In life, on GAG, on forums, over dinner, to a trainer, you often hear the exasperated cries of people ready to 'just die' because they've only managed to lose four pounds in a month on their journey to good health. Please do us all a favor and step down from the ledge. Instead of whining or crying about it, you should be your biggest chearleader and congratulating yourself for losing as much as you did because four pounds is nothing to sneeze about. However, if you must know the reasons why you aren't magically losing more, let's tackle those complaints.
1. "My friend and I started at the same time, and s/he is losing 10 lbs a month, and I've only lost 4"
Your friend cannot lose weight for you anymore than you can for them. Comparing someone else to yourself is a useless endeavor which will only frustrate you in the end. Consider that you and your friend may be different genders, heights, starting weights, be exercising differently, eating differently, engage in different habits which may help or hurt you or their weight loss now/later, they may be taking dangerous pills or overexercising, and have totally different genetics. All of these factors can contribute to how fast or slow you or they are losing weight, but you need to put the focus on yourself and what you can do to help yourself keep doing what you're doing to safely lose the weight you need to lose. Slow and steady wins the race.
2. "I've been working out 2 hours a day, 7 days a week, so I should be losing more weight, right?"
More is not necessarily better. If you are working out to an extreme and going hard everyday, you aren't giving your body enough time to rest and repair itself. Rest is just as important as the exercise you do when it comes to weight loss. You are effectively putting your body under new stresses that it probably hasn't had to endure in months, years, or ever. It must adapt to such stress, but if you don't give it that down time, it reacts the way it would if you were stressed out for weeks at work. It releases corisol, a stress hormone, which can help keep you fat if you don't do something ot manage it. Try scheduling at least one or two days a week where you are either doing a light workout like Tai Chi, Yoga, or walking your dogs or nothing at all, and allow your body time to repair itself.
3. "I'm barely eating anything, probably like 1,000 calories a day, and working out hard."
And now, less is not more. It seems like simple science. You don't eat, you lose weight. Although this is true, starvation is never something you should strive for or be incorporating into any sort of diet plan. Food is your bodies fuel source, and much like the standard car analogy, you can only run on fumes for so long before you're going to need more gas. Our bodies are designed to help us survive, and not lose weight. Losing weight to your body triggers evolutionary starving mechanisms which are designed to save us from ever impending doom. Stop eating or reduce your calories dramatically, your body kicks in and begins to fierely hold on to its fat stores to help protect your very vital organs. When you're constantly eating less than about 1,200 calories per day, not only are you not eating enough to get all your nutrients, but your body slows your metabolism in order to hold on to vital calories or the energy you need to survive. Consider yourself lucky that you're in a place where you have a food problem that doesn't actually involve you trying to avoid starvation on a daily basis, and don't take it for granted. Feed yourself and give your muscles the energy they need, with foods found in nature chock full of vital proteins, carbs, and vitamins necessary for you to be healthy.
4. "I lost 10 lbs the last 3 months, why isn't it the same this month if I'm doing the exact same thing."
If I put you in a room, and I gave you a puzzle to solve and you managed to solve it, and then the next day I gave you the same puzzle with the same instructions, and you repeated the action, and then the next day the same...not only have you adapted and solved the puzzle, but now its boring and you'd be ready for something new. This is your body. You need to constantly challenge yourself and your body. We're right back to our evolution. We are designed to adapt so that we can function in new and stressful environments. Once you've mastered one thing, try slowly increasing the intensity or duration of that activity the next month or however long it takes you. If you can lift 50lbs this month, try working out with 60lbs next month. If you can run 3 miles this month, try running 3.25 next month. Challenge yourself and your body. The shock and awe to your system can sometimes really help boost your weight loss and/or help you to see other visible body changes that may not necessarily show up on the scale like a smaller waist line.
5. "It's jusssssst four pounds though..."
We live in that instant world where we almost expect good things in life to come to us when and how we want them, but weight loss takes time. Stop setting unrealistic goals that will only lead you to more frustration. Considering there are at least 4 full weeks in every month, and a realistic goal should be 1-2 lbs per week. Four pounds then is right where you need to be. That means you are working hard, eating right, making changes, and doing what you need to do. Making big dramatic changes like exercising 4 hours a day from 1, or dangerously depleating your calories in is going to lead you where you don't want to be, injured, overworked, starving, exhausted, binging, sneak eating, and/or quitting altogether. Consider each pound loss, one more pound that you hope to never have to deal with again in your life. The only way to do that is if you keep at it, keep a positive attitude, celebrate your hard work, and not be so focused on the minutia of every single half pound the scale indicates you may or may not have lost. Take pride in the fact that you lost weight, because what is the alternative, gaining weight, and that's exactly what you don't want!
Most Helpful Opinions