Have you ever tried exercising, but failed to see any weight loss results? If you are you exercising but not losing weight, it can be really frustrating and even worse, discouraging.
But once you realize what is holding you back from reaching your goals, you’ll be able to make a change and begin seeing amazing fat loss results.
You may have already suspected, but the most likely reason that you are exercising and not losing weight is related to an unhealthy diet.
But don’t let that discourage you, let it excite you!
Most people cringe when they hear the word “diet” because over the past few decades “going on a diet” has become a word associated with hunger, struggle, and failure.
However when we are talking about losing weight in a healthy and sustainable way, the key to success is a healthy diet, filled with lots of nutrient-rich foods… COMBINED with exercise for the absolute best results.
I know lots of people who exercise really hard, but struggle to see any weight loss results.
It’s probably the most common problem that I see people facing with weight loss, at least for those who are making consistent effort.
Many people including some of my close friends, exercise harder than I do yet see painfully slow results, or no results at all, or even worse gain fat while trying to lose it… because they don’t focus on improving their diet.
This is why I feel so compelled to help others learn how to lose weight, because I see so many people already trying really hard but not fully embracing the most effective methods.
When you are working out and not losing weight, it can make you feel hopeless and like giving up. You feel like you are either unable to lose weight at all, or like you need an incredible amount of exercise to make any difference at all.
But after you see what has been keeping you from making progress despite your hard work, you’ll be able to add what your routine has been missing, you’ll be able to work towards your goals rapidly, and you’ll be getting the very best results for your hard work.
That is exactly what I am going to help you with, is realizing how an unhealthy diet is holding you back from losing weight even though you are exercising, and to show you how to finally see the results you hope for by eating healthier foods!
Your exercise routine can’t overcome your eating habits
You have probably heard that weight loss comes down to calories consumed versus calories burned, and that’s true.
A simple way of understanding the problem of exercising but not losing fat, is that the calories you are burning with your exercise routine are not enough to overcome the large amount of calories being consumed in your diet.
Unfortunately it’s much easier to consume lots of calories through unhealthy food, than it is to burn calories through exercise.
In other words it takes a lot of exercise to overcome the effects of a little bit of junk food.
This doesn’t mean that exercise is not an effective method for weight loss… it simply means that exercise is much more effective when your diet isn’t working against you.
Exercise is a very important part of weight loss, but if you are eating/drinking way more excess calories than you are burning through exercise, you will see little to no change that occurs in your body even when you are dedicating to an intense exercise plan.
This is also why it’s possible to GAIN fat while exercising… if your calories consumed are high enough.
However if you eat healthy foods that are low in calories, you won’t have a surplus of calories to combat against with your exercise routine.
When your eating habits create a calorie deficit, your exercise efforts will all go towards burning extra fat rather than having to first take care of all the extra junk you are consuming.
As soon as you start eating healthy, your hard work will finally begin to yield exciting rewards.
The best results come from combined diet and exercise
Since you are already exercising, and you now know that the key to your weight loss success is eating more healthy foods, then you probably assume that I am suggesting to BOTH exercise AND eat healthy, but I want to make sure that I am clear about how important this is.
Healthy eating is even more powerful on it’s own than exercise is, and so by saying that you should do it in addition to exercise is no small thing.
Usually I am teaching things the other way around, telling people how important it is to add exercise into their most important focus… which should be healthy eating.
So what I’m saying is that if you’re routine is lacking in healthy foods then you are missing out on the most effective weight loss opportunity.
But this doesn’t mean that you should just drop your exercise routine to focus on healthy diet.
Sometimes I will suggest that when people are just getting started with diet/exercise, then they can start by eating healthy and begin exercise when they are comfortable… but the subject of this article suggests that you are already exercising, and so you should keep that already existing habit in place even though it may seem to have failed you in the past.
If you are already exercising but not losing weight, then you should be excited for the amazing results you will start seeing when you change your diet and COMBINE the effects of healthy eating with exercise.
Many people think that both eating healthy and exercising will make losing weight harder, but in reality it will make your journey easier and faster.
If you want to learn just how important and effective it is to combine healthy diet and exercise, and also why this works so well, read “Diet vs Exercise for Weight Loss (vs Both)“.
Below I’ll tell you how to improve your diet and how doing so will help you lose more weight.
It’s possible that you are gaining muscle
Although diet is usually the culprit when it comes to working out but not losing weight, another factor that might be causing you to struggle with losing weight while exercising… is gaining muscle.
People who are just starting to workout, especially with weights, will often gain muscle and weight even if their daily calorie count isn’t that high.
In these times you may find that you are losing fat, but not weight, due to how heavy muscle is.
If this is happening to you then you should be able to see yourself getting thinner in the mirror even if the scale isn’t showing progress.
If both the mirror and the scale are showing that you are not making progress, then muscle gain is probably not the reason you’re not losing weight.
In most cases the struggle to lose weight despite exercising, is caused by unhealthy diet.
How to add healthy eating into your weight loss plan
So now that you know you need to change your diet to get the results you are looking for, how do you get started?
Most people assume that the answer is to simply eat less food altogether to reduce their calorie consumption.
However, simply eating MORE healthy food is much more effective than counting calories for losing weight.
I was one of the many who bought into the idea of restricting and basically starving yourself for weight loss, because I didn’t understand that the problem was the quality of the food that I was eating, not the amount.
I thought that I was fat simply because of how my body naturally was, and also because of my tendency to overeat… but I had no idea that the reason I was overeating was because of my unhealthy diet.
It’s a vicious cycle… when you eat lots of unhealthy foods not only is your calorie consumption very high, but your beneficial nutrient intake is also very low which causes you to constantly be hungry and eat large amounts of junk food.
This is why when you simply eat less and try to lose wight by counting calories without improving the QUALITY of the foods that you are eating, you’ll be hungry all of the time, and eventually give up.
That’s what happened to me when I was younger and I lost weight by counting calories… it wasn’t a sustainable way to stay thin and as soon as I stopped counting calories, my weight went back on as muscle at first since I was working out heavily in high school… but when I graduated I gained 80 pounds of fat.
In times when I had a manual labor job or when I tried exercising in college, it wasn’t enough to overcome all of the unhealthy foods that I was eating all day long.
Luckily I finally learned how eating more healthy foods was the key to helping me lose weight permanently and without having to be hungry.
Eating MORE healthy, natural, super-nutritious foods allows you to reduce your calorie consumption, while increasing the amount of energy that you receive from your food.
This means you have the ability to burn fat without being hungry, which if you ask me is one of the most amazing things in the world!
How is this possible? Because natural foods like vegetables, fruits, whole grains… these foods are packed with nutrients yet low in calories. So eating lots of these foods makes you feel full and satisfied but keeps you in a calorie deficit (fat burning mode).
Realizing this and embracing this opportunity was what helped me finally dedicate to eating more healthy foods, and ultimately led me to losing 80 pounds.
So to get started with eating healthy simply find a few healthy foods that you like, and start adding healthy snacks and meals into your diet every day!
If you want to learn how to take action with healthy eating, check out “How to start eating healthy to lose weight”.
If you want to learn lots more about how healthy food helps you lose weight (backed up with lots of research), and how some popular diets today succeed/fail, check out this super in-depth article, “Escaping Obesity in America with Healthy Foods”.
Or if you are simply ready to get started making changes now and want a plan to follow, try the 7-day weight loss challenge!
