Do you exercise regularly, but your weight hasn’t changed at all? This is the case for a surprising number of people who start training and we’ll tell you why: Here are 7 reasons why you don’t lose weight despite exercising.
Have you been highly motivated for weeks, are you fully committed to every training session and yet you are not losing weight or are you even gaining weight? If you are not able to lose weight despite exercising, it could be due to one or more of these seven reasons.
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7 reasons why you don’t lose weight despite exercising
1. You overestimate calorie consumption
Both endurance training and strength training consume significant calories if they are done regularly and at high intensity. However, not enough to make up for a poor diet. Because the food industry makes it very easy for us to re-eat burnt calories in no time. To burn a single frozen pizza with salami, you’d have to jog for about an hour and a half or do aerobics for two hours.
2. You “treat” after your workout
Don’t get me wrong – indulgence is part of life and you can occasionally indulge in foods or activities that aren’t necessarily healthy. As is so often the case, however, it depends on the measure. If you eat an extra large portion after each workout or “reward” yourself with a dripping burger or a candy bar, don’t be surprised if you don’t achieve your desired weight. Also, regularly rewarding yourself with food is psychologically dangerous as it can lead to emotional eating , especially during bad times .
3. You build muscle mass
Beginners in particular should not underestimate this positive effect. If you’ve never exercised in your life or have been off for a few years, you’ll build muscle in a fairly short amount of time. This is especially the case with intense strength training, but even if you start jogging, go swimming or play a sport, your muscles will grow noticeably. Since muscles contain a lot of water and glycogen (energy in the form of carbohydrates) in addition to proteins, they are heavier than fat. So if the scales don’t move for weeks, but you’re making progress in your training, it could be the muscle mass you’ve gained.
4. You’re doing the wrong exercises
The rumor has always persisted that sit-ups and crunches can flatten your stomach and reduce the fat deposits there. Unfortunately, that’s not enough, since such abdominal exercises burn only a few calories and the muscle group worked is quite small. Instead, do intense full -body exercises and focus on the largest muscle groups – the legs and butt: Here are the best exercises for toned legs and a firm butt >>
5. You don’t exercise enough
Every bit of exercise will help you get a healthier body and increase your quality of life and duration. Going for a jog twice a week or doing two to three half-hour fitness workouts is a solid start. For slow and long-term customer succession, this can even be completely sufficient. However, if you want to see quick results and transform your body within a few months, you need to increase your exercise intake. However, don’t forget to take breaks when you do at most regenerative exercise, for example in the form of walks, relaxed swimming sessions or short bike rides.
Tip: Regularity is crucial for your success. It’s better to do moderate exercise four times a week instead of just one or two high-intensity ones. This means that you don’t have to overcome as much effort and a unit missed due to illness or appointments is not so important.
6. You are measuring the wrong parameters
Of course, body weight is the measurement that each of us has known since childhood, and even as adults we talk about a desired weight or target weight that we want to achieve. However, as a person who does sports, you should not forget that weight is not everything. For the average population, weight and BMI are good indicators that can be used to predict the risk of certain diseases such as type 2 diabetes, high blood pressure and the like. When you exercise, however, your body composition changes: your muscle percentage increases while your body fat percentage decreases. Not much is happening on the scales, however. Therefore, it makes more sense to measure the waist circumference with a simple tape measureto track your fat loss and body transformation progress.
7. You’ve only been training for a few weeks
Through the internet and especially on social media platforms, we see amazing body transformations every day where someone has built incredible mountains of muscle and turned their beer belly into a six pack abs within 10 weeks. Such extreme changes may be possible in individual cases and with the greatest effort with a completely changed diet and training plan. For many people, however, this is not realistic and they still expect that the dream body will be waiting for them just a month after the start of training. Muscle takes time to build, however, and you won’t get rid of body fat that’s accumulated over the years overnight. Therefore, keep your expectationsalways within a realistic framework and do not stop the training if you do not notice any progress after only four weeks.
