Why Weight Stays The Same When Losing Weight

Content

• A calorie deficit is the only way to lose weight.
• Survival is the main task.
• The plateau is inevitable.
• How to overcome the plateau.
• Additional difficulties in weight loss.
• Factors contributing to weight loss.

Weight loss has been one of the main trends of modern society for many years, especially among women. Lifestyle, ecological situation, stress… In addition, the unbalanced diet of a modern person has become very different from that which was laid by nature for people in the process of evolution, and the standards of female beauty imposed on us, flashing in social networks, explain the fact that with each There are more and more people who want to lose weight every year.

In the endless ocean of information on the Internet and social networks, you can find many recommendations for weight loss, but sometimes all of them do not help or lead to a plateau effect, when, after a sharp weight loss at the initial stage, the indicators stop or even begin to shift in the opposite direction. Let's try to figure out why this happens, and give recommendations for effective weight loss.

A calorie deficit is the only way to lose weight

Probably almost everyone knows about it. Metabolic processes are constantly taking place in the body due to the energy that comes with food and is released as a result of vital activity. This energy is usually calculated in calories (a calorie is a unit of thermal energy released when water is heated by one degree Celsius).

The mechanism at first glance seems very simple: if we spend more energy than we consume, we lose weight, if vice versa, we gain weight.

However, there are many factors that influence this process.

Survival is the main task

Whatever we do with our body, no matter what experiments we subject it to, its main task will be survival. The body will direct all its resources to this process.

In addition to daily physical and mental activity, the main consumers of energy in the body are the processes regulated by the autonomic nervous system: respiration, blood supply, maintaining body temperature, digestion and hormone production. The combination of these actions is called basic (basal) metabolism.

In other words, while at rest, our body expends a certain amount of energy, which depends on gender, age, height, weight and body composition.

Knowing the basal metabolic rate helps determine the optimal amount of daily calorie intake, as well as calculate the number of calories for effective weight loss, depending on daily physical activity.

There are several ways to calculate basal metabolic rate, including using an online calculator.

Plateau is inevitable

Having calculated the daily energy consumption, we can determine the required amount of its receipt and, having created a deficit, safely lose weight.

After several weeks of active weight loss, a person, as a rule, discovers the first difficulties, as he approaches the so-called plateau effect, when weight stops decreasing while maintaining a calorie deficit. The reason for this is an intelligent organism, which again connects its emergency function of survival and adaptation.

By consuming fewer calories daily and reducing body weight, we are limited to less energy to maintain basic bodily functions. In addition, our brain, through the interaction of hormones, receives a signal of potential danger and turns on an economical energy saving mode. Therefore, a plateau is inevitable! What to do if the weight has risen?

How to overcome the plateau

1. Build muscle!

It is important to know that the body requires more energy to maintain and supply muscle tissue with nutrients than it does to maintain adipose tissue. Therefore, a person's basal metabolic rate, and therefore basal calorie burn, increases with muscle mass.

For the growth of muscle mass, the inclusion of strength training in the training process is required. Their selection and intensity will depend on your functional state. This is especially important for women who prefer cardio.

2. You go quieter - you will continue!

Surprisingly, this folk wisdom applies to the process of losing weight. You should not radically reduce the daily amount of calories, otherwise this can lead not only to burning fat, but also to the depletion of the protein reserves that make up our muscles, and also quite quickly trigger the mentioned survival mode and accelerate the onset of a plateau.

Effective for burning fat and maintaining muscle mass is considered to be a reduction in daily calorie intake by 10-15%, which will reduce weight by 0.5-1% per week.

For example, a 30-year-old woman with a height of 170 cm and a weight of 60 kg with average activity (1-3 workouts per week) should receive 1850 calories per day. For moderate weight loss, she needs to receive 1570-1660 calories per day.

Calorie Intake Calculator

Not everyone can handle the process of regularly counting calories. However, by removing “empty” calories from the diet in the form of sweets, starchy foods, carbonated drinks and other industrial foods, you can already add healthy foods.

The basis of the diet should be natural products: meat, fish, offal, eggs, vegetables, herbs, fruits, berries, nuts, seeds, unrefined oils. Such nutrition will support the reserves of the body and will not lead to the growth of adipose tissue.

3. Get a scale

There are many mobile applications - calorie trackers. In general, they can become your assistants at the first stage for a rough estimate of the amount of food consumed per day. However, it should be remembered that any calculation of calories has a high degree of error, and painstaking analysis of what is eaten or burned sometimes causes additional stress. Therefore, this approach can be considered optional. Use this tool for a general assessment of the situation.

To control weight loss, you need the simplest accessory: a bathroom scale.

After you switch to daily calorie reduction, you will need to measure the weight every morning and compile a report based on the data obtained for four weeks.

Then omit the first week from the final report, because this is usually a period of high water consumption and the results achieved may not accurately reflect the effect. See how the weight decreased from week to week, what result you came to, how much it suits you. On average, weight loss should be about 1 kg per week. If you think that the process of losing weight is too slow, or maybe even getting up, increase the calorie deficit a little, if it's too fast, reduce it. To consolidate the result, the main thing is to keep the pace!

4. Don't play all the cards at once

Any popular weight loss recommendation is to increase the amount of cardio.

But do not rush to do this and connect all the tools at once. You need to be aware that a lot of cardio combined with a diet will quickly bring you closer to a plateau. And to defeat this formidable opponent, you will not have a single trump card.

Start with one or two low-intensity cardio workouts a week. As you approach a plateau, increase the amount, duration, or intensity of your cardio, or decrease your daily calorie intake.

Remember that daily activity - 8,000-10,000 steps and 20 minutes of physical activity - is the basic tool for maintaining a healthy weight.

Additional difficulties in weight loss

1. Lifestyle

In pursuit of career success, financial well-being, achievements in sports, we sometimes forget that our own resources are not endless, and the body, like any mechanism, sooner or later wears out and fails.

Accompanying daily life problems with grueling diets and marathons, we introduce the body into severe stress. This is a state where, on a hormonal level, our body strives to survive and produces the stress hormone cortisol, which is responsible for activating the fight-or-flight state, or sympathetic nervous system. At the same time, all internal resources are connected, energy consumption increases, there is a jump in the level of sugar (glucose) in the blood, which makes our brain urgently look for additional reserves of glucose through the active production of the hunger hormone ghrelin, which provokes overeating.

2. Daily routine and sleep

A daily routine in which there is no place for regular full-fledged meals and sleep is another reason to immerse the body in stress and break into overeating or snacking on fast carbohydrates, which leads to an increase in the number of calories consumed.

Lack of proper sleep (7-8 hours a day) and violation of its regimen (the best time to fall asleep is 22:00-23:00) also leads to excessive production of cortisol and the consequences described above - stress and overeating. On top of that, cortisol suppresses the production of somatotropin growth hormone, which is responsible for increasing muscle mass and burning fat.

So sleeping properly is the easiest and most enjoyable of all known ways to burn fat and lose weight. Don't neglect them!

With lack of sleep, we feel tired, reduce physical and mental activity, try to compensate for the lack of energy with high-calorie foods, and in an attempt to reduce stress (lack of sleep is also stress for the body), we reward ourselves with some cake in order to get at least a short pleasure due to the production of the hormone dopamine .

3. Digestion and work of the gastrointestinal tract (GIT)

Of course, digestion and the work of the gastrointestinal tract require a separate detailed article. But it is important to say that a violation of the proper functioning of at least one organ of a complex digestive chain - the oral cavity and teeth, esophagus, stomach, pancreas, gallbladder, liver, small and large intestines - can adversely affect body weight loss.

Poor chewing of food, problems with teeth, low or high stomach acid, impaired bile flow, weak enzymatic activity of the pancreas or intestinal dysbiosis can cause congestion and inflammation and lead to constipation, cravings for sweets, hormonal disruptions, visceral fat deposits - stopping factors weight loss.

For the proper functioning of the digestive tract, you must adhere to the basic rules of wholesome nutrition and carefully choose what you eat, avoid the use of pro-inflammatory foods such as sugar, fast carbohydrates, industrial fats, low-quality oils, fried foods, alcohol, etc.

These foods are also high in calories, and their use does not allow you to maintain a calorie deficit. Eat more quality proteins, fats, complex carbohydrates, fiber and water. Proteins and fats are denser macronutrients in their structure, they contribute to long-term digestion and delay the onset of hunger. Similar processes occur with fiber and complex carbohydrates, which, expanding in the stomach, contribute to rapid satiety and allow you not to overeat.

Factors Contributing to Weight Loss

1. Move!

Yes, yes, this is not a joke! If you spend most of the day at the office at the computer and your work does not allow you to actively move, do not sit still in a chair, and at the slightest opportunity, when no one sees you, fidget, sway, or tap your fingers on the table. This will help increase energy expenditure and burn extra calories.

For even more effective calorie burning, you can stand or walk around the office more often.

2. Walk!

Another simple, natural and extremely effective way to expend energy is walking. Perhaps the recommendation to do 10,000 steps every day has set the teeth on edge, but it really gives results! How to achieve such an indicator in a day? Very simple:

• park the car in the parking space farthest from the destination;
• walk a couple of public transport stops on foot - it's not as far as it seems;
• before going to bed, arrange family evening walks for 35-40 minutes. This not only strengthens relationships, but also burns fat. Start with 10-15 minutes, add 5 minutes a day and don't stop there;
• do not use the elevator and escalators;
• use a small mug or glass for water so you can go to the cooler more often during the day.

In fact, there are a lot of ways to spend energy, and fantasy will help you with this. The main thing is to find a way from which you will enjoy.

3. Physical activity

A healthy adult to lose weight should use additional physical activity - from 2 to 5 workouts per week, and it is recommended to alternate between properly selected strength and cardio workouts. This will help not only burn calories, but also maintain muscle mass. In this case, the basal metabolic rate will not decrease, which will allow you to moderately reduce the amount of food consumed and create psychologically comfortable conditions for losing weight.

The desire to lose weight is a completely normal desire, especially when obesity becomes a global problem for all mankind. The process of losing weight is quite complex, requires significant effort and changes in many areas of life.

In order not to return to this task before each summer season, just set yourself a goal: not just lose weight, but be healthy, beautiful and vigorous for as long as possible. By mastering the art of wholesome nutrition and lifestyle, you will reach a new level of life, where there will no longer be a need to struggle with extra pounds.