So, you’ve started a new workout routine like many Americans do every New Year to try and lose some weight. You’ve cleaned up the way you eat so that you are eating “healthy” and you are working out 4-5 days a week. Great! But wait a second, the weight isn’t coming off, and you are starting to get discouraged. What could be going wrong? Why aren’t you losing a few pounds a week? I’ll give you 7 reasons why, and chances are more than 1 of these reasons applies to you.
1) Your “healthy” eating isn’t actually healthy
What most people consider to be eating healthy really isn’t all that healthy. How much butter and sour cream are you eating? If you say “not very much” chances are it’s too much. How about carbs? At what meal do you eat the most carbs? I’d be willing to bet it’s at dinner. Bad move. How much saturated fat is in your diet? Probably too much. Sodium? Let’s not even go there. Can you see where this is going? Most people’s idea of “eating healthy” involves cutting out fast food, soda pop and sugary items like candy, which is great! The problem is there are still large amounts of foods that are not going to help you lose any weight. Here’s the rule I’m going to throw out to you: Eat more meat and vegetables. This leads to #2.
2) You aren’t eating enough vegetables
Veggies are a key part of any healthy diet program. I usually don’t like the word diet because it makes me think of fad diets like Atkins and other crazy things that you just shouldn’t do, but the way we eat is considered our “diet”. Vegetables are actually a great source of vitamins, minerals and fiber. The great thing about green vegetables is that they are low in carbs, meaning they have very little effect on blood sugar, and they are high in fiber. Fiber plays a key role in digestion and helps keep you regular. Vegetables also make you feel full even though they are not packed with a lot of calories. This is why something like a chicken salad is great for lunch if you are trying to be health conscious and lose weight. The chicken provides quality protein while the vegetables give you plenty of nutrients all while being low in calories.
3) Your meal portion sizes are backwards
More often than not the largest meal of the day is dinner and the smallest meal of the day is breakfast. This is completely wrong! Here’s the problem: when your largest meal is dinner you have the least amount of time to burn off what you ate. For example, if you eat dinner around 7pm and go to bed around 9 or 10 you probably think that it’s fine since you have 2-3 hours before bed. However, what are you doing for those 2-3 hours? Probably sitting on the couch watching TV and burning very little calories. Not to mention your body is winding down for the night and your metabolism is slowing down. So why would you eat a calorie packed meal? It really makes no sense. Your largest meal should be breakfast, followed by lunch and then dinner. After breakfast you have all day to burn off those calories and even after lunch you have most of the day left. After dinner you have very little time. Your dinner should mostly be meat and vegetables with very little carbs. The last thing you need if you are trying to lose weight is a spike in blood sugar before you go to sleep.
4) You are over eating
Just because the food is healthier than it was before doesn’t mean you can eat more. Calories are still calories no matter what the source of food is. Over eating will lead to weight gain. Period. Your body can only process a certain amount of calories within a given amount of time. This is a big reason why it is recommended that you eat 5-6 small meals every day. Eating 3 meals of 800-1000 calories each is simply too much at one time. Your body will not use all of that energy and will store some of it as fat. I’ll use myself as an example. I need about 3200 calories per day based on my height, weight and level of activity. If I ate only 3 times per day I would need just over 1000 calories at each meal. That’s more than my body could process from 1 meal which means it would store the excess as fat. Instead I break my meals up to 5 meals per day at about 600 calories each. This is much more manageable and also helps keep my body going throughout the day as I am consuming energy every 2 ½ -3 hours.
5) Too many processed foods
The problem with processed food is this: there is little to no nutritional value. The calories are there but the vitamins and minerals are not. What is the point of eating something if there is no real benefit to eating it? You shouldn’t eat food that has no nutritional value. At that point you are consuming what we call “empty calories”. The calories are there but the nutritional value is not. Examples are bread, pasta, chips, tortillas, hamburger buns, soda pop, candy, alcohol and anything else that fits in with these items.
6) Alcohol
Think that vodka and orange juice is ok? How about that beer or glass of wine? You’re wrong. Alcohol has 3 effects on your body that cause you to gain weight. First, alcohol has calories. Every drink you have is putting calories in your body. Did you know that just 1 vodka and orange juice packs about 174 calories!? Even the typical light beer is 110 calories and a 5oz glass of wine is around 100-105. That’s not all though. Alcohol also has an immediate effect on your blood sugar levels which in turn spikes your insulin. Let the weight gaining begin! To cap it off alcohol is processed through your liver. You know what else is processed through your liver? Fat. So guess what? If your liver is busy processing alcohol it’s not metabolizing any body fat, which means you aren’t losing any weight. Still think it’s ok to have a drink or 2 a few times a week? Not if you want to lose weight.
7) Too many carbohydrates
I know the FDA recommends about 60% of the diet be made up of carbohydrates, but let’s be real here. That’s just ridiculous. That means that for a 2000 calorie diet a person should be consuming 1200 calories just in carbs! That’s 300 grams of carbohydrates every day. That’s 50-60 grams of carbs per meal! Just 1 large sweet potato has about 40 grams of carbs in it. Yet by the FDA guidelines I should be consuming even more than that each time I eat! No wonder the obesity rate in the United States is skyrocketing. Here’s my recommendation: 40% carbs (800 calories), 30-40% (600-800 calories) protein, and the remaining 20-30% (400-600 calories) fat. The decrease in carbs and increase in protein and fat will yield outstanding results, plus you won’t feel the “crash” associated with a low carb diet because this really isn’t a low carb diet. It’s just not a high carb diet.
If you really want my opinion on what the best diet is to follow for weight loss I would say Paleo. It’s not a zero carb diet like people say it is. Rather, it’s an all-natural diet. Basically you eat fruits, vegetables and meat. No processed foods. I’ve done this and I’ll tell you it works. The meal options can get a little boring sometimes so you have to be creative. Overall though it is a great diet plan to follow and is one that you can stick to long-term and reap the benefits. Give it a try and see how you like it. Otherwise, consider everything outlined above and start losing that weight!
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