Why You Can’t Lose Weight – The Rest Of It!

 

can’t lose weight? I’ve been there!

Trust me, I know what it’s like to feel like you’re banging your head against the wall when it comes to losing in shape. There have been 2 key times in my life when I’ve seriously been following the rules and yet still haven’t been able to shed the extra layers, and I tell you – it made me want to SCREAM!

The first was when I was in my mid-twenties and gained about 8kg over 2-3 years while working in Personal Training management.

The second time was after giving birth … I’m talking 6 months after and still no change.

In both cases I was frantically, desperately and consistently following the rules, and yet still nothing budged. If anything, I was slowly getting bigger!

i was having a weight loss meltdown!

Here’s the thing. If you’re following the rules and still nothing is changing, then you’re simply not following the right rules for your body. There’s always a reason.

In my case it came down to a combination of things:

• I thought I knew the rules (in my mid-twenties), but I didn’t
• The rules had changed (after pregnancy)
• I was so determinedly focused that all I thought about was why couldn’t get lean, both the mindset and the stress of which were definitely stopping me from doing so (in both cases!)

when it comes to why you can’t lose weight, do you know the rules?

Last week we spoke about 3 of the key reasons for not losing weight, despite doing ‘everything right’. They were:

• Your food quality
• Your food quantity
• A possible gluten intolerance

But that’s just the tip of the iceberg. There’s definitely several other ‘blocking factors’ that could be sabotaging your best efforts, and following are some of the likelier offenders:

• A possible lactose intolerance
• Other food intolerances
• Your digestive health
• Underlying levels of toxicity
• Your mindset

Let’s talk about a couple more of those …

reason you can’t lose weight #4: lactose

Lactose intolerance often goes hand in hand with gluten intolerance.

This has to do with digestion – typically if you’re eating both, and intolerant to one, you will create small holes in the lining of your digestive system. This is called ‘leaky gut syndrome’ and puts you at greater risk of developing food intolerance.

You can test how you fare without dairy simply by eliminating it for 2 weeks, just as we discussed last week in the gluten section. Of course these sort of manual elimination tests are quite crude compared to a lab test, but they’re definitely a good start.

An interesting consideration with lactose intolerance is that many sufferers find they can happily enjoy raw milk, raw cream and so on. My studies lead me to believe that the ever-increasing incidence of lactose intolerance is more closely related to quality and processing than actual inability to process dairy.

reason you can’t lose weight #5: other food intolerences

Gluten, dairy, and other obvious offenders such as starch-based foods in general are not the only foods you can be intolerant to, and they’re definitely not the only foods that could be inhibiting you from losing fat.

In fact, recently a colleague of mine in Finland published her lab food intolerance results on Facebook and it turned out she was intolerant to broccoli! Similarly a clients’ recent results showed that almonds, asparagus, spinach, pineapple and banana were all big no-no’s for her.

I find this sort of thing absolutely fascinating – the concept that even though you might be eating super ‘clean’ you could be unknowingly irritating and inflaming your body through supposedly healthy foods.

I’m not bringing this up to scare you, because I do realise your reaction might be ‘great, another thing to stress about’.

If you haven’t yet built a foundation of good nutrition and training, then by all means you may choose to hold off on worrying about the finer details such as food intolerance. But if you really do feel like you’re putting a great effort in and you just don’t have the results to show for it then this may be something worth investigating.

reason you can’t lose weight #6: digestive health

You’ve heard the expression ‘you are what you eat’, yes?

Well the truth is that you are not what you eat so much as you are what you eat, digest and assimilate.

If you regularly or even sporadically experience bloating, stomach cramps, inconsistent elimination, diarrhea, constipation, or if you just can’t lose weight no matter what you do then digestive health is crucial to investigate.

Other major red flags in this area are if you’ve experienced severe food poisoning in your life, if you’ve taken much medication over the years or been on the Pill for years, or if you’ve ever had general anaesthesia.

As far as what to do about it – remember that digestion begins in your mouth with the effect of saliva mixing with your food. This is one reason why it’s smart to think back to what you were told as a kid, and ‘chew each mouthful 30 times’. Another way to put it is ‘eat your water and drink your food’.

There are numerous supplements which can help to improve your digestion, but I would suggest looking first to lifestyle.

Eating slowly; taking time to focus on your food, and avoiding processed foods are all key. So too are drinking adequate water and consuming enough fiber. You can get most of your fiber from your green vegetables, but if you are looking to detoxify stored body fat you may also like to supplement with fiber (search Primal Fiber). It’s been said to be the world’s number one fat loss supplement!

toxicity and the mindset of fat loss

Toxicity and a ‘mindset of lean’ are possibly my ‘favourite’ areas when it comes to stubborn fat loss. Favourite in a love-hate kind of way. Next week I’m going to explain exactly what I mean, so stay tuned!

In the meantime, start thinking more about which foods sit well with you and which ones seem to be trouble-makers. Who knows? I just might be onto something 😉

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