So you’re exercising, eating well, and steadily losing pounds. Then, all of a sudden, your scale seems stuck and you realize that you’ve reached the dreaded plateau.
Here are 6 possible reasons why you might not lose fat fast and what you can do to kickstart your progress again.
- Keep a daily journal.
This is one of the most powerful tools to help you stay on track or get back on track with how to lose belly fat. We often overeat and eat more than we think we do. Check out our blog post from last week to learn more about daily journaling for weight loss. If you are conscious of your diet and fitness, you will be amazed at how many calories you are eating and how your exercise impacted those calories.
- Change your calorie intake
How many calories are you eating per day? Maybe you need to mix it up. Calorie cycling is the process of varying daily calorie intake, while maintaining the same weekly intake. Instead of consuming (for example) precisely 1800 calories each day with your diet- you can mix it up. Give it a try and keep your body guessing, but make sure to maintain a steady number of calories overall to keep losing belly fat.
- Fat gains yield fast losses
Losing weight too quickly can cause muscle loss. When this happens, your metabolism slows down because your body senses it is starving and holds onto fat. This will not help you lose fat fast or get rid of that belly fat. It in fact causes you to be smaller, but flabbier. We call this “skinny fat.” You may be thin but you are not healthy by any means when you starve yourself by eating once or twice per day. Whatever results your get fast, you can lose just as fast. This will most likely keep you on the rollercoaster ride in the health and fitness game.
- Refined carbs are the enemy, not fat
Are you eating too many sources of simple and refined carbs? (i.e. cookies, bread) Try to include more of the natural sources of carbs in your diet stuff like beans, yams, brown rice, carbs that have high fiber content. These will absorb slowest and not give you energy swings at work that make you less productive and more sleepy!
- Eat fat to lose fat
Okay, this sounds counterintuitive, but our bodies need enough fat in order to properly function AND to help you lose fat fast. We are often making much lower fat choices than we should, and as a consequence our consumption of fat falls far below the recommended guidelines of 30% of your total calories in fat per day in your diet. Did you know that is how many calories of fat that you are supposed to eat a day? If you are limiting your fat intake too much, then you might only be getting around 10% of your calories in fat per day, which is not enough for your body to function at its peak. Good rule of thumb- stay away from packaged and canned foods. Yes, even canned veggies. Anything low in fat has to have higher sugar and sodium to maintain flavor, which will not get rid of that pesky belly fat.
- Drink half your body weight in water each day
Overweight people need more water than the typical 8 cups-a-day rule. Overweight people tend to need more water, because belly fat cells hold more water than other fat cells in the body. To determine the amount of water you need per day, divide your weight by two. For example, a person who weighs 140 pounds should consume 70 ounces, or about 9 cups. The best way to gauge whether you are getting enough water is to monitor the color of your urine. If you’re drinking enough, it should be the color of pale straw.
Want to learn more tips? Check out our blog next week when we give you 6 more reasons that you may not lose fat fast like you want!
Today is the first day of the rest of your life, what are you going to do about it?
