Can’t lose Weight? 6 Things That Can Prevent Healthy Weight Loss

Are you struggling to lose weight? Have you tried time and time again to lose weight with little to no success? Do you wonder what’s the point in trying once more to lose weight?

While you’re not alone in these feelings and frustrations surrounding the weight loss challenge, it takes more than dieting and exercising to lose weight in a healthy and sustainable way.

There are several factors involved in healthy, sustainable weight loss that you may not be aware of, but that can make all the difference to  weight loss success.

Can't Lose Weight? 6 Things That Can Prevent Healthy Weight Loss

Can't lose weight

Here's 6 reasons why you may be struggling to lose weight:

1. The Focus Is on Restriction Rather Than Balanced Meals

Sometimes you need to eat more rather than less. This may sound crazy, but it’s about creating meals that contain the right macronutrients (carbohydrates, proteins and fats) in the right proportions.

A gram of protein does not behave the same way in the body as a gram of carbohydrate. It's important to achieve good macronutrient balance to make sure you lose weight without depriving your health.

For most people this starts with a good handful of protein (meat, fish, eggs, yoghurt, beans or pulses) at each meal.

2. You're Not Preparing Most Of Your Own Food

All restaurants, prepared foods and packaged meals contain extra ingredients (for preservation and flavour) and an unnecessary amount of excess energy (sugar, food / calories) you don’t need.

Calories are not a measure of nutrition and can’t be counted alone, but an extra 500 calories of denatured oil in a food item or meal that is deemed as “healthy” by the food manufacturer or restaurant, won't help you lose weight.

In the majority of cases, healthy meals prepared at home are much healthier than any meal you’ll ever buy, even salads.

3. You’re Stressed & Not Making Time for Wellness

Stress can impact your weight in a number of ways. Long term stress equals high cortisol, which is linked to blood sugar imbalance, emotional eating, food cravings and weight gain around the midsection.

So, to get on top of your weight, it's important to consider your stress levels and ways to not only reduce stress but also to build stress resilience.

That’s why that 20 minutes of yoga or breathing exercise daily might be the most effective thing to introduce into your life right now.

4. Your Hormones Aren't Balanced

There's lots of symptoms of hormonal imbalance including fatigue, irregular menstrual cycles, low mood, anxiety and depression..

If you think you have a hormonal imbalance then you probably do. You can however run functional hormone tests that will give you a detailed picture of what's actually happening with your hormones, and where support is needed. This is something I can help organise for you if you want to explore your hormonal picture.

Hormonal imbalances can play out as insulin resistance, thyroid abnormalities, estrogen dominance, and fibroids, to name a few, so it's crucial to maintain good hormonal balance as much as possible.

5. You’re Emotional Eating

After a long day, do you unwind with a glass or two of wine? Do you find yourself reaching for a chocolate bar, bag of crisps or tub of ice cream when you’ve had a stressful moment or day?

Emotional eating is such a big part of why people struggle to shift those excess pounds and maintain a healthy weight.

Practicing mindful eating can be really helpful if you’re an emotional eater. Check in with yourself to see if you’re actually hungry.

If you’re going to eat, sit down and focus fully on your food. Of course, you also want to get to the bottom of why you’re using food to soothe your emotions.

6. Your Digestion Isn't How It Should Be

Gut health can contribute to weight gain as well as your ability to lose weight.

The microbes (bacteria) that live in your gut help you to fight disease, process your food, make nutrients and make hormones.

Symptoms of compromised gut health include leaky gut syndrome, food sensitivities, malabsorption, gut dysbiosis (healthy and unhealthy microbial imbalance), and more.

You can improve your microbial health by eating more plant foods.

However, if you have a digestive disorder, it's important to take steps to remedy it for the sake of your overall health and wellbeing. My personalised Gut Health Plan is designed to help you optimise your gut function and health.

I love to hear from you. Comment below if you have any experiences you would like to share about your own weight loss journey or if you found this post helpful.

Nicola x

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Meet Nicola - blog posts

Meet Nicola

Hello, I'm a Holistic Nutritionist, Certified Functional Medicine Practitioner, Breathwork Instructor and Pain & Stress Management Therapist with heaps of experience of helping others tweak and transform their health and life. 

Let's work together to optimise how you look, feel and function for better health and wellness.

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