Revealing the secrets of an unhealthy body shape

Often, losing weight simply is not fair. In many cases, you push yourself and dedicate time but you have nothing to show for all the effort and attention you have put into your weight loss resolution. What is next?

This article is meant to look at the most common reasons why people might fail at their weight loss resolution. It came to my mind a few reasons after some brainstorming running sessions while making reminders notes with my best friend. Throughout reading out this article you might see an image of yourself and hopefully it could help you to break the endless cycle of weight loss resistance.

It can be that it is not only the food you eat what is breaking your balanced calorie intake, you should also watch what you drink. For example, if you read the calorie label of a normal coke you will should read ~ 160 kcal per can. A coke zero however has by definition 0 kcal per can which can greatly positively impact your calorie intake. Not to mention if you take more than one coke can per day. Also watch the so called fruit drinks [+INFO] because most of them can be more health threatening than beneficial. Even though drinking a minimum amount of 1.9 liters of water a day is highly recommended and beneficial [+INFO], one trick for fast weight loss is to eliminate drinks during your meals. Drinks mix up with food increasing the food volume and being digested like you have eaten bigger portions. Furthermore, drinking too much water during meals can interfere with the natural levels of bile and acid in the stomach, slowing digestion. A good practice would be to have some water drink or cold tea (no sugar added) ~30 minutes before lunch or dinner. Not during meals. Then allow another ~30 minutes gap after meals before you drink again. You might notice quite a weight change in your weighing scale very quickly though this weight loss most likely will happen only during the first few weeks. Later on your body will be adapted and the "few pounds under" due to water reduction during meals will remain a constant as long as you keep this practice overtime. If this sounds tough for you to do it and you feel you still need a drink during meals try to substitute it for half a glass of red wine what has been recently found not only beneficial for health but as a powerful calorie burner.

Emotional eating

Eating is really enjoyable, but when food is used as a mechanism during times of stress or sadness, it can turn to be really unhealthy. If you are an emotional eater, dealing with the emotions that feed your compulsive eating is the most important. Observing your thoughts and emotions, instead of mistaking yourself for them, allows you to break the cycle of emotional eating and will help you to start making more rational choices. One trick you can practice regularly is to eat something healthy like a fruit or veggie whenever you feel hungry and you want to control your weight. In fact a good practice would be to eat some fruits or veggies 10-20 minutes before any big meal. This will satisfy you in the meantime and lessen your hunger level, likely resulting in less calorie intake during your meal.

You are eating too fast

Many people eat too fast and they take in too many calories before they realize they have eaten enough. It might take around 5-15 mins (7 minutes in average) from the time you start eating for your brain to send out signals of fullness. Slow pace eating allows enough time to trigger the signal from your brain that you are already full and feeling full will translate into eating less. You can try this simple exercise, whenever you feel still hungry after eating a normal meals portion try to give yourself some time (~7mins) before you eat something else. Most likely your feeling of being hungry will be gone by then and you will obviously eat less calories. Slow down your eating speed and give time between meals.

Food underestimation

Perhaps the reason could be that you are underestimating how many calories you are actually eating. Various weight loss studies proved it. Some people underestimate the quantity of food they consume (like thinking you ate 1 serving when you really ate 2, 3 or 4), while others underestimate the amount of calories it contained (like thinking a meal was 500 calories when it was really 1000). Some underestimate both. Mistakes and under reporting make many people to underestimatClosee the serving size and eat significantly more than they thought they were eating. Many other people think that there are certain foods they can unlimitedly eat and it is not counting calories like fruits and vegetables for example. But unfortunately you should also count them because everything counts even if some foods are just little calorie like a low fat yogurt. Actually this underestimating issue happens over and over again, and it might even end up not accounting for hundreds or even thousands of "I did not realize calories". So if you claim to consistently be eating the right amount of calories and still you are not losing any weight at all, then you are simply not producing any caloric deficit in your body and most likely you have done something wrong up there. If you want to avoid this miscalculations we recommend you to follow our free program for the right calorie counting.

Exercise overestimation

Another problem you accidentally may have had is actually the opposite problem, overestimating the calories you have burned. For example, you may assume that you have burned “tons” of calories doing some cardio workout but that did not actually happened. Studies show that an average person doing a typical cardio at a typical intensity will burn on average around 7-10 calories per minute. So think about that the next time you assume that 30 minutes of a slow pace walk represent some huge calorie burning because might be really not that much. You can use our exercise energy consumption tool or our free program to calculate the right amount of calorie burned by doing some of the most common exercises.

Mind-reward relaxation

Another big problem with overestimating calories burned is that it gives people a false impression. "Cool! I was doing a hard workout for 25 minutes today, so I can surely afford to eat this extra 1000 calories". Now wonder why you are not losing weight despite you are "working out hard" all the time, eh!!! If you really want to lose weight after a workout eat like you did not do any workout at all.

Making many exceptions

Many of us sometimes simply eat too much specially in some special occasions such as holiday, business traveling or family events. It is really not looking good, might even look like a bit paranoic if we try to avoid eating a lot sometimes, specially in those once a year special occasions. It is very normal and we all should join those special occasions sometimes. However, it is a common mistake to allow ourselves to happen over and over again, doing nothing and use this occasions as an excuse not to lose weight. The solution for this is really simple.. "do compensate". If one day for whatever reason you eat too much, try the next day to compensate with an extra workout or eating a bit less of calories in order to compensate the day before. If you do compensation always, you will never ever give room for any weight gain in your body. Furthermore, getting used to eating a lot even might not change your stomach size for sure will contribute to wrong reset your "appetite lipostat". However, eating less will help you to preset your appetite (easier to be satisfied) to feeling not as hungry and it may be easier to stick to your eating weight loss plan.

Gaining some other form of weight?

There is an exception to some of the statements made above and this is ... you are creating in fact the required caloric deficit and you are actually losing fat, but you might be gaining some other form of weight that is producing some sort of unbalancing in your weight loss plan. The reason is that there is differences between losing weight, losing fat, and losing or gaining muscle. Fat loss is always fat loss but weight loss however can be fat loss, muscle loss, water loss.... or even all of the above together. And since most people only monitor their fat loss by monitoring their weight loss on the scale, it might happen that you are really making progress but it is temporarily hidden because you are gaining something else (this is even more true for women once a month). This is why it is a good idea to do more than just monitoring your weight loss in a regular basis. You can also take other measures such as body fat%, muscle%, water% and take pictures once in a while to monitor your progress. In summary, this means that it is possible to lose fat while gaining something else and it might look like you have actually lost nothing. The good thing is that if this is the case it should be just a temporary situation. So if not losing any weight again and again, weeks after weeks, it is much more likely that again ... you are just eating too many calories, not really creating any caloric deficit, and you are just not losing any fat or gaining muscle, you are just gaining weight. 

Weight loss just stopped

Were you previously losing weight but suddenly stopped? If so, this probably means that you "hit the weight loss plateau" and again most likely you are eating too many calories. A weight loss plateau is what happens when the caloric deficit you created has suddenly stopped to exist. There are multiple reasons why this might be happening but the "Calories In vs Calories Out" still holds true. It is just that the specific numbers in that equation have changed as a result of the weight loss you were already experiencing. This is in part because a calorie deficit causes your metabolic rate to slow down a bit over time (known as “adaptive thermogenesis”), but it is mostly because you have already lost some weight… In other words, the calorie intake that worked for you when you were 250 lbs does not work any more now that you are 200 lbs. And this is just another way of saying that you are eating too many calories for your new current weight and the required caloric deficit no longer exists. Set new goals. Eat a little less or burn out a little more and you will most likely break this weight loss plateau.... Read more

The wrong "preset weight" calibration

You are probably approaching weight loss in terms of diets only instead of a lifestyle change. If there is a lesson I learnt it is that a well designed long-term weight loss plan can only take place if you change your lifestyle instead of your diet. In summary, losing weight is just one of the many things you should be aiming for when you change your lifestyle. Weight loss is probably the most obvious and reward part but there are many elements and many consequences to lifestyle change. In addition to changes in your weight, a lifestyle change also impacts the way you think, the way you involve your emotions under certain situations, the way you look at yourself, the way you behave, and the way you see yourself in this world in the present and future. If you have been putting lots of work in your weight loss plan but can not see any progress, try to switch to a lifestyle changing better. Change what you eat, your daily schedule, your attitude.... you might even try to meet new friends with the same lifestyle goals. Be ready for the new you, and most important, these changes should be for long-term and never change according to your daily mood. The good thing is that the longer you manage to keep the new you philosophy ongoing, the bigger your chance to make it permanent because of the physical and psychological dependencies you will create due to the obvious health benefits you will get out of it. Weight loss should be always long-term and permanent if you approach it from a lifestyle perspective.... Read more

Food punishments

Do yourself a favor and do not allow any starvation and fad diets. Your body's weight is a result of a variety of physiological factors that need to be contented always with healthy food. Your body needs the right nutrients to function properly. Change your perspective and food habits. Instead of thinking of how you can avoid your body from certain foods as a punishment for a potential weight gain, start seeing your food as a delicious natural medicine. For example, instead of thinking that carrots are not as yummy as a delicious cheese cake, think more positive, think that eating tons of carrots will never make you sick while eating tons of cakes most like will do, and for our purpose most importantly eating tons of carrots will never make you fat and on top the feeling of food satisfaction will also remain longer. In fact healthy food is really like a medicine because our body can not function properly without the correct nutrients such as vitamins, proteins, carbohydrates, oligoelements etc etc.

Making weight loss the ultimate goal

Losing weight is not equivalent to getting healthy. Cancer and arsenic will make you lose weight but you will also be sick. You have to stop seeing weight gain as a cause and start seeing it as a symptom of something else going on in your body and your mind. You have to get healthy to lose weight, not to lose weight to get healthy. Weight loss should be a natural product of being more healthy. If you get healthy, you will also accidently look more great.

Not totally focused

You probably did not remind yourself to focus on the body you wish to achieve If you keep things easy or vague and you just tell yourself daily that you only want to lose weight. This might not be enough. Your mind will often stick to a plan of action and take all the necessary actions if your goals are clear enough. One of the best ways to be focused is to write down our plan as we mentioned before and also to have a picture of the ideal model body you want to achieve and focus on it daily. For example, cut out or crop the face, abs or chest of the model you want to be, subscribe to the "best body" tv or online channels or start following in a regular basis some weight loss or fitness blogs or websites such as Virtual Personal Trainer. This is certainly a great way to stay motivated and focus in order to get in the best shape you can be in your life. The key is to have a "model of success" you want to be and train your mind with it. The more you focus, the more likely you will achieve your "ideal shape".

Invading yourself with negative thoughts

You need to block out all the negative thoughts. Focus on achievements instead. Reprogram yourself by consciously thinking over and over again that you will lose the weight you want to lose. There are many difficulties to weight loss. However, the good news is that most of these complications are only in your mind and then you can give lots of control to these negative thoughts that keep you away from the ideal body weight you want. Start by thinking positive.

Too much anaerobic

Aerobic exercise (lower intensity training: jogging, running, cardio) increases your endurance and cardiac health while anaerobic exercise (higher intensity training: weight training, calisthenic) will help you to burn a bit less fat than with aerobic but it will also help you gain lean muscle mass. Perhaps you should try to concentrate more on aerobic exercising or better if you do a combination of aerobic and anaerobic. Virtual Personal Trainer promotes both types of exercises... Read more

Too long workouts

Introducing short bouts of vigorous activity can speed up weight loss and also cut your workout time by a half or more. Researchers found that People who alternated just 8 seconds of high-intensity exercise with 12 seconds of low-intensity activity for 20 minutes, 3 times a week, slimmed down faster than steady-paced exercisers who worked out twice as long. Those who did intervals lost up to 16 pounds, shrunk their bellies by 12% and their thighs by 15%, and gained, on average, 1½ pounds of metabolism-revving muscle in 4 months without dieting! Start by going faster both at your aerobic and anaerobic exercises.... Read more

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