Why can't I lose weight?

To take the body from one comfortable state to another, it requires REAL effort and determination. It won’t happen easily. The reason why you are not losing weight is that you are not putting REAL effort in- especially if you have been down the weight loss road before or if you are over 40.

Anyone that sees real and substantial results in weight loss (or weight gain for those wanting to bulk up) will need to take a moment and think about what they are trying to achieve and RADICALLY change their ways.

Take the case of weight gain. For most people, apart from those truly blessed with great genes, to put muscle on and gain real size, they need to eat a LOT of food. If you are used to eating 3 meals a day and maybe a protein shake, you need to think again. People who put serious size on, eat like pigs! They eat 6-7 times a day, meals consisting of high carbs and high protein.

Coming back to weight loss, you have gained weight gradually over the years, probably without even noticing it. It wasn’t sudden and sort of crept up on you. In your mind, you think getting rid of it is probably easy or does not require a huge amount of effort.

The good news is that you CAN lose weight. The bad news is that it will take serious effort and if you want to keep it off, you need to know that your old ways cannot come back. When you embark on your weight loss regime, you have to be disciplined and persistent and know that going back to your old ways even for a day or two can set you back.

A very good way of losing weight is to count what you are actually putting in your body. You need to set a limit to what you are going to eat every day and be disciplined about it. A very good starting point is to eat 1/3 of what you are currently eating. For example, if you are used to eating a whole bowl of porridge plus 3 eggs in the morning, then eat 1/3 of your normal porridge portion and only 1 egg in the morning.

Next you need to incorporate cardio into your routine, doing at least 20 minutes of walking a day and ideally upping it to 60 minutes of fast walking 4-5 times a week.

Drink water and cut out all sugars and all juices if you can. Fruit is OK to eat if you are hungry but avoid fruit juice. Of course ideally it is better to not eat fruit and have just protein but starving your body of all sugars (such as natural fruit sugars) whilst beneficial in the short term, will only mean you will over-eat them at some time in the future.

The point to achieving real results when losing weight is to put in a great deal less calories, foods and saturated fats into your body than you have been doing. You have gotten used to eating for the sake of eating or eating all the wrong foods. Make sure you substitute bad for good.

Examples:

• Replace croissant for some fresh mango

• Replace fruit juice for water

• Replace lamb for lean beef or chicken

• Replace chocolate, pastry, cookies for some nuts such as almonds or cashews

• Replace bread/pasta with more protein foods

• Replace full fat or semi-skimmed milk with skimmed milk

• Replace gluten-rich foods with gluten-free foods

• Replace one meal a day with a high protein shake such as Diet Whey

• Replace smoothies with water
  

• Replace salad dressing such as olive oil with more vinegar

Pay attention to fats. Although there is a big movement on how great “good fats” are for you, they are still fats! If you diet contains too many foods with good fats such as avocados, then you will find it difficult to lose weight.

In conclusion, you first have to get your head round the fact that losing weight is hard and you need to stick at it for a while and you need to seriously put less food in your body than you have been used to. Be persistent and you will get there. Those who can’t get there when it comes to weight loss are those that either are not serious enough or committed enough or those who don't stick to it no matter what - stick to it NO MATTER WHAT.