I have had clients who have been trying to lose weight. Say that they don’t think they eat much. But they haven’t seen any progress despite their exercise and diet efforts. This is not an uncommon situation. It can be very frustrating feeling you’re being active and looking at your diet. But I’m sure you’re wondering what causes this to happen and why it happens.
So if you’re not losing weight. Generally what we need to look at is either increasing your general activity or looking closer at your diet. This doesn’t necessarily mean you need to go to the gym more or do more workouts at home or in the park. This can mean more or longer walks. Get up more from your desk or couch to move around.
Two things can be going on the first is underreporting in the context of the diet. This is where we are eating more calories than we are aware of. Because most things we eat or drink contain calories or energy and more can make our way into our diet than we think.
First off let’s look at two real-world examples, with two different ladies from a BBC documentary. The first one was an actress who was convinced that she wasn’t eating very much and she thought she had a slow metabolism. Where she was asked to record what she was eating through different methods of video, and a written food diary. Then they asked her to drink doubly labelled water to verify how much she was consuming.
The second example is of a lady who is a belly dancer. Similarly, she was convinced that she has a slow metabolism was the cause of her being unable to lose weight. What is interesting about this one is that the individual is still denying the findings.
Of course, there are occasions when there are people who genuinely have a slower metabolism. But you need to be diagnosed by a doctor to know that you have an underactive thyroid. So that you can get specific treatment for that issue. However, in those instances, it is still possible to lose weight but it’s just more challenging.
Now, if you feel like you’re doing everything you can to lose body fat. But nothing is changing, then what could be causing the issue? Let’s go into some potential sources of the problem.
Where do excess calories come from?
The oils and sauces that you may add to foods either during cooking or when your meal is on the table. Many people add olive oil on salads, and sauces like tomato, brown sauce, and mayonnaise over your food to add more flavour. We can easily over look this one, because we might think there isn’t much point thinking it can’t be much.
What you drink throughout the day can add more calories to your diet. Orange juice can contain as many calories as cola. A large glass of wine can be about as many calories as a doughnut. There are also cappuccinos, lattes, and milk where you can add excess calories to your diet by drinking fluids.
How you portion your food. When you fill a bowl of cereal, what you think a portion is maybe double or more of that. Say you have peanut butter on toast, you might spread double the amount. This ends up in us consuming more energy than we think we’ve eaten.
Do you remember all the food and drinks you’ve had over the past 24 hours? If you ask yourself what you’ve had to eat or drink off the top of your head. I’m willing to bet you will remember some of what you’ve had but not all. As we might forget some of the details.
Who underestimates how much they eat?
Various factors determine who is more likely to underestimate their food intake and by how much. For example, the individual’s sex and weight. Generally, females under-report their calories more than males and the more overweight the person is the more they will likely underreport. Even dieticians can underestimate their food, by roughly 223 calories. So it’s pretty normal, we all under-report the amount of energy we eat.
How to reduce eating excess calories
So if we all underestimate how much we eat. Then you may be wondering how we can reduce the likelihood of eating more calories than we’re aware of. So that you can make progress.
- Record food in a paper food diary or food logging app as you go.
- Take photos of your food
- Lower the number of calories you’ve eaten slightly more
What about thinking our general activity is higher?
So we’ve looked at the food side. What about the exercise side of things? Well this is often the opposite, when many of us can over estimate the amount of exercise we do. So going to the gym 2 to 5 days for up to 1 hour each day isn’t being as active as we hope. What about the other 23 hours of your day and the days you don’t go to the gym? Then if you look at the calorie burn on any activity tracker or treadmill. Unfortunately, they’re not very accurate and can make you believe you’ve burned more calories than you have.
In summary, we all eat more food or energy than we think we do. There are many reasons for excess calorie consumption. Depending on the person and what they typically eat will depend on where the calories are coming from. But by being aware of where it may be coming from. It means that we can do something about it. Where it’s the opposite for exercise compared to our food. So we shouldn’t pay too much attention to calorie reading on exercise equipment or activity tools and look to be more active outside of planned exercise.
