What you haven’t considered when trying to lose weight

Don’t throw in the towel yet. Chances are you are fighting the battle with the wrong tools.

First, understand the basics of weight loss.  You consume calories and calories fuel the body.  If you don’t burn the fuel, your body stores the calories.  In short, everything you don’t burn turns into fat and deposits itself inside your body.

To burn the calories (outside of normal activity not considered exercising), you must expend enough energy everyday by increasing your heart rate and keeping that rate up so that your body uses the calories.

And as you burn calories you burn fat. Specifically, you have to burn 3,500 calories/week to burn one pound of fat.  That calculates to burning 500 calories per day.

Now, to some this may seem like a daunting task.  After all, the average person probably burns about 300 calories for a low impact 30 minute workout.  However, your rate of calories is based on body weight, activity, intensity of activity and length of activity.

Use this calories burned estimator to check your physical activity

If you’re new to working out or just getting back into the game, you don’t have to shoot for the 500 calories a day immediately.

Work up to it by setting goals that you can achieve each week.  For instance, maybe you want to begin with walking for 30 minutes a day and then gradually introduce new, more intense activities or classes to your regimen.

Add the exercise to the eating tips I gave you last week and there you have it -- your weight loss foundation.

Aside from what you eat and your exercise, there are factors you can’t see that may need a physician’s assistance to troubleshoot. 

A low resting metabolism rate, a hypothyroid, vitamin deficiency, lack of rest, stress and many other conditions can be diagnosed with blood work.  

Below are some reading materials that detail specific roadblocks with weight loss.  We all are wired differently, so it’s important that you set goals and create a program designed specifically for you. The human body is a like a machine and each part (muscles, adrenals, nervous system…) were designed to work in tandem.  So if one thing is out of whack, that part needs to be fixed so it doesn’t prevent the other parts from functioning correctly.

Resources:

“8 Reasons You Aren't Losing Weight” - I love this article because it tells it like it is.  These are all the things I tell anyone I train.  If your health professional or trainer has not told you the things in this article, you may want to reconsider their role in your life.

“Why can’t I lose weight?”

“Can’t lose weight? It’s probably your metabolism”