“Why You’re Not Losing Weight Even Though You ‘Eat Healthy’”
“I only eat clean - I don’t get why I’m not losing weight, though…”
I’ll cut straight to the chase. You're probably not losing weight simply because you’re not in a caloric deficit.
I know it may feel like you are - you might feel like you're making extra effort to eat a different way, and that's awesome. The idea that you have actually taken a step is a good thing. You have to make change to have change.
But what's happening is you're probably not hitting your caloric deficit the way you need to. Let's say you decide you're eating healthy, so instead of having potato chips, you decide you're going to have almonds. Solid start, but are you weighing how much those almonds are? You're might be just grabbing a big handful and eating them, and we're not aware of how many calories there are. Maybe you're thinking, “I'm eating a little bit healthier, so I'm going to have a little extra because it can't be that bad.” But surprise, calories are calories. It doesn't matter the food that you're having.
A thousand calories of potato chips is equal to a thousand calories of almonds from a mathematical and energy standpoint. It doesn't matter what the food is. It just matters the amount of food.
What tends to happen is that people have the mindset that since it’s clean eating, they can eat as much as they’d like. So without having any sort of tracking or awareness around how much we're eating, we could possibly be overeating. Even if you were to eat nothing but Twinkies, if you were underneath your caloric needs, you would lose weight. It wouldn't be the healthiest, but it would technically be weight loss.
Another possibility could be you're eating healthy Monday through Friday, but then Friday night or Saturday comes around and you're thinking, “ah, I've been eating healthy all week, one little treat can't hurt…”
But from a calories in, calories out standpoint, it can. Let's say - for the ease of math - you need 2,000 calories a day to lose weight. Seven days by 2,000 calories a day, that's 14,000 calories a week to hit a deficit. Calorie tracking isn't about hitting your caloric goal daily, it's about a week, two weeks, three weeks, even a month at a time. Let’s say you’re good all week, 2,000 Monday through Friday, but then on Saturday your little treat jumps you up to 2400 calories. That may not seem like a lot, but if we’re aiming for weight loss, that puts us above the deficit we need and can stop the wheels in motion from allowing that to happen.
Another thing that happens a lot is that people will say they're eating healthy, but don't have an awareness around the macronutrient ratio. It's not that one is better than another, it's more about: are the nutrients that we're putting into our body going towards the goal that we have? So if your goal is to:
A) to lose weight
B) to gain muscle
C) perform better in the gym
D) look a specific way
you need to have a certain ratio of macronutrients.
Basically put: you want to make sure you're getting enough protein at a certain number of meals throughout the day to keep yourself satiated making it easier to stick to the plan.
For example, if I'm having a breakfast of just fruit the sugar's going to go in, be absorbed quickly and then I’ll have a sugar crash and hunger sooner than later. If I were to have a breakfast of cottage cheese or maybe three eggs with some egg whites added in there for extra protein, and I had a piece of fruit on the side, that protein is going to help keep me more satiated longer than if I had just the fruit by itself.
The last thing I would say - for now, so that I don't bombard you with too many things - is you're probably relying on willpower, and that's awesome. That’s impressive, but willpower alone often fails in comparison to willpower with a structure. If you have a structure: meal times, goals, tracking / awareness, those things plus your willpower is really going to get you where you want to go. So the moments when willpower wanes and it falls through (and that happens, we're human, everyone struggles from time to time) you're better able to follow the structure. That structure becomes a scaffolding to hold you up.
To put it all together then: “I only eat healthy, why am I not losing weight?”
You’re probably not in a deficit or you’re not tracking tightly enough to know whether you are or aren't.
You might be sabotaging accidentally on the weekends
You’re burning through the week on willpower without structure
