Ever wondered why you have difficulty losing fat, even when you’re exercising frequently? We’ve heard it many times before: “I’ve tried exercising all year and I’ve only lost 4kgs!” or “I’ve worked out intensely this whole month but I feel more tired than I am energized.”

Besides working out, your recovery and nutrition are two very important factors that people tend to overlook when they want to lose fat. Read on to see the 4 main causes of why you’re not losing fat:

1. Hidden sugars in your food

Reading the nutrition label on the foods that you eat goes beyond just calculating calories. Keep an eye out for hidden sugar in your food, especially in foods where we least expect it including sauces (such as condiments and dressings), bread, breakfast cereal, dried fruit and smoothies, and more. Be careful of so-called “healthy” processed snacks or protein shakes too, as they also contain high levels of sugars as well that stops you from losing fat.

When reading nutrition labels, take note of the list of ingredients listed and where they are sourced from. Be careful of hidden sugars that disguise themselves as refined sugars in food. As much as you can, opt for whole foods such as fresh fruit over packed dried fruit (which usually contains a lot of hidden sugars during processing). For salad dressings, swap it out for vinaigrette. Grab a handful of nuts or all-natural trail mix as your post-workout snack.

2. Inconsistent nutrition regimen

Jumping in between different nutrition regimen can severely affect your body. It needs time to adapt to the nutrition plans and results can also be seen through its response within a couple months’ time or more. Plus, it helps us to make necessary adjustments to the plans to suit our bodies.

Conduct in-depth research on the different nutrition plans available while understanding how they affect your body especially in terms of losing fat. After choosing one that’s most suitable for you, stick to it consistently for at least 3 to 6 months – together with your exercise plan – to see results.

3. Poor sleeping habits

One of the biggest causes that hinders losing fat is the lack of proper rest. Sleep deprivation can affect the body severely, which can include the development of depression, reduced immune function, imbalanced eating habits, and changes in hormones such as increased levels of cortisol – all these factors contribute to weight gain. It’s especially important that during more intense workouts, it is crucial to get enough rest to help your body recover faster as well.

Create a sleeping schedule that allows you at least 6 to 8 hours of rest. Remember to consistently keep to the routine to ensure that your body gets ample rest. This way, you’ll find that losing fat comes a lot faster.

4. Repetitive training plans

While following a training plan is helpful, our bodies start to adapt after long periods of repeating the same routine. This is because our bodies start to plateau after 6 to 8 repetitions on the same program. Moreover, athletes and well-coordinated individuals tend to adapt and plateau faster since their bodies have gotten used to the basic foundations of training. Adhering to a particular training style can also stall losing fat and training progression.

You can switch your training program from focusing on losing fat to hypertrophy and strength training. This can avoid training plateaus and in turn continue to reap benefits. Our upper body often plateaus faster than the lower body so it is best to change up your exercise routines more frequently and have variations in the training program.

These are just some main factors preventing fat loss, as there are many other causes too since progress is never linear – it takes time and patience to see how our bodies respond and recover.

Looking for a coach to guide you through a better body composition? Feel free to reach out fitnesslifestyleperformance@gmail.com for a free consultation!