Weight Loss: A Failure Story? OR How Not to Lose Weight [Keto]
Video | Diet Swaps | Changing Everything | Restarts | Takeaway
Nothing is more frustrating than feeling as if you are doing everything right with your diet and lifestyle routine but not seeing results on the scale. This blog post shares what may be going wrong when you are doing everything right.
Weight Loss Problems – At-A-Glance
- Looking for Diet Swaps: Many food companies are happy to alter foods to fit diet needs. However, daily reliance on these processed foods prevents weight loss.
- Changing Everything at Once: When motivation hits, it is tempting to change everything at once and do so in an extreme manner. This strategy backfires, increasing cravings and fatigue.
- Continual Restarts: When progress is slow, it is tempting to switch to another weight loss strategy because starting a new goal produces feel-good hormones.
Weight Loss: A Failure Story? OR How Not to Lose Weight [Video]
In this video, you’ll learn…
- What to watch out for when looking for alternative, diet-friendly foods.
- The problem with trying to change everything at once.
- The importance of allowing your body time to adapt to your diet.
Problem #1: Looking for Diet Swaps
A common problem that stands in the way of weight loss progress is looking for diet swaps. Many food companies are happy to supply you with lower calorie, lower carb, lower fat, gluten-free, dairy-free, or any other meal, snack, or dessert variation your heart desires.
But often, when we look for these alternative foods, we’re really thinking, “How can I have my usual snacks and desserts without the consequences?” This is a mindset that will keep you stuck.
For example, as the popularity of keto diets grew, so did the availability of snacks and desserts that use flour and sugar substitutes to reduce their net carb count. These altered foods can fill voids when celebrating special occasions, but daily reliance on them will prevent your progress because they are high in calories and sweet enough to make you want to keep eating them.
If you are a keto dieter, you will be much happier with your results if you adopt the mindset that keto is a new way of eating. When you do that, you open up to new ways of satisfying your hunger with whole foods rather than searching for ways to cheat your way thin.
Problem #2: Changing Everything at Once
A reluctance to give up old comforts can be a reason why weight loss is not happening for you. But, you can also run into problems by going the opposite route and changing everything at once.
This is an easy trap to fall into because we live in an age where information is easy to come by, and there are many effective weight loss strategies and tools. But motivation is a fleeting thing. So, when you feel that motivational hit, it is tempting to change everything at once and do so in an extreme manner so that you can get this weight loss issue over with today and get back to “normal” life tomorrow.
This is where things get complicated. First, we determine that we are doing everything wrong. Next, we go against our basic instincts and natural tendencies and force change.
So overnight, we cut calories, eat only one meal a day, eliminate food groups and add supplements, therapies, and intense exercise. The reality is that if you push your body too hard, it will push back, and it has some powerful weapons, including cravings, hunger, and fatigue.
You’ll reach long-term success with more ease if you resist the urge to change multiple aspects of your diet and lifestyle at once. Therefore, identify one problem area and work on changing it.
I recommend starting with sugar and refined carbs. Work on getting them out of your diet; you will feel in control of hunger and cravings and have more energy, making it easier to accelerate weight loss by lowering your overall carb intake, practicing intermittent fasting, and exercising.
This way, instead of forcing change, you allow change to happen by giving your body what it needs to succeed.
I understand that getting rid of sugar is intimidating, but I promise you that it is possible and a game changer in weight loss.
Problem #3: Restarts – Chasing the Hormone Rush
When progress is not coming as quickly as expected, it is easy to say, “this isn’t working for me,” and switch to another weight loss strategy. This restart approach tricks us into thinking we are making progress because starting anew gives you a fresh hit of motivation.
When you start something new, you experience a rush of hormones, specifically dopamine and serotonin, that creates a feel-good sensation throughout your body. So starting a new plan feels great, but that hormonal high only lasts about a week and when it decreases, so does your motivation.
This motivation dip doesn’t mean something has gone wrong with your plan. It is simply the way your physiology works. However, if you are unaware of this phenomenon, you can give up on your goal or jump ship, looking for the next new plan or the next best thing, chasing that hormone rush.
When that happens, you find yourself going around the same mountain time and time again and never getting any closer to your goal. The reality is that on the path to your goal weight, there will be days when the burden is more apparent than the blessing.
The irony of weight loss is that the hard days are the best days because real progress happens when you make it through those days. The human body adapts to your routines because doing the same thing over and over again allows it to become more efficient and expend less energy. In other words, it likes the status quo.
This is true even if your diet is unhealthy because your body will adapt and learn how to process what it’s given. For instance, if you’ve been feeding your body sugar, then it creates the enzymes and pathways needed to run on sugar. When you cut the sugar and reduce your overall carb intake, your body must produce new enzymes and pathways to burn fat instead.
During that transition, your body will fight to keep the status quo, and as a result, you’ll experience cravings for carbs and low energy. These are hard days, but when your body is compelled to change, it will. So reframe the challenging stages of your diet and realize that these are the days when your physiology is changing, and the groundwork for your new, more efficient fat-burning metabolism is being formed.
Takeaway
As a society, we spent many decades going in the wrong direction concerning weight loss. But, today, we have access to different viewpoints, fresh new research, and easy access to personal accounts from people just like you. However, so much information is coming at us so rapidly that it’s easy to feel overwhelmed and as if we are falling behind when solutions don’t come quickly.
Don’t mistake slow weight loss for failed weight loss, and stay focused on why you started your journey in the first place. Get sugar and refined foods, including packaged keto snacks, out of your diet first, and you’ll find that you can add weight loss accelerators, like fasting and exercise, much easier.
Remember that it is natural to experience a dip in motivation about a week after starting a new diet because the hormonal high of starting something new wears off. Weight loss goals are journeys with exciting starts, exhilarating finishes, and mundane, just-get-through-it middles. Stick with it, and you’ll reach your goal.
Thank you for reading and have a wonderful week!
About the Author
Becky Gillaspy, DC, is the author of The Intermittent Fasting Guide and Cookbook. She graduated Summa Cum Laude with research honors from Palmer College of Chiropractic in 1991.