Not losing weight at the rate you have expected can be discouraging. You are exercising and eating right (at least to the best of your knowledge), but the scale isn’t moving. Or worse still, the number on the scale is going up. Why are you gaining weight instead of losing weight? Why is your effort not yielding results? Should you continue with the “eat less, move more” advice?
I have mentioned this in some of my posts but I think it’s worth mentioning again, the fact that you exercise doesn’t mean you’re going to lose weight. Think about it, if losing weight is only as a result of exercise training, then many elite athletes should be underweight.
A lot of people who are trying to lose weight are not getting the energy balance equation right. Some people think they don’t eat much, but when you sit down to evaluate their eating habits, you will realise they are eating more than they think.
Calories are not the enemy; we need them to fuel our day-to-day activities
Whether it is sleeping (yes, we burn calories while sleeping too), eating, walking, cleaning the house, sitting at your desk, or running a marathon, we need calories to power the activities. The energy cost of each activity depends on the intensity of the activity. For example, cleaning the house requires more energy than sleeping.
How to start losing weight gain
Increase your non-exercise physical activity
When it comes to weight loss, every activity counts. One of the easiest ways to increase your body’s fat burning ability is to stay active throughout the day.
Exercise is a structured activity because the type, duration, intensity and frequency of activity are predetermined. If you exercise for 1 hour a day but sit and lie for the remaining 23 hours, you may not see a tangible result.
There are 24 hours in a day, and 1 hour is just a small fraction of that. What happens during the remaining 23 hours of your day has a greater effect on your weight than what happens during the one hour of workout.
Increase your resting metabolic rate
Resting metabolic rate is the largest contributor to total daily energy expenditure (60%-75%). Boosting your resting metabolic rate will significantly increase your body’s ability to burn fat.
2 Ways to increase your metabolism
Lift weights!
A lot of women don’t want to lift weights because of the erroneous belief that lifting weights will make them look bulky. Well, that is not true. You aren’t going to get bulky by adding some muscle. You’re going to look trim and ____ (okay fill in the blank). Don’t be afraid to lift weights. When you lift weights, you are improving your body composition and boosting your resting metabolic rate.
Here is an interesting fact about how weight training increases fat loss: A pound of muscle burns between 7-10 calories per day, while a pound of fat burns between 2-3 calories. Muscle cells use more energy at rest than fat cells.
Muscle is a fat burner! The more muscle you have, the more calories your body burns at rest. And please ladies,
There is nothing that shapes a woman’s body like weight training!
Do high-intensity interval training (HIIT)
High-intensity interval training has been shown to raise post-exercise fat-burning for up to 16 hours after a workout. High-intensity interval training gives you bulk for your time and offers various fitness benefits. You will not only burn a lot of calories during your exercise session, but you will also burn more calories when the session is over.
Exercise is just one part of the weight loss equation. No weight loss program is complete without consideration for the dietary part of the equation.
We will look at the other part in the next blog post.