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Why is it So Hard to Lose Weight? Our Experts Explain

Biggest weight loss question - why is it so hard to lose weight?One of the questions we’re asked the most frequently is “why is it so hard to lose weight?” Losing weight is a deceptively complex process. Here are some of the most common reasons you have found it more than a little challenging to drop the pounds:

 

Why is it So Hard to Lose Weight? The Top 5 Reasons

1. Your diet and eating habits need to be altered.

2. Your activity level needs to increase.

3. The quality of your sleep requires improvement.

4. You require more motivation and support.

5. You need to be willing to fail (and start again).

Changing Your Diet

 

Whenever someone asks, “Why is it so hard to lose weight?” the answer is almost always related to diet choices. Changing the way you eat is an integral step to achieving and maintaining your healthy body mass. That said, it’s also one of the top reasons why it is so hard to lose weight. It means you need to eat healthier, balanced, nutritious foods. You may also need to monitor your caloric intake.

 

The following steps can help to make it not so hard to lose weight:

 

Read food labels

Have a look in the grocery store even before you make your purchase. Compare similar items. You might find that one brand or flavor is considerably healthier than another.

 

Make homemade meals

large portion sizes make it so hard to lose weightThink you don’t have enough time? Make a couple of large batches on the weekend and store them in the freezer or fridge for the week. Don’t forget to use your slow cooker to make things even easier.

 

Understand portion sizes

Get to know how much of each type of food you should serve on your plate. It doesn’t have to be so hard to lose weight when you select the right amounts of each dish.

 

Keep a food diary

Web-based nutrition trackers and food journal apps keep you accountable for what you eat.

 

Eat mindfully

Pay attention to what you’re eating. Don’t just eat it because it’s there. Pay attention to chewing, tasting and experiencing your food. Listen to the way your body feels. If you’ve had enough, stop – even if there’s a bite or two left.

 

When you follow these steps, it really doesn’t have to be so hard to lose weight. Indeed, there will be challenges, particularly at first, but it needn’t be too difficult to achieve your goals. Many people benefit from starting with a more structured healthy diet.

This may not sound appealing at first, but it can help make it not so hard to lose weight. After all, the structure provides you with guidance, so you can establish healthier habits. As you learn more about improving your nutrition and eating habits, you can start to make your own informed choices. In that way, you can ease out of the structure and start to maintain your weight loss over the long term.

 

It's so hard to lose weight if you don't move muchChanging Your Activity Level

 

Many people believe it’s so hard to lose weight because they think they hate exercising. After all, when you just want to sink into a couch after a long day, the thought of joining the gym rats for a sweat session isn’t appealing.

Still, just because you don’t need to spend every waking minute trying to run faster on the treadmill, it doesn’t mean you can skip it altogether. You just need to know how to find the right fitness balance so it’s not so hard to lose weight.

 

Use the following steps to take the pain out of the workout component of your weight loss:

 

Start by walking

Walking is one of the best workouts for health and for losing weight. Even better, we can all do it, it can be adjusted to our fitness level and as long as you have a good pair of shoes, you have all the equipment you need.

 

Try something new

Once you’re started with walking, you can try classes, videos or even a personal trainer. Test the waters. Find a few activities you enjoy. The more you love it, the easier it is to stick with it so it’s not so hard to lose weight.

 

Buy an outfit

If there’s anything that will build your drive to work out, it’s the thought of trying out that new outfit. Go ahead and get everything you need from head to toe. You’ll feel more comfortable, and you’ll look great!

 

Fitness is important to your overall health, to boosting your fat burning and to mental wellness, too. That said, it is also considered to be a critical component in preventing and overcoming weight loss plateaus. The dreaded plateau is one of the worst situations for making you feel that it is so hard to lose weight.

 

sleep deprivation can be why it's so hard to lose weightChanging Your Sleep Habits

 

Many of us don’t realize just how much sleep affects our weight management. If you’re not getting the sleep you need, that may be a main reason you find it so hard to lose weight.

Studies have shown that people who are sleep deprived are less likely to make healthy food choices. They crave fatty, salty and sugary foods. Moreover, they don’t have as much ability to resist the temptation. Sleep deprived people, therefore, are less likely to maintain a healthy body weight.

 

To help you to get a better sleep at night, use the following steps:

 

Set your clock

If you have a set sleep schedule, you’ll sleep better every night. This means going to bed and getting up at the same time every day, even on weekends. It can take some time to build your internal sleep clock, but once it’s set, it works very well.

 

Keep a routine

You can actually teach your brain to get tired at night (and wake up in the morning). To do this, stick to a winding down routine of calming activities for at least a half hour before bed. This can include reading quietly, brushing your teeth and hair, washing your face, getting dressed for bed and so on.

 

Dim the lights (and screens)

Light exposure can reduce your brain’s melatonin production. Melatonin is a hormone that plays a central role in your circadian rhythm (waking and sleeping cycle). An hour before bedtime, dim the lights and put all devices with screens away (phones, tablets, computers, and TVs). Reducing your light exposure can help encourage melatonin production to get you to sleep and ensure it won’t be so hard to lose weight.

 

 

Changing Your Priorities for Mental Health

 

You may be surprised to hear this, but one of the reasons it’s so hard to lose weight could be your mental health. Do you suffer from chronic anxiety, depression or are you just regularly stressed out? If so, it may be affecting the way you eat and even the way your body stores and burns fat.

Make a higher priority of managing those conditions so that it won’t be so hard to lose weight. Consider the following steps to make that easier:

 

Speak with your doctor

He or she will be able to provide you with important recommendations based on your specific condition.

 

Talk to a therapist/counselor

mentally prepare to lose weightThese mental health professionals can coach you through many parts of your challenges. They can also make recommendations for therapies and strategies to help you cope with or even overcome your symptoms.

 

Take your mental health seriously

Your stress and other mental health factors could be top reasons explaining why you find it so hard to lose weight. That said, they may also affect a range of other parts of your physical wellness. It is important to take your mental health just as seriously as your physical health.

 

 

Changing Your Attitude Toward Failure

 

If you want to successfully achieve your weight loss goal, you need to be willing to fail. One of the reasons people find it so hard to lose weight is that they give up after experiencing a failure. The fact of the matter is that when you’re changing your lifestyle to shed the pounds your going to fail.

It may happen a lot. Some failures will be small, and others will be larger. Don’t let them stop you. If you don’t know how to fail and get right back to it, then you’re your own reason it’s so hard to lose weight.

 

Here are some steps for overcoming failure more smoothly:

 

Learn from your mistakes

View every failure as an opportunity to learn. It may teach you more about your habits and tendencies. You may discover more about nutrition. It could be that a certain system just isn’t working for you. Learn from what has happened.

 

Use what you’ve learned

Once you learn from your failure, use that information to your advantage. One of the reasons it’s so hard to lose weight is often that we repeat the same mistakes. Pay attention to the lessons you’ve learned and apply them to continually improve your strategy.

 

Accept that more failures are ahead

You’re human. As such, you’re going to fail again. Try not to do it but accept that failure will happen somewhere at some point. That said, don’t let it stop you. It doesn’t have to be so hard to lose weight. You can take the pressure off yourself by way of your own attitude.