Are you currently experiencing this?
You’re giving your best effort every day because you believe it is the only way to get what you want. You’ve been consistent with your exercise, and you have cleaned up your diet, but despite your consistent effort the scale seems to be showing you are gaining weight. And you know the scale is not playing a prank on you because you can feel and see it in your clothes.
How can you be adding weight when you’re doing everything right?
That is the question I want to answer in this article. You’ll discover the three hidden causes of weight gain many people are not even aware of.
#1. Liquid Calories
Liquid calories come in many forms; fruit juices, soda drinks, alcohol and sugar-sweetened beverages. Many people consume more calories in liquid form than they consume in solid food. The reason is that we tend to underestimate the number of calories in drinks and beverages.
You may not be drinking Coke and Fanta and other unhealthy beverages, but do you know how many calories are in the healthy fruit juices and smoothies you are drinking all day long? Your food intake might be good, and your physical activity level might be on point, but being unaware of how much calories you are consuming in liquid form might be the reason your weight is not shifting.
Solution: Eat your calories don’t drink them.
I am not saying you should not enjoy fruit juices and smoothies. What I am saying is this, it’s better to eat the whole fruit.
#2. Healthy-Labelled Food
Research has shown that regardless of the calorie content, people tend to eat more when food is labelled healthy. For many people, healthy-labelled food means permission to eat all they want.
When food is promoted as “low-fat”, “oil-free”, “sugar-free”, or “high fibre”, many people think that gives them the green light to eat more without guilt.
Here is the truth. The fact that something is low-fat or sugar-free doesn’t mean it is calorie free, and the fact that the food is naturally healthy doesn’t mean we can eat all we want. It is possible to get fat on healthy foods if we don’t pay attention to the quantity! Eating healthy is not just about the quality of your food; it is also about the quantity of your food.
#3. Overestimating Exercise-Related Energy Expenditure
This one is a big one. A person runs 5k, or does 1hr aerobics and feels she has earned the right to finish a pot of yam porridge after exercise.
Overestimating exercise-related energy expenditure is one of the reasons people’s hard work go down the drain because it is easy to overestimate energy output and underestimate energy intake. We must eat our calories according to our energy outputs. We can’t be exercising like ants and be eating like elephants.
It doesn’t matter how many hours you spend working out; all that will amount to little if you can’t balance what goes out with what comes in.