Happy hump day guys! It’s been a while since my last Weight Loss Wednesday post, so I thought it was about time I bring it back…at least for this week! I’ve been receiving a number of emails from exasperated blog readers and K Weigh clients who have reached a weight loss plateau.
Especially when you are doing everything by the book, it’s both agitating and exhausting to stop seeing results…trust me I KNOW! During my weight loss journey, there were plenty of weeks I didn’t lose a single pound despite eating less calories than I was expending. Rather than throw in the towel, evaluating my approach helped me realize what was holding me back:
- Portion distortion: Watching portion sizes is an easy way to cut back without cutting out. Although busting out your food scales or set of measuring cups daily can get tedious, it’s worth going back to the basics every so often to ensure your quantities haven’t unconsciously crept up.
- Water intake: Aside from dehydration often being masked as hunger, water consumption influences your metabolism’s functioning. By not drinking enough, your kidneys are overwhelmed with the concentrated amount of fluid. As a result the liver, has to “help” out the kidneys rather than do its primary job: burn and metabolise fat.
- BLTs: I’m not referring to any bacon, lettuce & tomato sandwiches here ;). We’re all guilty of a bite here, a lick there and tastes in between. Even though they’re small, it’s those absent-minded nibbles & sips which can cancel out your efforts without you even realizing it.
- Basing choices merely on calorie counts: Contrary to what we are led to believe, weight loss extends beyond the basic “calories in versus calories out” equation. Even though 2 foods are identical in their calorie counts, consider their composition on a macro level (i.e. fiber, protein, vitamin and mineral content). For example, the fiber in a banana is more likely to keep you fuller than a 100-calorie snack pack. Also keep in mind the different effects of certain foods on your metabolism. In general, choosing real, whole foods over processed foods reduces the amount of insulin our body secretes, making fat loss easier.
- Eating too little: Nothing makes me shudder more than seeing weight loss programs promote eating plans based on 1,200 calories or less a day. One of our bodies’ basic instincts is survival: the minute you start severely restricting your intake, your body panics and starts to hoard fat and calories for future use. Any weight that’s coming off is more likely to be muscle loss over fat loss, which ultimately causes your metabolism to slow down its calorie-burning capacity.
- Over-stressing: If you’re edging towards the end of your weight loss journey, a change in mindset can make more of a difference than a change in diet. Especially given the effect of stress & cortisol on fat loss, sometimes stepping away and giving yourself a break can help you shed those last few vanity pounds. At this point you’re probably at a healthy weight and looking better than you think.
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I would love to hear your personal experiences…
Have you ever tried to lose weight? If so, what approach/tips worked for you?
How much water do you drink daily?
Love this! Great tips. I always lose weight when I am more aware of my BLT’s. Picking is one of my most stubborn habits. Also drinking tons of water helped a lot!
It’s a bad habit of mine too, especially while waiting for the kettle to boil 😉
Great post Khushboo!
I am so guilty of not drinking enough water and eating too little when stressed and overworked – reading posts like this help me remind myself of what I should be doing and be more consistant!
Thank You 🙂
Glad it helped, Shashi!
Great tips! And I love that you are looking at the calories in, calories out argument a little differently. I am a huge believer that not all calories are created equally so that was nice to read!!
Glad we are on the same wavelength – typical ;)!
I remember being shocked when I found out that undereating could be responsible for stalled weight loss and even weight -gain.- But the body is pretty amazing when it comes to keeping equilibrium and fighting against external stresses, so it slows down the metabolism and cuts back on expending energy on less necessary functions in an effort to compensate. Not so good in the long run. And between all the water, sparkling water, and tea that I drink, I probably get in well over 3L of water a day. I used to try to get at least 2L, but ever since I upped that amount a little, I’ve noticed huge improvements in my energy and digestion.
I won’t lie- when I first heard about under-eating and its harmful effects on weight loss, part of me was thrilled 😉
Great tips! It’s frustrating when people think that weight loss is just a calories in vs. calories out thing…aka, they eat as few calories as possible. It really just makes things worse in the long run, because your metabolism slows to compensate.
I am really proud of my water intake – I probably take in 3-4 litres a day.
Way to go on your water intake- overachiever, much ;)?
I like how you talk about how different foods, regardless of if their calorie count is the same, will affect you differently. Sometimes it seems like people think that if they eat a cheeseburger for every meal they can still lose weight as long as they exercise off all the calories. That might be possible, but it would be a lot easier to eat healthful, whole foods instead! (Not to mention they would FEEL much better too!) I’ve been working on upping my fluid intake over the past month. I get at least 48oz everyday, but my goal is 72. The more I drink, the better I feel! 🙂
Same here..and the more I drink, the thirstier I get (ironically enough)!
i LOVE this! i love that success graphic, and i lol’ed at the BMI ecard 🙂 all of your points are so accurate. i actually didnt know the kidneys start helping the liver if you dont drink enough water, thats very interesting. i drink about 6 cups daily on average.. sometimes more sometimes less. and yes- stress will derail weight-loss plans faster than anythng else in my opinion.
That success image is a favorite of mine 🙂
Love these tips!! I am so guilty of the BLT’s!! AH! I do drink at least 100oz of water a day, sometimes more..but my snacking has GOT TO GO!
100 oz of water daily is great 🙂
Great tips!
I totally suffer from the BLT syndrome;) but I don’t need to lose weight so I feel like it’s fine.
It’s always crazy how under eating can actually prevent weight loss. I remember learning about that and really making sure I kept my metabolism up after all the damage I did from under eating.
And yes to stress!!! Such a big one, most people don’t look enough at. Or they end up over stressed because they aren’t losing weight and creating that awful stress cycle.
You’re so right- stress & weight loss is a vicious cycle!
Eating less than 1200 calories a day just seems crazy to me. I cannot imagine! :/
Me either!
what a great post! I can’t believe your own before/after. Im guilty of not drinking enough water and losing sight of my portions. Grazing ( BLT) is another culprit.
I do well overall when I exercise, which Im having a hard time doing consistently. Ive tried weight watchers before, but being a vegetarian in this particular session was very alienating. I quit pretty quickly. I’ve done really well on my own – but it requires a lot of focus. Very hard to do when I’m juggling work, home and a 2 yr old.
Weight loss in itself is not easy..but doing so WHILE raising a child and working a 9-5 job? You should be very proud of yourself 🙂
I love this post – some weeks the scale wasn’t my friend at all. And now even though I’m off my diet, I find I’m losing weight..some things that help me are some habits I think I developed on my diet — which is drinking lots of water (I started with 8 glasses a day which now go up to about 10-12 average), starting every meal with lots of veggies or fruit if it’s breakfast, watching sodium (I have a huge problem with water weight) and making sure I have a moderate amount of carbs – no carb diets are horrible. And I think the main thing people don’t do is stop when they’re full – it’s so easily to mindlessly eat something cause it’s there even if you’re not really hungry, but lately I’ve been making sure to stop eating when I’m comfortably full – I can always go back and eat later if I want. I remember I used to not finish a meal until I was STUFFED to the point of being uncomfortable, but honestly my body is smarter than I give it credit for, and now I eat until I’m perfectly satisfied. That keeps me happy and energetic even after my meal, and my weight in check too 🙂
You have come a long way and you should be so proud of yourself, Nikhita…I know I am 🙂
The water thing is HUGE! One of the best tips is to drink a glass of water, wait 10 mins, and see if you still feel hungry.
And AMEN to not eating enough. I just had that conversation with a male friend. he’s 2x my weight and eating fewer calories! So I made him a meal plan. 😉
It’s always such a pleasure to be the bearer of good news i.e. that the other person NEEDS to eat more 🙂
Those BLT’s are so sneaky! I gained 10+ pounds the summer I lived in London, solely because I was BLTing all day and into the night. The break room at the office where I interned was stocked with tea, scones, and clotted cream EVERY day, which made for a very happy Sara, and a very sorry waistline. 😉 And then there was the chocolate…So many varieties that aren’t available in the US simply *had* to be consumed after dinner each night. When in Rome…err, London, right? I didn’t *feel* like I was eating much, though, because I never finished an entire scone or chocolate bar in one sitting…I’d just pick away! But those bites sure added up! My experience taught me that for weight maintenance, it’s much better to sit down and treat myself to an *entire* scone, piece of cake, bowl of ice cream etc. once in a while, than to take BLT’s all day every day. :-p
You offer so many great tips here! I think that, for many people, stress is one of the most over-looked pieces of the weight loss puzzle. Cortisol is a pretty powerful hormone, and unfortunately it rears its ugly head when someone becomes stressed about not losing weight. Talk about irony!
Sending big hugs your way, Khushboo! <3 xoxo
Welcome “back”, Sara :)! Did you ever the chocolate Hobnobs while you were in London? Those are my favorite! There’s something about British chocolate that cannot be beat!
When I was losing weight, I was oblivious to nutrition and just told to stick to 1200 calories (yeah, even for a guy!) and was never told to fill up on whole foods etc. I remember for a solid couple of months downing lean cuisines and eating deli meat with lettuce- yes I lost weight but it was not practical. I think water is so important, as we often mistake hydration for hunger and also focus on whole foods over calorie counting- the difference between a diet bar and a fruit salad on satiety = it matters!
Oh man- who told you about never filling up on whole foods?? Need to send a knockin’ their way ;)!
BLTs, yes … They’re a bit of an issue for me though one I have yet to decide is good or not. It’s those little tidbits of food here and there that on one hand are freeing – not counting them would be a good sign for me in recovery. On the other hand, though, they’re scary as in: I’m afraid of losing control and never being able to stop even once I’ve reached a healthy weight.
When changing my diet to a healthier one years ago, I definitely learned a lot in terms of not choosing food based on calories only. It still makes me sad to see how some people consider their diets to be healthy when actually eating many foods filled with nasty additives and skeevy ingredients. I think the best approach to losing weight is a relaxed one. Trying to shed too many pounds too far is unrealistic, frustrating and likely to leave you feel deprived.
Seeing as you mention water intake: Do you know how much would be too much? I know I can drink a lot of tea and water and have been wondering that …
Once you start drinking 9-10+ liters of water daily, then you should probably think about scaling back your water intake…otherwise it’s difficult to overdo it 🙂
I’m guilty of snacking here and there, a bite of peanut butter, a spoon of coconut butter, not good. So much fat, even if it’s somewhat good for you. I think those calories creep up on me.
When i lost weight… you’re gonna hate it, I actually started with weight watchers, then Atkins, i lost the weight quick on atkins and switched to south beach. it became my way of life. i didn’t put the weight back on because i was always conscientious of the choices i made… i still eat crap, you see the blog, but not nearly as much as I used to. it’s all about moderation and eating WHOLE FOODS, not processed.
HAHA you know me well ;)! Although Atkins is not up my alley, it’s great if you can lose the weight on it and keep it off! Although I haven’t tried the South Beach diet, I think it’s a great variation of low-carb diets, especially as it incorporates fruit :)!
These are all great tips, especially the focus on hydration, too few calories, and all calories are not created equal. The last one is super important, and I think eating processed foods, even low calories ones, are handled differently by our bodies. I find eating real, whole food has helped the weight come off and stay off.
Me too- I definitely noticed a difference in my losses when I traded those low-cal, packaged foods for REAL grub!