Why Am I Not Losing Weight??

Do you work out all of the time but don't seem to ever change your body composition? In other words, you spend hours at the gym, on the treadmill, elliptical machine or on the bike, watch what you eat, but the scale either doesn't budge at all, or you lose a few pounds only to gain it back by making a sidewards glance towards a pizza or ice cream?

There are a number of possible explanations for this, and with a little help, you can overcome them all!

In the first instance, you may be battling your BMR, or base metabolic rate. If your body fat percentage is quite high, if you are very sedentary or if you have lost muscle mass from age, atrophy or an injury, your base metabolic rate, or the amount of calories you burn daily from just your normal, day-to-day activities, may be much lower than you realize. First, you have to figure out what it is, and then you have to raise it (I can help with this!)

To figure out your BMR you can either get hydrostatic body fat testing, or in my case, I invested in a Body Media Go Wear Fit device (actually, my Dad got it for me for Christmas!) that I wear all of the time which tracks my caloric output and other interesting information like how many steps I take in a day and how many hours of high-quality sleep I get at night. Using this device taught me how many calories I was burning at rest, during my workouts and everything in between. If you're using a Polar brand heart rate monitor or a website like Myfitnesspal.com to get an estimate of your calories burned but you are still not losing any weight even when you seem to have created a deficit, there could be two problems with your caloric calculations.

(Me and Tony Horton showing off my "blinged" band)

My experience with Polars and other methods of estimating caloric burn is that they are HUGELY exaggerated. So people are seeing 800 or 1,000 calories "burned" during a workout, and I show on my Go Wear Fit a caloric output of more like 400 to 500 calories in that same workout. Obviously everyone is going to differ based on their level of fitness and muscle mass, but the proof is in the scale over time; if you are truly burning those levels of calories in your workouts, weight loss should NOT be a struggle.

The other major culprit to the numbers not "adding up" is inaccurate food journaling/calorie input calculations. Everyone (myself included!) UNDER estimates what they eat (or doesn't count that one M&M or the crust off of the grilled cheese sandwich) AND they UNDER estimate their portion sizes. So, being vigilant about what you eat, counting EVERYTHING that goes in your mouth (including drinks!!) and MEASURING everything you eat is critical to accurately calculating your caloric input; this takes A LOT of discipline!

I can help you figure out what the particular culprit might be if you continue to show a calorie deficit but do not see that reflected on the number on the scale -- or in your inches. There are a number of reasons why the scale may not be an accurate indicator of your fitness and weight-loss progress, but inches do tell the tale. Contact me if you need help with caloric calculations, food journaling, measuring or just general accountability in tracking your foods -- I can help!

(My "other" blinged out band!)