Reasons You're Not Losing Fat

By Spartan Fitness

Before we delve into the top five reasons why you're not losing fat anymore, we need to clear a few things up. There are two types of people who want to lose body-fat. The first belongs to those chosen few who can simply reduce their calorie intake by a few hundred calories and they'll lose that 5lb excess.

The second kind of person who wants to lose fat is the average Joe whose metabolism and his testosterone levels are slower than they were ten years ago. This type of person gains fat and shows it, everywhere. These people need to re-train their metabolic speed to enable sustained fat-loss.

1. Cheating is fine, nothing wrong with cheating but you got to cheat correctly. When you restrict calories in a normal weight-loss diet your leptin level will drop dramatically. Leptin is a very important hormone that controls your weight loss because it defends your body against starvation.

When you've got low leptin levels your fat-gain will increase and your weight-loss will decrease. This is why you need a cheat meal, at least once a week where you just pig-out. It must be noted that there is a big difference between high carb and high fat and simply calorie deficit dieting. If you binge on fats and carbs it'll just feed your fat cells and negate any progress you've made.

2. Skimping on your protein intake will only slow down your fat-loss efforts because your body burns a lot more calories when it is digesting protein than when it's digesting any another macronutrient. Protein will also keep your body mass from shrinking while it sheds body-fat.

In a study published in the Journal of Nutrition, it showed that eating a high-protein diet showed to always improve body composition, insulin levels, and cholesterol markers more than a normal moderate protein diet, keeping the calories exactly the same. Make sure that you eat at least a gram of protein for every pound of bodyweight when your objective is fat-loss.

3. When you're living on a calorie deficit, your body starts to lose muscle. There are two good reasons to train hard and heavy when you're trying to lose fat. The first is that heavy and hard training will increase your metabolic rate, which means you'll be burning calories when you're not training(after-burn). The second reason is that you'll stop the loss of muscle from eating too few calories. Train using sets of 4 to 8 reps.

4. When you are mentally and physically stressed for extended periods of more than an hour it limits your fat loss potential because it always elevates your cortisol levels.

High cortisol levels interfere with your primary growth hormone and testosterone production. This reduces your muscle growth, leading to fat-gain (around the waist) and bone weakness.

Take some time out for yourself to relax, as you try decompress after a hard day. You can use anything that works, from simple stretching, yoga, meditation or breathing exercises. Always make sure you take one day of complete rest every week to prevent any overtraining, which also will spike your cortisol levels.

5. Track what you going to eat and what you've eaten. Studies show that keeping a food journal increases your awareness which helps you to stay accountable while making better food choices. At the University of Pittsburgh, they found that 15 different studies all show important associations with dietary self-monitoring and weight-loss.

If you find that writing what you eat in a journal too tedious, then just take pics with your smartphone for a photo journal. In conclusion there could be a number of different reasons why you're not losing fat. But if you haven't tried only eating carbs on your training days, then you need to try it.

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