Being one month into the year affords us the time to reflect on our new year’s resolutions – for better or worse. For those committing to lose weight, a few kilograms will hopefully been shed by now, however for those who have struggled to lose weight, a few factors might be at play which make the weight loss process much more difficult.

Team Med in this blog explore some of the reasons why some of us are simply unable to lose the weight we want.

You’re strictly focusing on exercise

Exercise is without a doubt a great way to keep healthy, but for the purpose of losing weight, exercise should not be your number one focus. Exercising, while encouraging the burning of energy, can supplant ordinary energy burning mechanisms due to tiredness – a tired body will fidget less and walk and slower, which accounts for some energy burning during the day.

Exercise is also not a great way to keep off body fat in the long term – this is achieved by practicing a balanced, carefully considered diet. Metabolic influences are the key energy burner for humans, so without a proper diet plan, it is easy to ingest more energy than you’re burning, even with exercise. This idea ties closely in with the next point we make:

Overestimating what your workout is doing

After exercise, it’s very much a natural response to want to replace the energy burned with new energy. This can work to great effect in many instances, such as ingesting high-quality protein after an intense muscle-focused workout, but other times it might become counter-productive.

Because people are likely to overestimatethe degree to which they work out and how many kilojoules they burn, they may follow exercise by immediately consuming food high in kilojoules (for those wanting to treat themselves after a workout), or simply eating too much during the day.

Following the wrong kind of diet for you

Many of us have experienced it – you’re pursuing a diet and the lack of results make it seem fruitless. Although in theory all low kilojoule diets should work for those that choose to pursue them, the results are in fact much murkier than this. As with your metabolic rate, how diets can affect you can completely be up to your biology. This means that even if a low fat, high carb diet worked for a friend at work, it doesn’t necessarily mean it will work for you. instead, it’s important to experiment with what works for you, regardless of how it works for others.

Lose weight your own way

When you’re trying to lose weight, make sure to not lose faith by practicing improper weight loss techniques. For weight loss that will stick in the long-term, it’s crucial that you devise a diet plan that works for you and stick to it. It’s also important to remember that exercise is great for health, but it’s certainly not the be-all and end all of weight loss.

If you’d like any more advice, or any information related to any of the products we stock at Team Med, make sure to get in touch with us today!