Everyone will experience a time when their progress either slows down or it stops completely. This means they aren’t seeing the number on the scales dropping or they are not seeing visible changes in the mirror. So this understandably gets very frustrating as you seem to be doing everything you can to move toward your health and fitness goals.
So might feel disheartened and therefore lose motivation to keep exercising or sticking to your diet. But you might wonder what is it that is going on. Because if we know why weight loss is not happening then it gives us some awareness. Then it means we are able to do something about it.
What is going on?
You weigh less, now this might seem obvious to point out that if you’ve been losing weight you will weigh less. What this means is when you are lighter there is less of you to move around. This means that you’re using less energy which means you’re burning fewer calories simply by moving around, whether it’s getting up from your desk, walking up the stairs. This is also why the calories we consumed at the start of our fitness journey are not necessarily the same as the calories we need to eat as we get smaller.
Your body becomes efficient, this means that your body does the same amount of work but for fewer calories. So for example, this may happen because if we were in a period of a lack of food then our body protects itself from starvation.
Our body tries to preserve calories. We automatically want to sit down more and we may not want to talk to people. So all because we have low energy. This has an impact on us where we have lower general activity levels. So what this does is it saves calories. This is why getting up on our feet as much as we can. Moving about day to day where we can within the confines of our schedule.
An increase in hunger, so as we lose weight our appetite goes up. Which means we will want to eat more. Then if we eat more our calories will go up and we will go out of the calories we need to lose weight. To give you an idea your body will want to consume an extra 100 calories for every 1kg you lose in body weight. So for example, if you lose 5kg, then you will want to eat an extra 500 calories in food.
Why does it happen?
So your body does not know you’re trying to lose weight. It does not care if you want to increase your confidence, increase your energy levels or improve your health from less body fat. Your body just wants to keep you alive or to be able to produce children.
In summary, there are several causes as to why your weight loss plateaus. This is why it is helpful to know these different factors in our weight, diet, and general activity. So that we can get the ball rolling again.
