Why You Are Not Seeing Results

Many people have a multifaceted approach to health and fitness – some might have tried a diet or two, hired a personal trainer, or participated in some sort of fitness class. You may have tried one or all of these methods. You might follow fitness personalities on social media to keep up to date on the latest fitness and nutrition trends to add to your bank of information to perhaps try one day.

Even though you feel that you eat well and exercise and feel pretty up to snuff when it comes to fitness and nutrition, you might find that you still don’t look - or feel - the way you want.

It turns out that you can be you own worst enemy on your route to health and fitness, and you may in fact be sabotaging your own good efforts. There are many reasons why, despite all your hard work, you are not seeing the results you want. Below are nine factors to consider if you’re feeling frustrated with your progress. How many of them apply to you?

1. Your approach to goal setting: “I want to lose weight” sounds like a great goal, but is a hard one to measure because it lacks a clear plan. When you don’t know where you are going or the steps to get there, it is really hard to achieve anything measureable. It is not because people are not motivated or disciplined, but because the goal itself is too challenging. Further to that, we can get caught up in setting multiple goals at one time, which divides our attention and our energy. You can either be a Jack-Of-All-Trades or a Master of One. I suggest that a Master of One will get you better results. Focus on setting quality goals, those that emphasize improvement in living a healthier lifestyle. Be careful, however, of setting too challenging of a goal, which can deter you from working towards reaching it when the going gets tough. We certainly want to step out of our comfort zone and raise the bar, but we don’t want to raise it too high that we can’t see incremental improvements and advancements along the way. Additionally, we can sometimes get caught up in changing our goals over and over without really following through with one clear goal. This often happens because the original goal didn’t have value or was too challenging to begin with. Bottom line: stick with a goal that has value and allows you to measure progress easily.

2. Your training style: I’m going to talk specifically about women here, since plenty of my female clients come from a strictly cardio background yet don’t understand why they are not achieving the “toned” look they’re trying to achieve. I say toned because that is often the word used to explain the desired look - nice-looking muscles that are firm instead of flabby, and some sort of slight definition. In order to get this look, two things need to happen: 1. Muscle needs to be developed, and 2. Fat needs to be reduced. Which means, ladies, we need to jump off the cardio equipment and start working in short bursts of intensity and mix in some weight lifting, and I am not talking about those little pink weights either. We tend to want variety when it comes to our food, but then when it comes to training we are hard pressed to change it up. We keep doing what we always do and yet expect results. I get it, it is far easier to lace up and go for a run or jump on an elliptical for 45 minutes than it is to come up with a plan that includes interval training and weight lifting. But here’s the catch: the body is really great at adapting, and over time the workout you used to do will no longer give you the desired results. In fact, you will actually start burning fewer calories by continually doing what has worked in the past. Think of a mail carrier - they walk a lot during the day. In the beginning, they may see changes to their physique due to the regular, steady exercise of walking. But over time, their body adapts and even though they are frequently walking, they will notice fewer changes and will burn less calories. The same is true for any workout - over time, we need to add more or different exercises to achieve the same or better results than before.

3. Frequency of training: There is a fine balance between training too much and training too little, and either one can set you back when it comes to seeing results. For many people, getting motivated to exercise can be incredibly challenging, and usually if you’re not motivated to exercise, you’re not going to be working out as much as your body needs. For others, exercise is a part of their character, and defines their day - they make plans and schedule their lives around their fitness regime and might not take the time to allow their body to recover. When we exercise too much, or even too intensely, we increase our cortisol levels. Cortisol is the stress hormone that likes to deposit itself right in your midsection. If the way you exercise is leaving you tired, depleted and feeling like you’re never good enough, it may be time to move towards building a healthy relationship with exercise. A good plan builds in cardio, strength, flexibility and rest. Rest is important for muscles to repair and rebuild so that you can keep training and seeing results.

4. Hydration: Water is as much a part of any weight loss program and daily habit as diet and exercise. This doesn’t mean that drinking more water will make you lose weight, since water does not have magical properties that burn fat. However, water can help curb our appetite since we can easily mistake thirst for hunger. Additionally, water helps transport all of our nutrients from the delicious food we eat and helps lubricate your joints and muscles while you work out. Water also delivers oxygen to your muscles. So keep hydrated, but don’t overdo it – overhydration can be just as detrimental to your health as dehydration

5. Not eating enough protein: Getting enough protein includes optimizing the times in which you are eating it, such as part of your post-workout meals. Protein stimulates an increase in muscle mass and lean tissue. Contrary to popular belief, muscle does not weigh less than fat; it simply occupies less space, giving you that overall ‘toned’ look. Protein also keeps you feeling satiated longer and keeps your calories per meal lower. By eating protein, you burn more calories during a workout due to the simple fact that the body needs to work harder to break it down. Further to that, protein helps increase your strength (for that heavy lifting you should be doing!) and aids in faster recovery after injury.

6. Consuming alcohol and processed food: We aren’t really worrying about the occasional drink or treat here and there, but more so when we overconsume alcohol or highly processed foods at one time, or frequently. Alcohol is metabolized differently than other foods and beverages. Did you know there are 7 calories per gram of alcohol, not to mention the high calorie drink mixes and no nutritional value? We all know that it lowers inhibitions too, which leaves more room for a late night snack (and not the kind that makes us reach our goals any sooner). It further increases your cravings for high-fat and sodium-heavy foods the following day. Processed foods are generally higher in fat, sugar and sodium, and lower in healthy fats and fibre. A drink or two can be a part of our social lives and experiences, and likewise with a ‘treat’ or two. But consuming these on a regular basis or in large quantities at one time can certainly be one reason you aren’t seeing results.

7. Eating too much or too little: Still believe that you shouldn’t eat after a workout or that eating less while working out more and more is the way to go? No way! There is only so long before eating less and less will stop working for you. There is one thing all diets have in common - they restrict your nutritional intake in some way. On the flip side, while eating too much might seem like an obvious barrier to seeing results, over-consuming foods that we consider ‘healthy’ or ‘clean’ can still make the scale and inches creep up.

8. You reward yourself with food: I hear it all the time: “I worked out today so I can have that dessert and drink, or perhaps a couple more slices of pizza.” Or perhaps you tell yourself things like “The old me used to eat the whole thing, so I’m doing way better just eating half the large pizza.” This way of thinking could be undoing all the hard work you are putting in by hitting the gym. It is important to acknowledge and reward yourself for all of your work, but the purpose of rewarding yourself is to strengthen your resolve to lose weight and/or to change your physique, so hitting the tub of Rocky Road ice cream isn’t the way to celebrate. In fact, it leads to more cravings the next day and general feelings of guilt. Keep the rewards to a minimum, both in frequency and in quantity or learn to reward yourself with other things besides food.

9. Your mindset: You have an all-or-nothing mindset, or too many rules that require far too much ongoing motivation and high levels of determination to stick to it. You speak unkindly towards yourself and don’t acknowledge the small milestones achieved along the way to reaching your goals. You expect perfection from yourself. You let the scale dictate your mood and your approach towards your goals. Your self-acceptance is conditional and based on if you went to the gym or ate on-target. You delay your feelings of self-worth and acceptance for when you meet your goal. You imagine that life will be more fulfilling and happier once you lose weight. You put things on hold until goals happen; lose the weight, fit into this dress, etc. Should I go on? Mindset can be a huge barrier to progress - your mind can block you from seeing any sort of progress the same way that food or exercise can. Stick to a positive and re-affirming mindset and accept that sometimes goals can take longer to achieve than you anticipated, and that’s okay. If your head is in the game, then your body will follow suit.

We can sometimes be our own worst critic without even realizing it. We work with old information, conflicting information or simply from an old experience that worked in the past. It isn’t for lack of trying or motivation. Typically we jump into training with two feet. We feel motivated and start off determined, but never stop to take the time to put all the pieces together and seek out advice. We jump on the fitness bandwagon without changing the way we eat or we start eliminating foods without changing how we exercise. Or we are so hard on ourselves, striving for that perfect body, that we don’t even see how we are changing.

Here is what I propose: stop going along for the ride and start being the driver of the health outcomes you desire.

Ask for help.

Ask questions.

Step out and try something new, and choose your own route.

Stop being a passenger on your own journey.

Take the wheel and drive.