also kill you, besides having a lot of negative effects on you. Read about 10 Amazing Health Benefits of Sleep.
The solution: Make your sleep a priority, so you can get 7 to 8 hours of shutdown every night. Create habits that will endorse and encourage this behavior. Stay away from digital things before going to sleep, as that light affects our sleep hormones.
Read before you go to bed, make a hot tea and enjoy it, take a long relaxing bath, make love with your significant other. There are a lot of relaxing ways that you can induce yourself into sleeping mode, making sure you rest enough, so your body and mind properly recovers.
3. You don’t relax enough
This is a part that again, many don’t talk about. Everywhere you see that you have to deposit effort, stay disciplined and focused, keep at it and you will get the 
results. And it is in part true.
There is an important aspect of this effort, and that is we are not machines. We are humans and we need to recover and relax, otherwise, we overwhelm ourselves and start to break down.
But why I mention relaxation, even if I said sleep. Well, some are sleeping in stress mood and they wake up the same. When you are stressed out, not even your sleep can’t function properly, and you’d need probably like 24 hours of sleep to clean out all those toxins accumulated in the brain.
The stress is wearing us down even more than activities. I felt it on my own skin. When I was in a constant state of anxiety and stress, I always felt tired, even after freshly woke up. That’s because negative states of mind create a lot of cortisol into our body.
High levels of cortisol can produce:
- fatigue (including feeling “tired but wired”)
- mood swings and increased anxiety
- irregular periods and fertility problems
- increased urination
- weight gain, especially around the abdomen/stomach
- changes in libido due to changes in estrogen or decreased testosterone
- trouble sleeping normally
- muscle aches and pains
- a puffy, flushed face
- high blood pressure levels
- higher susceptibility to infections
- excessive thirst
- higher rates for bone fractures and osteoporosis
- acne or other changes in the skin
The solution: Make your relaxation a must. Plan your vacations and relaxing times as diligently as you plan your work, diet, and workouts.
Remember that relaxation is the key to being productive. You relax so you can regain your strengths, and come back better and stronger. You relax so you can crush it even harder. You will make your health habits enjoyable and be rewarding instead of stressful and annoying. That’s the key to keep them your whole life and see great results.
Give me six hours to chop down a tree and I will spend the first four sharpening the axe.
– Abraham Lincoln
4. You expect to see quick results
There is no shortcut in great achievements. There is no magic pill, no secret, no lucky straw. Forget about it.
There are only results made by the actions you took. That’s it. The law of sowing and reaping is working 24/7, 365, with no exceptions.
Expecting to see quick results is an illusion and a lie to your own self. And when truth strikes you, as it always does, it makes you frustrated, demotivated and stressed out. Now you see why this is so dangerous.
Creating unrealistic pressure on your body, expecting from it to remove in 1 month what you deposited in years, is not only unhealthy but also so crushing to your self-image that you will easily fall into the problems mentioned above.
The human body isn’t supposed to switch gears and habits in a snap of fingers. We are created to follow patterns and behaviors like a programmed computer.
Also, burning energy cannot happen at a very excessive rate because we are not built like that. Not to mention that fats are the most calorie dense macronutrients and you need to burn 9 calories to get rid of 1 gram of fat. Add the fact that your body likes to keep the fat reserves and only use them after all the carbs are gone, and you have a pretty complicated and not so fast deal going on.
Another important aspect here is that if you were eating unhealthy (which you clearly did, since you have some fat that you want to get rid of) your body suffered from what I call nutritional starvation. That simply means you lack the nutrients, vitamins, and minerals that your body needs to function properly. And only after your body starts to recover and replenish its resources you will see positive changes in your fat percentage.
The solution: Stop putting unrealistic pressure on your body and realize that it needs to recover after eating all those junky foods before it can start to shed off fat.
Focus on the long term goal and not the short term results. You want to create a healthy body and image that will last you a lifetime, not changing appearances and excessive weight that keeps coming back as soon as you eat something.
Give your body the time, the relaxation and the rest it needs after working out, as well as delicious and healthy foods, and it will start to burn fat without coming back.
5. You don’t believe you can do it
You are on a motivational blog, what you expected? 😁
Seriously now, your self-image totally influences how you look. It’s scientifically proven, you can research it if you want. Your subconscious mind follows the instructions it receives from the conscious.
This simply means that if you think and believe that you are born to be overweight and never change, that will be your reality. Your behaviors will follow this mental picture you have with yourself, and it will unconsciously and automatically control your actions, creating this reality for you.
If you believe you are an athlete or a fit person that is born to be this way, you will behave in a different way, have a different level of energy, do a lot of different things that will create this reality for you.
No matter how many fat loss ebooks I will give you, how many pieces of advice, how many workout routines, if you have the wrong mindset, you will not be able to change your body. All the changes start in our mind first.
The solution: See yourself how you want to become, not how you currently are. Be unrealistic about what you will achieve and have total confidence and faith 
in your own strength, that no matter how hard is to achieve your goal, you will do everything necessary to make it happen.
Every day before starting your day, visualize yourself, while still laying in bed, achieving the results that you want to achieve. See yourself there, feel it as you already have that amazing sculpt body. Embrace those feelings and let them fill you up with motivation. Imagine how you are going to feel, how your life is going to improve, how your relationships will be better.
Think about everything that this will give you. All the joy, the energy, the stamina. Do this for 10 minutes every morning and it will totally transform your self-image, motivation levels, confidence and thus your results.
That was it, 5 reasons why you are not losing weight even if you diet and workout. I hope this article was useful for you and it will help you advance towards your goals. If you feel this article was valuable, give it a share, it might help someone else too.
Which one of these points affected you until now and what changes are you going to make to your diet and workout routines? Share it with us in the comments.
