5 Reasons You’re NOT Losing Weight! And How To Fix It!

Are you frustrated because the scale won’t budge? So many of my patients come to me having tried everything to lose weight and feel stuck in a pattern of failure. When I tell them that they can lose 30, 50, or 100 lbs, they stare at me wide-eyed in disbelief. Let's break down the top 5 reasons I see sabotaging weight loss success:

1. Focusing on exercise

If the gym is your strategy to lose weight, your ladder is leaned up against the wrong building. I wish exercise wasn’t marketed for weight loss. It would save us so much frustration. In fact, your workout routine could be sabotaging you. Our health relies on homeostasis, keeping everything in balance. Prolonged or intense exercise can spike cortisol which can throw your body out of balance. I have even seen exercise increase someone’s blood glucose and prevent them from burning fat. This pertains to someone following strict nutrition. On the other side of the spectrum, it's easy to think that our exercise justifies the dessert or extra glass of wine. Just because your fitness app said you burned 400 calories, doesn’t mean you can eat an additional 400 calories. This is a misnomer! For the record, daily movement and exercise are important for our physical and mental health, but that’s a different blog post.

2. Not getting the right amount of water for your body

Are you dehydrated or over hydrated? How would you know?

Dehydration can stop weight loss in its tracks. Its going to be harder for your body to release fat and toxins without the water it needs to function optimally. When your hydration levels are out of whack it will also throw your electrolyte balance off which in turn impacts your energy levels among other functions. My rule of thumb is to drink half your body weight in ounces per day. Remember that coffee doesn’t count as it is actually a diuretic.

3. Eating diet foods

Diet foods (bars, shakes, packaged) are created to make someone money not to make you healthy! Commercial diet products are void of nutrients and filled with toxic additives like artificial sweeteners, flavors, preservatives, etc. These contribute to inflammation, hormone imbalance, and other toxicity issues which are going to impede weight loss in the long term. Be mindful of what you put in your body. Choose nutrient-dense, whole foods.

4. Eating the wrong fats

I had a patient come to me frustrated because she had been eating a strict, high-quality ketogenic diet for 6 months and hadn’t lost a pound. After working with me for 6 weeks she lost 20 lbs and we figured out that coconut oil was the culprit. Everyone has different biochemistry and sometimes your body doesn’t metabolize certain fats well. Other times it could simply be that the quality of your oils is causing inflammation and decreasing the metabolic efficiency of your cells. We can’t put macronutrients in a box simply because everyone has nuances to their biochemistry and therefore respond differently to different foods, which leads us to the final reason that has made my top five.

5. Food allergies

I’m sure you know someone who has to carry an EpiPen on their person due to a severe nut or shrimp allergy. Well, did you know that you can have an adverse immune response to food without even knowing it? There are several branches of the immune system called immunoglobulins which cause varying symptomatology as well as a gradient of those immune responses. To spare you the science lesson let me summarize by saying that there is a high probability that there are foods you are eating that are causing inflammation in your body. It gets even crazier. I’ve had many patients come to me struggling with their weight yet eating salads, eggs, fish, etc. daily. They, as well their MDs, were left perplexed. After a simple blood panel, we found that they had developed (IgG) allergies to the healthy foods they were eating. Go figure, but fortunately, they found the cause of the problem.