2 Reasons Why You Don’t See Weight Loss Despite Sticking To Your Diet Plan.
If you think dieting is frustrating, think how bad dieting and still not losing weight feels?
Have you ever experienced this before? If you have, hi-five! So have I, and I’ll break down 2 of the most common reasons why this might happen to us. If you haven’t experienced this yet, consider yourself lucky, but be prepared in advance with the information given below so you don’t end up panicking and making the same mistakes I made when this actually happens.
Am I going to say that this situation is inevitable? Not really. It really depends on how you set up your nutrition and your training. More importantly, it depends on your experience with the two.
Now, this only applies if you are following the basic principle of weight loss and that is to eat in a calorie deficit. So, the first thing you have to do if you feel that you aren’t losing weight is to make sure that you are in fact in a deficit.
Research shows that people actually tend to underestimate the number of calories they consume in a given day.
This isn’t on purpose. Without hacking expedience with measuring, it is very difficult to accurately eyeball your calories.
On average, people under estimate their intake by 20% and this can go upward of 40%. Considering the fact that you’re supposed to create a deficit of 20-25% as a sweet spot to lose weight, you could be easily eating at or over maintenance and still be thinking that you’re dieting. This is the main reason why you should get a food scale. It is the best investment you can make if you’re serious about getting the most efficient results.
But this post isn’t for those people. This is for those of you who are sure you are eating way lesser than you’re burning and you’re still not seeing the weight loss you desire. Any guesses as to why you might not be losing weight despite eating in a deficit? Well, let’s get started.
Reason 1: Recomposition
I want to start with recomposition and get it out of the way as it doesn’t have much to it. Body recomposition simply means losing fat and gaining muscle for no net change in weight.
This is one of the primary reasons why you might not be losing weight despite eating in a calorie deficit. There’s a higher chance of you witnessing a body recomposition if you’re a beginner to training properly (intentionally applying progressive overload) or if you’re getting back to the gym after a long break.
Recomposition is more of a positive side effect and you should glad if it occurs to you. There is nothing better than building muscle while losing fat, even if your weight doesn’t change.
This isn’t exactly a problem and hence it doesn’t need any solving. Enjoy it while it lasts!
To be sure that you’re actually experiencing a recomp, the best way to go is tracking your measurements. Over time, if you see your waist reducing but other areas like your shoulders, chest or arms growing, you will know that you are recomping.
The only problem I’ve seen people face here is patience. Recomping is a very slow process and people often want the quickest results. I highly recommend taking full advantage of recomping while you still can.
In the short run, it might seem like a slow process, but in the long run, it’ll make your journey to your goal physique a lot easier than it should be.
Now let’s move on to the real beast. What if you aren’t recomping and you still aren’t losing weight while eating in a deficit?
Reason 2: Cortisol
The adrenals in our body produce a hormone called cortisol in response to situations of stress.
Usually, cortisol causes no issues as it is a part of the regular functioning of our body. Only under abnormal circumstances is when it causes a problem, and the problem is water retention.
Research shows that eating in a calorie deficit increases levels of cortisol in the body. Moreover, other sources of stress, whether training or related to everyday life, add to this problem. This leads to side-effects such as water retention.
This simply means that you could be losing fat but at the same time your body could be holding onto to an equal amount of water weight resulting in no net change on the scale.
As a matter of fact, this can be seen in one of the very famous experiments called the Minnesota Starvation Experiment. Almost whenever someone talks about this topic, they don’t fail to mention it.
I’m not going to go deep into every detail of this experiment but I’ll present the key points to you.
36 volunteers were fed maintenance calories of around 3,200 a day for 12 weeks while performing intense labor.
In the next phase, they were made to eat 1,500 calories daily for 6 entire months while performing the same labor!
The last phase was a rehab for their metabolisms where their calories were increased strategically over a period of 20 weeks.
What are the key takeaways?
While starting out, they lost weight linearly as predicted. It gets interesting after a few weeks where the researches notice no weight loss would occur for weeks on end and then magically the would end up losing weight overnight.
This is exactly what I am talking about in this article. Do you actually think these men lost no fat during those weeks eating just 1500 calories a day at that activity level and overnight they were able to lose it all?
Obviously not. What actually happened was that these people were losing fat but the build up of stress raised their cortisol to abnormal levels which led them to hold a lot of water weight, making it seem as if they were losing no ‘fat’ on the weight scale.
After some deeper research, the scientists found out that this weight loss occurred after an increase in calories. Basically, once the almost starving men were fed a meal of 2,300 calories to celebrate the mid of the experiment, they experienced the loss of water weight the following night.
This is exactly what bodybuilders refer to as the whoosh effect. What exactly happened here isn’t anything magical. The meal higher in calories ended up lowering the cortisol levels in these men and this, in turn, led to their bodies letting go of a large amount of the water they were retaining.
Based on this experiment, we get more faith in the fact that cortisol levels can actually directly affect the amount of water our body retains and thus can distort weight loss.
How To Solve This Problem?
Before I tell you what to do, let me first emphasize what not to do.
The biggest mistake you can make in this situation is to exercise more and eat lesser.
Trust me on this. I’ve been there done that. It will only make the situation worse and will send you down a downward spiral eventually leading to you falling off the wagon. Basically, you’ll either end up having massive binges or you’ll end up quitting your diet altogether. This sounds fine on paper but it will take a huge mental toll on you and I’m sure you don’t want that!
Here’s what I actually suggest you do if you think your cortisol levels are high and are the reason you’re not losing weight. Again, you can’t be sure if this is the case unless you planning on getting tests done but if you feel overworked, under recovered and fatigued all the time and still see no results despite eating in a deficit, I highly recommend giving this a shot.
Nutrition:
Increase your calories to maintenance for a week or two.
In short, take a diet break for a short period of time and see how your body reacts to it.
As I said earlier, maybe you experience the woosh effect and end up dropping some weight.
Even if you don’t, this will give you the mental relief that you need to continue your journey to your goal physique.
Training:
Take a deload week at the gym.
This simply means you drop your training volume. Do lesser sets with a lighter weight.
Such training sessions have been shown to promote recovery and that is exactly what you want in this case.
Cardio:
Don’t do any cardio for a week. Get in some light walking if you want but don’t force it. You aren’t going to get fat by doing this. I hope you see the trend here. Your job is to increase your recovery to the max of your ability.
Sleep:
This is one of the most important things and is still overlooked. Get 8-9 hours of sleep for a week or two if you weren’t getting that much already. I can’t stress how crucial this is to de-stress you and supercharge your body.
Stay Hydrated:
Drink enough water. I’m not going to make a generalized statement here saying that you should drink ‘x’ amount of water daily but make sure that you’re drinking more than enough water throughout the day. Funny enough, drinking more water can reduce the amount of water retention in your body and drop water weight.
Now you know how you can face this situation if it ever happens to you. Sometimes pulling back is the right step instead of pressing the gas pedal. This is exactly why cheat meals and rest days are heavily promoted in the bodybuilding culture. When you take your body to such extremes, these things can help regulate many of the side effects.
But then again, you and I aren’t bodybuilders. We just want to lose weight and get in shape while causing the least amount of damage possible to our bodies. This is exactly why I recommend refeed days over cheat days.
Conclusion
There you have it. Now you know the two main reasons why you could not be losing weight despite sticking to your diet plan. Moreover, now you’re prepared to face these problems without making the same mistakes I did. In the end, everything related to fitness usually comes down to taking it slow and being patient. Once you have that nailed down, along with a proper protocol, nobody will be able to stop you from achieving the body of your dreams. If you have any experiences with this problems mentioned above, share it in the comments below!
