When you have made losing weight your life’s aim and top priority, and doing everything possible to achive that, it’s quite natural to feel disappointed and frustrated about not seeing any progress at all on the weighing scale or in your appearance with regards to weight loss. But weight loss is not limited to just diet and exercise, and though diet plays 80% percentage in melting away excess fat, here’s a checklist of factors that are blocking the body from burning stored fat, and eliminating these factors will bring about quick progress and gains. Without being able to pinpoint what’s not working can actually delay and stall fat burning, and that’s why you should absolutely go through this list.
1. Setting Unrealistic Goals: Various studies have pointed out that setting unrealistic goals (for exampl, trying to drop 25 kg in one month) would never work and would be met with disappointment. The added “stress” of trying to meet big targets like this can in fact stall fat burning and in fact lead to weight gain. To achieve such kind of unrealistic targets, you may even go on wrong kind of diets and measures such as fat cutters or pills which do more harm than good. The correct way would be to set smaller milestones and when you achieve them, you would be motivated to do more rather than feeling disappointed at not seeing any progress.
2. Are you Eating Enough? It’s hard to believe but eating too less can lead to weight gain rather than weight loss. You definitely need not starve and stay off food for the entire day -in fact, you need to nourish the body so that it lets go of its fat reserves. Reducing calories drastically would put your body under stress where it would lower metabolism and hold no stored fat. Check out the Rati Beauty diet on the Rati Beauty app to eat the right kind of food, in the right quanity to lose weight without compromising on nourishmnt.
3. Just One Hour of Workout and Being a Couch Potato for the Rest of the Day: Being active through the day is a major key that unlocks weight loss. Never be satisfied with one hour of gymming or 20 minutes of exercise, and then leading a sedentary lifestyle for the rest of the day. Now, here’s what you can do. Being on your feet throughout the day helps in burning calories and keeps metabolism robust. One hour of gymming is never enough to lose weight, keep moving throughout the day and practice NEAT activities. NEAT stands for non-exercise activity thermogenesis and is the energy we use for everything we do in our day-to-day life except for when we are sleeping or exercising. Using the stairs instead of the lift, squatting on the floor to lift something up, walking while talking on the phone, every activity we do while being on our feet, comes under NEAT. All these activities help to burn some amount of calories and these bits of calories spent here and there, add up to a considerable amount when you are trying to lose weight.
4. High Inflammation in the Body: Lack of sleep, high stress, lack of physical activity, pesticides, pollution, phthalates, free radicals, smoking, vitamin D deficiency, vitamin B6 and B12 deficiency, etc., are some factors that cause inflammation in the body. Inflammation makes the body insulin resistant, and as a result, pancreas continuously pumps up insulin to lower blood sugar levels. Now, we all know that insulin is also a fat-storage hormone which triggers the creation of new fat cells. So, inflammation triggers insulin resistance, which in turn leads to more insulin production, and larger creation of fat cells which converts all extra calories into fat, and stores it particularly around the belly area. Here’s what you can do, read about natural ways to lower inflammation in this post here.
5. Chronic Stress: There’s nothing that would hamper your progress more than chronic stress. Cortisol, which is the stress hormone, works in multiple ways to add more weight to the body, and that too belly fat. Find ways to destress to clear the path to fat burning, read about effective ways in this post here.
6. Obesogens in your House and Environment: Unhealthy eating habits and sedentary lifestyle are largely blamed for weight gain and obesity; however, unknown to many, there are factors called as “obesogens” all around us, particularly lurking around in our homes, that disrupt endocrine activities, hamper hormonal functions needed in the fat-burning process, and encourage body to store fat, leading to weight gain. Here’s a list of “7 Common Obesogens in your Home That Trigger Weight Gain.”
7. Dehydration and Skimping on Water Intake: Just like how you keep a count of calories, do make it a point to track your water intake as well. Drink at least 2 liters of water a day to facilitiate the fat-burning process, to boost metabolism, and to keep appetite in check.
8. Sleep Deprivation: It’s the biggest obstacle blocking the path to reach a fitter and healthier you. When you sleep for less than 7 hours, there’s an increased risk of weight gain. If you have inability falling asleep at night, try sleeping in complete darkness, changing your bed to a comfortable position, and of course, switching off phones and other gadgets at least one hour before hitting the bed.
With these obstacles cleared, no one can stop you from reaching your desired weight.
8 Tips to Start Losing Weight From Today
Why Inflammation Might be the Reason you are Not Losing Weight
