Why your scales may not be showing the full extent of your fat loss:
Muscle v Fat.
Remember that your scales are not a true reflection of the fat that you are burning and is only a rough guide.
Body weight tends to fluctuate by a few pounds, depending on the foods you are eating, your hormones and fluid retention.
Your program is designed to give you more muscle tone and burn fat. As muscle weighs more than fat it is common to find that you are losing inches in all the right places, but the scales are not recording it. Let us be frank: if you didn’t think you were not carrying excess fat, you probably would not bother stepping on the scales each day.
The First Reason is that you are increasing your muscle definition.
It is a good idea to use something other than the scale to gauge your progress. For example, measure round your waist once per month, and make sure that you keep a diary of the changes – and selfies as it is easy to forget just how much you have transformed.
Also, how well your clothes fit and how you look in the mirror can be a good guide too.
The Second Reason:Â You are not correctly keeping track of what you are eating / calories consumed. Awareness is incredibly important if you are trying to burn fat. Many people simply do not have a clue how much they are really eating.
This is why in step one on the dietary tips page, we provided a link to a free online calorie tracker that also calculates the percentage of those calories coming from carbs / protein / fats.
What surprises a lot of people is how many calories come from their drinks (particularly alcohol, soft drinks, and fruit juices). But it doesn’t mean you have to ditch them altogether, just be mindful of what you are consuming.
The third reason: Estrogen
The hormone, called Estrogen, causes the body to retain water. You may notice bloating and a small increase in weight throughout your monthly period cycle. We advise that you record your weight every 2 weeks, so you don’t feel down if you haven’t lost as much weight as you had hoped.
Also Estrogen can become more dominant, as you reach the Menopause, this can also cause bloating and weight gain.
Remember, by following my top tips to further increase your weight loss journey, it can really help you with your hormones and transformation.
Maybe you are consuming more calories than you are burning.
A lot of our eating is habitual, and we are ‘trained by our parents’ at an early age how often to eat and what to eat. Once we have developed our bodies and start growing older, we simply need less calories to maintain our weight. If we have stored too many of those excess calories as fat, exercise can only burn so many of them, so we must create a calorie deficit (albeit in a very controlled manner), to encourage our bodies to start using up that stored fat.
When we are younger, we tend to be highly active and as that actively slows down, so does our need for so many calories. It is pointless consuming say 2000 calories a day if you are only burning 1500 and expecting your fat storage to slow down or reverse.
Some people binge-eat – even with healthy foods. Tracking what you eat shows you the damage this can cause to your progress. For example: it is common to binge after alcohol or sugary foods / drink. Therefore, writing down what you eat can help you stay on track, whilst on your transformation journey.
Note also: Hidden calories and sugar that so called healthy drinks have, like orange juice / apple juice. Similarly, be mindful of marketing tricks used by the food industry with foods like fruit yogurts which are often loaded with tons of sugar. Therefore, read food labels and get used to observing the percentage of the calories coming from carbs (sugar / fructose /sucrose).
Maybe you are eating too many carbs? Carbs can convert to fat very efficiently – strangely enough more efficiently than eating fat. Make a conscious effort to remove or cut down as much sugar and refined food from your diet as possible (like bread, cereals, white rice, pasta, cakes, sweet fruits, and fruit juices). Eat whole foods where you can! Convenience foods are often labelled to appear a healthy option, but often contain a lot of salt or sugar. The salt encourages the body to retain fluid and the sugar encourages the body to store everything else in your stomach as fat, along with the sugar that is eaten. Whole foods also contain micro-nutrients (minerals / vitamins) that assist the body burn fat and regulate its hormonal balance. For example, B vitamins are required for converting your food to energy, but highly processed food strip out most of these vitamins. Try to balance the protein on your plate with plenty of vegetables or salad. Apart from the fact that this helps you feel fuller on a lower calorie intake the roughage in such foods encourage regular bowel movement. It also is beneficial to your friendly gut bacteria and believe it or not, the wrong balance of gut bacteria can cause you to gain weight.
Remember – You don’t need to cut out your favourite chocolate / cake or drink, we all need a treat! Just be mindful of what, and how much you are consuming on your transformation.
What is Resistance training on my program? For a muscle to tone and strengthen, it needs to be put under stress. Your program therefore includes resistance training. That does not mean you need to lift heavy weights, simply that you need to use your own body weight in carefully selected exercises for your fitness level (you can change your fitness level and therefore the intensity of your program in the dropdown menu under the ‘My Account’ tab above (select setting and change your program automatically). The greater the ratio of muscle to fat the more efficient your metabolism becomes, so you burn more calories even when you are resting or sleeping.
How long will it take me to lose weight? Set a realistic time frame. Starving yourself or going on exceptionally long walks or runs, will not get you the fastest fat loss. When you reduce your calories too much, the body will slow your metabolism to conserve energy. That is why we suggest not pulling back your calorie intake by more than 500 calories a day. Similarly, you need a steady blood sugar level throughout the day. The combination of protein and whole foods assist you with this. The more stable your blood sugar, the less your body stores fat and the more energy you have for exercise. When you go on a 10K walk, you are usually burning just glycogen (carbohydrates that have been converted to energy and stored in your muscles and liver). Little fat is burnt and the moment you eat carbs again, it tops up the glycogen stores and your fat stays stubbornly where it was! That time and effort can be spent on the correct form of exercise given in your programs. it is important that we see weight loss / fat burning as a mission that will take some time. Sadly, that is why so many people hop from one regime to another.
What is High Intensity Interval Training? (HIIT) Your program includes a cardio section (video), with HIIT sessions given as your fitness level progresses. This form of cardio burns calories for hours after the session has finished and due to the intensity, it pushes past your glycogen stores into your fat storage.
Drink water. Increase the amount of water you drink throughout the day as it not only helps you feel fuller, but it also speeds the metabolism somewhat and often we can feel what we believe is hunger rather than the body signalling us to hydrate. This is particularly important as you will be increasing your exercise levels.
Quality sleep. Lack of sleep or quality sleep is an important factor in obesity. Make sleep as important as exercise for maintaining your ideal figure. Put simply, poor sleep encourages the stress hormones that make us retain fat and crave all the wrong foods / drink.
Don’t snack too often. There is a myth that eating many small meals a day will speed up your metabolism and help you to lose weight. The reverse is true, because the more you raise your insulin levels, the more fat you store. Thousands of people around the world have lost significant amouts of weight doing the opposite and lowering the number of times they eat per day. It is often called intermittent fasting and therefore we provide links below as this can be a fast tract way of seeing results for those with significant amount of fat to burn.
Cut down on drinking too much alcohol. Use the free online calorie tracker to calculate just how many ‘empty calories’ you are consuming via alcohol. Apart from the calories, alcohol can cause significant swings in blood sugar, causing us to binge-eat afterwards. Apart from the obviously suggestion of lowering your alcohol consumption, try little tricks like ordering a bottle of water along with your drink and not ordering your second drink until you have consumed the water
Medical conditions.
Certain medical conditions can cause you to find it difficult to lose weight.
Low thyroid function, polycystic ovarian syndrome, insulin resistance.
Whilst you should seek medical advice for such conditions and always check with your doctor that it is OK to start a new exercise regime, the following observations may be of interest:
- Poly cystic ovarian syndrome appears to improve significantly on a low carb diet (1).
- Insulin resistance also appears to improve significantly on a low carb diet when combined with intermittent fasting. (2)
Yes, this is real!
When we say we pay you to lose weight, we are serious about that as we appreciate that it will take time. It saddens me to see that certain websites have sprung up online saying that they pay you to lose weight and when you drill down, they are simply betting sites that are betting on the fact that most people have unrealistic expectation as to how long it takes to safely melt away unwanted body fat.
Similarly, muscles take time to grow and tone. If you over do it, you strain / pull muscles and that sets you backwards, which is why we ask you to state your fitness level and weight loss goal, so that we can safely tailor your program around you.
I am looking forward to hearing (and seeing) your progress and have no gimmicks or tricks on my website…. Just sound advice that works, you can do this! #NewYou.
1) Poly cystic ovarian syndrome improves significantly on a low carb diet.