Why am I not Losing Weight in a Calorie Deficit?

A question I get asked fairly often is “Why am I not able to Lose weight even though I am in a Calorie Deficit?”

In this article I will cover A FEW REASONS why you may be cutting calories but NOT LOSING WEIGHT.

1.   Not Actually in a Deficit

2.   Not Giving it Enough Time i.e. not Consistently in a Deficit

3.   Eating Junk Food

4.   Insulin Resistance

5.   Dropping Calories Too Low

6.   Staying in a Deficit for Too Long

7.   Disregarding other Elements of a Healthy Lifestyle

NOT ACTUALLY IN A DEFICIT

The first reason is pretty straight forward. You are not actually in a deficit. This can be for a couple of reasons.

1.   There may be a tracking error. You may not have accurately recorded what you ate. Or the nutrition calculator you used may have given faulty information. Personally, I get around this pretty easily because I am not a foody and more utilitarian in my approach to eating. I generally eat very similar foods day in and day out. I am trying to get better at variety ?? the advantage of this approach however is that If I know what I eat on a daily basis all I have to do is eat a little less than I would normally eat. If you are person that eats a pizza one day and then a burger or pasta salad the next you will need to be constantly keeping track of the calories in each food.

2.   If you have been on the diet for a while as in ~ 20 days of strict dieting your metabolism may have slowed to compensate for the decrease in calories. Although you are eating less than you used to because of this metabolic shift you may now not actually be in a deficit any longer.

NOT GIVING IT ENOUGH TIME

Similar to progress in other areas of life improvements in fitness do not occur in a linear manner. Whether in weight loss, muscle building, strength progression or athletic ability progress comes in spurts. You can go a week without seeming to make any progress and then suddenly drop 5lbs seemingly overnight. ‘2

EATING JUNK FOOD

Junk Food is missing many nutrients, vitamins and minerals as well as fiber that allow your digestive system and metabolic processes to work most efficiently.

Furthermore, junk foods tend to be higher in processed carbohydrates, sugar and unhealthy fats. All of these cause inflammations in the body and in turn keep INSULIN and CORTISOL chronically elevated. This results in INSULIN RESISTANCE and thus difficulty in LOSING BODY FAT.

INSULIN RESISTANCE

Some of you reading this may have done diets in the past. When you were younger you simply ate less and exercised a little more and VUALA! you achieved your weight loss goal.

However, as the years went by you found that each time you wanted to lose weight you had to be more and more restrictive.

This is because your body has adapted. Your body’s #1 priority is SURVIVAL not weight loss. Thus, when it perceives a prolonged state of restricted calories it adjusts by lowering your burn rate.

This is why you may notice that in addition to slowed fat loss your energy also decreases.

So, how do we get around this? It starts with a basic understanding of how each of the THREE MACRONUTRIENTS behave in our bodies.

In a typical diet where you decrease your calories your metabolism will eventually slow down. Since you are burning carbohydrates as your primary fuel source when you get less of these to burn on a consistent basis your body will respond by burning them at a slower rate.

On the other hand, if you SWITCH the PREDOMINANT fuel source to FAT your metabolism will stay the same even if your intake is below maintenance.

When you are burning MAINLY fat as fuel and you do not eat enough dietary fat your body will simply begin burning body fat. One pound of fat has roughly 3500 calories. That means that even the most lean person has enough fat on their body to go an entire day without eating and be just fine.

ANOTHER THING TO CONSIDER is INSULIN. There is an INVERSE RELATIONSHIP between INSULIN LEVELS and FAT BURNING. The HIGHER your INSULIN LEVELS the LOWER your FAT BURNING will be.

When INSULIN LEVELS drop down to baseline FAT BURNING can begin. This is because INSULIN is a BUILDING and STORAGE hormone when it is elevated your body is focused on repair, growth and storing energy. This is GOOD but not if you are in this state the majority of the time.

Of the THREE MACROS carbs, protein and fat CARBS have the greatest effect on INSULIN this is why when trying to lose fat you want to cut back on carbohydrates FIRST. This does not necessarily mean that you need to completely eliminate carbohydrates but before you begin cutting back on protein or fat you want to cut back on CARBS.

PROTEIN can also elevate INSULIN levels if consumed in excess. For this reason, it is advisable not to eat more than 50 grams or about 6 oz of meat in one sitting. The exception would be if you are coming off of a fast. In this case you want to SPIKE Insulin a little to avoid a catabolic or muscle wasting effect.

Of the THREE MACROS fat has the LEAST affect on INSULIN. However, this does not mean that you should go HOG WILD on your FAT INTAKE.

Lipoprotein Lipase plays a similar role in FAT METABOLISM as INSULIN does in CARB METABOLISM albeit to a lesser degree.

So, although FAT STORAGE IS less likely on a low carb high fat diet you can overdo it on the FAT.

When you combine FAT AND CARBS together you get the combined effects of INSULIN and LPL. For this reason, it is not a GOOD IDEA to eat large amounts of carbs and fat at the same time.

When you eat protein make sure you have it with some fat as in nuts, seeds or eggs, chicken with the skin, red meat, olive oil avocados etc. 

LEAN MEAT tends to elevate INSULIN more than fattier cuts.

There is a time and a place for every HORMONE in the body and INSULIN is NO EXCEPTION but when it comes to FAT LOSS you want to keep INSULIN LEVELS low the majority of the time. The exception being when BREAKING a fast OR after a WORKOUT. In these cases a little extra INSULIN is less likely to HURT your FAT LOSS efforts and will probably help you retain muscle and strength.

DROPPING CALORIES TOO LOW

This goes hand in hand with the point above. If you lower your calories too low for too long your body will slow the rate of calorie burn to keep you alive. You will have less energy for workouts and if you cut back on protein sources such as beef, chicken, fish and eggs and neglect to do any strength training you will lose muscle mass as well and OF COURSE this loss in MUSCLE will further decrease your metabolic rate.

The idea is to decrease calories by 10-20% of your current intake or as little as possible while still seeing results. Unless you are very overweight a good rate of fat loss is about 1-2lbs/week.

STAYING IN A DEFICIT TOO LONG

Another common mistake is to stay in a deficit too long.  As stated above your body will become accustomed to this and this new lower calorie intake will become your NEW NORMAL.

Every 3 – 6 weeks you should take a break from dieting for a week or so. After THREE MONTHS or so bring your calories up by a 50-100 calories/week for a few weeks or until you notice you are beginning to gain weight. Once you hit this point drop the calories back slightly and MAINTAIN at this point for a while before ATTEMPTING to lose more WEIGHT.

DISREGARDING OTHER ELEMENTS OF A HEALTHY LIFESTYLE

Diet is important when it comes to weight loss. However, if you really want to MAXIMIZE your progress you SHOULD be looking at other aspects of health SUCH AS

-        SLEEP

-        STRESS MANAGEMENT

-        RELATIONSHIPS

-        MINDSET

These four areas are all important AND THE GOOD THING is that they all work together. If you are stressed you will likely not get good sleep. If you are low on sleep your relationships will likely suffer which will probably INCREASE STRESS. If you remember the “SEE-DO-GET Principle” from one of my previous videos your MINDSET or what you SEE will affect WHAT YOU DO which will IN TURN affect WHAT YOU GET.

We can not completely eliminate STRESS from our lives but we can often REDUCE IT by the ACTIONS that we take.

For example, if you do routine maintenance on your car, you will be less likely to have a major breakdown later on down the road.

By working on things such as your HEALTH, WEALTH and RELATIONSHIPS before they are in crisis you can PREVENT a lot of CRISIS from occurring thus reducing your stress.

This of course is easier said than done because it requires DISCIPLINE to do things that ARE IMPORTANT but NOT URGENT. By being PROACTIVE we can minimize IMPORTANT and URGENT situations. This will over time CREATE POSITIVE MOMENTUM in our lives because we will now be SPENDING LESS and LESS time putting out FIRES which will FREE UP time and energy to put towards more PRODUCTIVE and PROACTIVE endeavors to CREATE EVEN MORE POSITIVE MOMENTUM.

Discipline is the Price of Freedom.

ONE MORE THING I want to mention on the topic of relationships. You have probably heard it said that you are the SUM of the FIVE PEOPLE that you spend the MOST TIME with.

This does not mean that you have to get rid of friends who are not into FITNESS but it does mean that if you have people who are DISCOURAGING you in your pursuits or trying to draw you back into old habits that you should ENCOURAGE them to JOIN YOU on your NEW JOURNEY or distance yourself from them and find new friends that share your NEW set of values. “As Iron Sharpens Iron so a Man Sharpens the Countenance of His Friend”.

So, there you have it. Some food for thought. 

If you have struggled to LOSE WEIGHT in the PAST, what do you feel have been your BIGGEST CHALLENGES?