Losing weight requires a perfect balance between following a proper diet, doing adequate exercise or physical activity, and drinking plenty of fluids, including water. Despite doing these religiously, if you are still struggling to lose those pounds, there is definitely something wrong with your health or lifestyle.
Even if you are eating healthy food, there may be loopholes in the way you are eating them which is actually causing more weight gain. There may be several minor things leading up to a massive pile-up of body weight.
Let us explore 23 Hidden Reasons Why You Are Not Losing Weight
1. Bigger Portion Sizes:
If you want your digestive system to work properly, instead of eating heavy meals, you will have to divide it into several small meals or portions. This helps the digestive system to break the food and boost metabolism.
Moreover, you will also need to track the portion of each healthy food you are consuming per day. Even if a food is healthy, it is important to eat it in smaller portions regularly, rather than eating at a time or in bigger portions.
2. Resistance To Workouts:
Doing adequate exercise is just not enough. It is important to change the course of exercise and throw up challenges to yourself and try new things and reach new levels.
Although, it sounds good that our body is very adaptable, however, doing the same exercise or workout will build up resistance after some time. At this point, the body is no longer able to shed any more weight.
3. Inadequate Sleep:
Our body produces a hormone called leptin which helps in regulating our appetite. To release leptin, adequate sleep is required. Therefore, inadequate sleep leads to falling in leptin levels which increase the appetite or craving for food.
Moreover, it is also important to get sufficient sleep for all the organs of the body to function properly, including digestion.
4. Excess Sleep:
Both inadequate sleep and oversleeping are harmful. The body ceases to function properly when a person sleeps for too long, and the body becomes partially inactive.
It also leads to health issues like diabetes, obesity, constipation and other gastric problems, and even hypertension. Ideally, our body should get 8 hrs of sleep. However, it may differ from person to person.
5. High Sugar Intake:
Eating lots of sugar or sugary food attributes highly to weight gain. Sugar is high in calories and interferes with the healthy functioning of the body. Cut down on food with high sugar content as well as carbohydrates from your diet. This will help in losing weight faster.
6. Thyroid Disorder:
The thyroid gland, which is a butterfly-shaped gland on the front of the neck, is responsible for metabolism function. If the thyroid gland is under-active, it is likely to cause metabolism disorders. The thyroid is the most common factor which causes unexplained weight gain, i.e. you are unable to lose weight significantly, after all, weight-loss attempts like exercise, diet, or a healthy lifestyle.
7. Hormonal Imbalance:
Hormones enable the various organs of the body to perform their respective functions. Therefore, if the hormones of the body are not balanced, things may not go the way they are supposed to. The hormones of men and women are a little different in terms of weight gain or loss. Women with high estrogen levels develop insulin resistance which leads to weight gain. When it comes to men, they need sufficient testosterone to perform the metabolic functions, which ultimately results in weight gain.
8. Stress:
Stress is another reason why you are probably not losing weight. Although it is not possible to avoid stress altogether, it is important to manage it through various stress management techniques like thoughtful eating, meditation, proper exercise, etc. Stress can cause health conditions like hypertension, depression, gastrointestinal problems, hormonal imbalance, and much more. Stress stimulates the release of a stress hormone known as cortisol which is ultimately stored in the body in the form of belly fat.
9. Depression:
Taking anti-depressants causes weight gain. Moreover, a depressed person often takes the aid of unhealthy food to elevate their mood. In most cases, they likely lose interest to lose weight or exercise.
10. Age Factor:
Growing age is another underlying reason why you are not losing weight. The metabolism rate during youth and older age is not the same and it goes down with age. Moreover, due to older age, you may not be able to do some of the most intense weight lifts or workouts you used to do earlier.
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11. Insulin Resistance:
Insulin is released when we eat something. This helps in regulating the levels of blood sugar in the blood. Insulin also aids the various organs of the body to get the sufficient quantity of glucose needed by them. High carbohydrate and sugar are associated with the need for more insulin. If there is insulin resistance, the organs of the body are unable to absorb the desired amount of glucose, which results in high levels of sugar in the blood. Insulin resistance is often related to unexplained weight gain.
12. Inadequate Probiotic Food:
The microbiome in the gut is also associated with unexplained weight gain. Gut bacteria help in losing weight. It is important to feed the gut with food suitable for it like raw oats which help in managing weight.
13. Food Allergy Or Intolerance:
We all have some sort of allergy or intolerance like wheat or peanut allergy or intolerance towards lactose. Sometimes, these allergies may remain unknown to us for a long time like celiac disease. Our digestive system cannot metabolize the food we are allergic to and this causes a lot of health issues like Irritable Bowel Syndrome (IBS), inflammation, or unexplained weight gain.
14. Eating Diet Foods:
Most of the diet food are in processed form and are high in chemicals that may be harmful to the body. They are often high on sugar content or are laced with artificial sweetening agents. To lose weight, it is important to go for natural and preferably organic food, over-processed food.
15. Obesity In The Family:
Sometimes, putting on extra weight just runs in the family. If you suddenly start gaining weight despite a healthy diet and lifestyle and you are not diagnosed with any underlying reason causing this, make sure if obesity is not in your family, either on the paternal or maternal side. Try to deal with this with proper diet, adequate exercise, and lifestyle correction.
16. Sitting All The Time:
Another reason for the difficulty in weight loss is that you spend most of the time sitting before the TV or Netflix or you do not take small breaks while working on the computer. You mustn’t stay glued to the lounger or chair for a very long time and take short breaks to get up and walk for a while.
17. Intake Of Artificial Sweeteners:
It may seem that you are cutting down on calories by picking up that can of diet energy or by adding artificial sweetener to your cappuccino. However, energy drinks lead to obesity and artificial sweeteners often increase your craving for food, which results in weight gain in the end.
18. Water Retention In The Body:
Apart from the accumulation of fats in the body, weight gain is also due to water retention in the body. If you are consuming too much sodium through your food or having a lot of salt, your body is likely retaining water. It is important to cut down on calorie intake and go for a more intense workout to lose weight.
19. Ignoring Nutrition Facts:
It is important to read the nutrition facts given on food labels. Although fats and calories are the two most important things, sugar or any of its variation should not be ignored. It is also necessary to understand the serving size so that you do not end up consuming extra fats and calories.
20. Side Effects Of Medications:
Many medicines result in weight gains like anti-seizures and anti-depressants. In case you notice anything like this, consult your doctor to change the medicines.
21. Inadequate Cardio Workouts:
To lose weight, apart from doing all the exercises, it is important to do weight lifting. It is not only a fast way of losing weight, but it also helps the muscles to burn fats even when you are not doing the workout. Therefore, if you are not losing much weight after doing a lot of exercises, make sure you are not missing out on weight training.
22. Inadequate Fat Intake:
It is a myth the fat intake leads to weight gain. It’s sugar which is highly responsible for weight gain as well as heart problems. The unsaturated fats that are present in food like olive oil, avocado oil, fish oil, etc. in fact help in losing weight by keeping us satiated.
23. High Protein Intake:
Although protein helps in losing weight, there is a saying that excess of anything is not good. The protein intake should match with the workouts you are doing, if they are not exhausted, they remain stored in the body as fats.
