Help! Why do I not lose weight despite exercise and diet?

Implementing a diet to lose a pound or two can be a big challenge . Once the decision is made, the initial euphoria may still distract you. But at the latest, when the initial successes begin to falter and the abandonment and the effort become noticeable, doubts begin to spread among many athletes. Can it be that you do not lose weight despite diet and exercise?

It depends on the calorie balance!

Losing weight is not witchcraft and since no one who reads These Lines does photosynthesis, you get your energy from the food you feed. If I eat (on average) more than I consume, I gain weight. If I eat (on average) less than I consume, I will lose weight. In the end, it is actually that simple, but this does not change the fact that the scenario described at the beginning is not uncommon. So there must be reasons that there are always exercising people who feel that they are not losing weight despite the diet.

First of all, it should be noted that weight loss is a game of patience and one should not be deceived by fluctuations on the scale or in the mirror. The human body consists largely of water, which is stored both in the cells and in the interstices. The distribution depends on a variety of factors: hydration, mineral balance (especially sodium-potassium ratio), carbohydrate stores of the muscles, Stress or, in women, for example, the menstrual cycle.

For this reason, every morning you will notice a different weight on the scale and a different face in the mirror. Sometimes with more and sometimes with less large deviations. There is no reason to despair or make compulsive adjustments at this point. These fluctuations have nothing to do with your actual diet success.

To have a realistic idea of whether the development is going in the right direction, it would be useful to take the weekly average weight and compare it with the average weight of four weeks ago. Especially for women who go through a regular cycle, this tip applies, as hormonal fluctuations in female athletes cause great uncertainty as to whether everything would be made right.

Instead, however, many people tend to chase after rapid success. As part of your diet, always consider where you were four, eight or twelve weeks ago. As a rule, the fat reserves will not have reached the hips overnight, so you should also be patient if you want to get rid of them again. Those who do not have this patience usually always make the same mistake: the calories are reduced too quickly and too much.

Too big a deficit slows down your diet success!

A calorie deficit can become too large? What may seem a bit strange at first glance, after all, the body fat is supposed to melt away with the help of the diet, but is actually one of the biggest mistakes you can make in the course of your diet. In the short term, this may lead to greater progress over the first few days. The weight on the scales continues to decrease, the sizes decrease and actually one should feel so good, as not for a long time, after all, one achieves exactly what one desires. But somehow you don't feel like you can rip out trees.

If you make your calorie deficit too large, you run the risk of not feeding enough micronutrients. This sets in motion various chain reactions, which all result in the fact that the fat metabolism deteriorates and water retention may even worsen. Although you lose body fat, this happens inefficiently. You feel tired and limp and at the same time play a trick on a mirror image and Libra by the water retention causing you to feel that nothing would happen. What would be the appropriate consequence? Even fewer calories! Welcome to the vicious circle!

Sooner or later, this will lead to hormonal problems, with which many competition bodybuilders (especially Bikini athletes) have to contend after the competition season. While a decrease in basal turnover due to a reduced production of thyroid hormones only takes place after a few months of (radical) diets, the body's own testosterone production, which is important for both sexes in connection with muscle building and muscle maintenance, decreases significantly faster. The hunger hormone Leptin is even influenced by a calorie deficit after just a few days, so regular Refeeds should be part of the planning of a successful diet.

But if these physical changes were not enough, too much deficit will also affect your social life. While you may be able to do without the Popcorn in the cinema unobtrusively, the joint visit to the restaurant or the family dinner becomes a pedal-mine run, which you try to avoid as far as possible. Those who are already ill-tempered and in a bad mood because of a reduced testosterone level will not begin to feel better in the social Isolation. But avoiding social occasions will not be the only thing to pay less attention to.

Do not underestimate the everyday movement!

If you keep lowering your calories and only feel energy-free in everyday life, you will also move less without consciously perceiving it. In particular, the daily movement is a crucial piece of the puzzle when it comes to losing weight successfully as part of a diet. Depending on body stature and speed, one can roughly expect that 10,000 additional steps in everyday life corresponding to a consumption of 500 kcal. However, those who only go the most necessary ways and in the course of diet lethargy spend more time on the Couch than on foot, more or less suddenly consume significantly fewer calories than in the time before the diet.

If you then try to compensate for these losses through conscious cardio training, you will keep your calorie consumption up in the short term, but you will have problems with Regeneration in the medium term. This, in turn, will sooner or later lead to an increase in stress hormones, water retention and the problems already mentioned. As with the calorie deficit, the Motto " much helps much!“. A clever and, above all, patient approach makes much more sense.

No diet success? Check this basic checklist

The points mentioned here are only the basics, but they are neglected far too often. Beyond that, however, there are undoubtedly many other points that could lead to the fact that you supposedly do not lose weight, even though you are already exercising and carrying out a diet. Basic points you should check are:

• Do I know my average calorie intake? Do I weigh everything every day?
• Have I been eating my current amount of calories for at least four to six weeks?
• Do I sleep enough? That is, do I feel recovered in the morning despite dieting?
• Do I eat at least 50 grams of fat a day?
• I use a cyclic calorie intake or I carry at least every five to seven days a (controlled!) Refeed as part of the diet through? Note: the calories are of course also calculated!
• Do I walk 10,000 steps a day?
• Do I eat at least 1.8 grams of Protein per kilogram of body weight in the Form of high-quality foods or Protein Shakes?
• Am I happy?

If you can confirm all this for yourself, the mirror image in particular should be an orientation for whether you are satisfied with your changes. Most people plan to lose X kilograms, but in reality you have an optical change in your head that you want to achieve.

We often find it difficult to see whether this takes place, as we see ourselves in the mirror every day, which is why the best indicator of whether you actually do not lose weight despite and sports and diet are honest photos that you take every four to six weeks and then compare. Even if the weight on the scales stagnates, you should be aware that you are doing everything right and that only one thing really matters. You already know: patience!

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