You’re Not Sleeping Enough
Sleeping is how we recharge and repair. It’s important for everyone to get 7-9 hours a night, but even more important when you’re trying to lose weight. There are a few reasons why lack of sleep will make the weight loss journey a struggle.
First, it affects your brain. When you’re tired because you only slept 5-6 hours, your brain is not functioning optimally. This leads to less impulse control and bad decisions, making you reach for the cookies you usually avoid. Because your body is low on energy, the brain will seek highly rewarding foods that are packed with fat, salt, and sugar to keep you going.
If that’s not enough to make you want to get some shut-eye, it gets worse. A lack of sleep also throws off your hunger hormones, leptin and ghrelin. This results in you feeling more hungry, and less full, which is a recipe for disaster when you’re trying to shed pounds.
If you’re putting serious effort into your diet and exercise, don’t let it go to waste by not getting enough sleep. Aim for 7-9 hours a night and you’ll see much more success in your weight loss program.
You’re Always Stressed
No diet is powerful enough to combat the destruction that stress puts on the body. While you may think that what you stress about in your mind should have no effect on your physical body, that’s just not true.
Our minds have a difficult time deciphering between what is a thought and what is reality. When we stress about failing that upcoming test, your mind thinks that it is really happening and acts accordingly. The body responds to stress by releasing a hormone called cortisol. Cortisol skyrockets your blood sugar, increases weight gain, and lowers your immune system. Pretty much everything you’re trying to avoid.
When you feel that anxiety coming on, retreat to a quiet place and take some deep breaths for as long as you need. While stress is inevitable in all of our lives, it’s more important to create habits that calm the stress response, rather than trying to avoid stress altogether.
You’re Not Eating Enough
It is a common misconception that eating a low-calorie diet is the ultimate way to lose weight. While drastically reducing the number of calories you eat will lead to initial weight loss, it won’t last long. Typically, the weight lost on a low-calorie diet comes back, and comes back with a vengeance.
When eating a low-calorie diet, your body gets the signal that it’s short on fuel. It does what it has to do to survive and that is hold on to energy, in the form of fat. This makes your metabolism cool, meaning it doesn’t burn most of the calories you eat, it stores them.
When we lose weight we want our metabolism to be nice and hot, letting us consume and burn calories all day long. This can’t happen when you’re not eating enough. The solution? Eat the amount of calories in the right macronutrient ratio that matches your body. Take the test today to find out what your metabolic type is.