5 Reasons You're Not Getting Lean
I speak to a lot of people who claim they’ve ‘tried everything’ when it comes to losing body fat.
What they actually mean is: ‘I’ve tried X, Y and Z diet and they were neither sustainable or effective in the long term’.
They generally come unstuck when I ask the following:
How many calories do you eat throughout the day?
How many calories should you be eating to lose weight?
How much protein do you eat in a day?
How many times do you exercise per week?
Are your training sessions structured, progressive and challenging?
What do you do at the weekend? Do you binge drink and/or binge eat?
Generally, the people who claim to have ‘tried everything’ have no idea, in which case, they’re not even covering the basics.
1. You’re consuming too many calories.
In order to lose body fat, you need to consume less calories than you burn on a daily/weekly basis. Regardless of how healthy you think your diet is, you won’t reduce body fat if you consume more calories than you burn! Implementing a healthy and sustainable caloric deficit (eating less calories than you burn) is an individual thing based on size, bodyweight and what you want to achieve
2. You’re not consuming enough calories.
I’ve covered the negative effects of crash dieting in detail in a previous article.
The residual effect of a huge diet industry selling extreme low calorie diets, is that many people trying to reduce body fat fear eating too much. Commonly, this results in people eating far too few calories to support their goals. You NEED to consume enough calories to support your activity. Training effectively three times a week requires the right nutrients. Dropping below this will cause your training to suffer, it will cause you to get hungry and ultimately, it will cause fat loss to stop. Many crash diets cause a loss in muscle tissue due to drastic and unhealthy calorie restriction. This is not your objective!
Unhealthy calorie restriction is not sustainable over prolonged periods of time and can have a number of negative effects:
• Fatigue • Poor concentration • Poor recovery • Muscle wastage • Negative effect on sleep patterns • Slow the metabolism - making sustainable fat loss increasingly difficult
To consistently reduce body fat, we need to maintain lean muscle tissue in order to keep our metabolism high and our bodies fit, strong and healthy.
3. You’re not drinking enough water.
Staying hydrated is a vital part of fat loss and many people are semi-dehydrated without realising it. Our bodies are 70% water and sufficient hydration is crucial to concentration, flushing toxins from the body, healthy cell function and every metabolic process, including fat loss. Aim to drink between 2-3 litres of water a day.
4. Poor recovery.
Poor recovery can come in a number of forms; insufficient sleep and increased stress are both very common and both will effect fat loss negatively.
Not getting 7-8 hours sleep at night can rapidly decrease insulin sensitivity and increase cortisol. Both of these combined can slow metabolism and restrict fat loss. When your body is under increased stress it releases the hormone cortisol. When cortisol is released in large, continuous doses, it can lead the body to store fat, particularly around the abdomen and waist.
5. You’re drinking your calories.
I frequently speak to people who claim to be doing things correctly but still not getting the results they want. On further enquiry it becomes fairly apparent where the issue lies and it’s extremely common.
Ask somebody to drink 2-3 litres of water a day and it seems impossible. However, people have no problem drinking 2.5 litres of beer in the space of a few hours! Over the course of a weekend, alcohol is extremely easy to over-consume. An average pint of beer is 180-220 calories, so 5 beers on a Friday and Saturday night can equate to 1800-2200 calories. Throw the additional junk food on top and you’ve written off all of your efforts for the week.
Over-consumption of alcohol frequently also contributes to consumption of processed and convenience junk foods. Let’s be realistic, there’s a reason pizza and kebab shops are open until 3am at the weekend - no great party ever starts or ends with a salad!
Alcohol has a series of negative effects on fat loss and recovery. Alcohol is also high in calories, which means many people over consume ‘liquid’ calories over the course of a weekend. Excessive alcohol consumption can also lower testosterone in males and depress the central nervous system, which will effect recovery and fat loss.
For more information on any of the above points, feel free to get in touch!
