Why Can't I lose Weight and Keep it Off?!
My business partner, Lara, and I recently sat down for a new year-new business planning session, which, after a bit of holiday cheer veered off onto a completely different path – that of weight loss. Leading up to the holidays, several clients asked us for nutrition tips to help them lose a bit of excess so they could fit into their holiday glam. After comparing notes, we realized most of the questions centred around: why can't I lose this 5, 10 or 50 lbs, and, why can't I keep the freakin' weight off?
Between the two of us, we have trained and ‘counselled’ (fitness and nutritionally speaking) hundreds of clients over our 12+ years in the industry. And in our rolls as fitness whips, *ahem*, I mean trainers, and nutrition sounding-boards, so many of our clients have ask us these two questions time and again. By the time Lara and I ended our ‘meeting’, we narrowed our answers down to three reasons:
no plan,
too many diets, and
a lack of serious cardio.
No structured plan:
Yup, you are sick and tired!. Sick and tired of looking in the mirror and grabbing that belly roll, reaching around and poking at that back fat and you would really like to retire your Spanx. You know something needs to change and that’s great! But where the *bleep* do you start?
And what’s the usual first brain fart: eat less! So you cut back on the amount of food you eat. But although you eat less, you still aren’t seeing the change that you wanted, or you’ve lost some weight, but couldn’t keep it off. Why? Because there wasn’t a plan in place!
Surprise,cutting calories is not always the answer, especially if the food you are still eating isn’t doing your body good (as they say). Doing some research or sitting down with a nutritionist to develop a plan that keeps you accountable, consistent and structured (within reason), is well worth the effort. A solid weight-loss/maintenance plan will not only help you lose weight, but will also help you develop the mindset needed to stay on track over a lifetime.
Diet overload:
Raise your hand if you have ever jumped from one diet to another, without long-term success. So many people struggle with fad diets that may work short-term but just aren’t sustainable. Our bodies are machines: they need proper maintenance in the form of healthy fats, carbs and proteins. Following a diet that drastically cuts or eliminates any one of these ‘must have’ nutrients will eventually made the plan unsustainable.
Your body will, sooner or later, let you know it’s done with your crap and start protesting in the form of no energy, dull skin and hair, and you will hit a weight-loss plateau. And these are just a few of the more minor negative effects of a fad diet.
What if we said you can eat real, whole delicious food and lose weight at the same time? Heard that before, right? What many people don’t understand is you literally have to LEARN how to eat healthy. And once you have that bit of knowledge (in the form of a proper plan) in place, you are golden! And one more tiny bit of wisdom: what works for your friend’s body may not sit well with yours.
HIIT is hell!
We wouldn’t be surprised if many of you consider ‘hell’ an appropriate word to describe high intensity interval training (HIIT). And we will even be so bold as to say, many of you probably don’t even do cardio. Or if you do, the intensity is “lame”.
But time and again, HIIT has worked wonders for those wanting to lose weight (go ahead, Google it). It really isn’t rocket science: to lose weight you MUST burn more calories then what you consume – in other words, more calories out then in. Adding HIIT to your weight loss routine is one of the most effective ways to shed weight, and FAST!
Simply put, HIIT involves working really hard for short periods of time, and then, before you can say “I’m dying”, the intensity is lowered or the workout is done. But guess what, even after the workout is over, your body keeps burning calories for a few more hours! How awesome is that? So, no more “I have no time to spend an hour at the gym”, because you can spend as little as 15 minutes four to five times a week doing HIIT and definitely see the benefits.
Let’s wrap this up
So there you have it! The culmination of our experience, brain power and handy friend G (yup, that’d be Google), and we give you three solid reasons why so many of you struggle to lose the weight and keep it off.
While these explanations may seem basic – if they were actually that simple to overcome, well, the fitness industry would be out of business. But at the end of the day, this 3-step process can be the start of your successful weight loss journey.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Nicole Paradis is co-owner of 2GFitness, and co-developer of Barre Fitness Fusion and Barre Fitness Fusion Train the Trainer. Check out her latest posts here.