The Not So Obvious Reasons You May Not Be Reaching Your Health Goals

(WomensFitnessFocus.com) You’ve been working hard to reach your health and fitness goals, but something is keeping you from hitting them. You’ve done your best to eat cleanly and watch your intake carefully, yet you aren’t losing the weight that you expected. What is going on?

Unfortunately, you are probably experiencing some “hidden” reasons that prevent people from achieving their health goals. You are seemingly doing everything right, but it’s just not adding up. Look at some of the reasons that may cause you to miss the mark so that you can make adjustments in your day-to-day life and reach your goals.

Impulse Buys

When you are grocery shopping, what do you use to pay? This may seem like a strange connection to weight loss, but research shows that if you pay with cash, you are less likely to buy junk food. Why is this?

Paying with cash will cause you to be more aware of your spending unlike paying with a card. You can justify getting junk food because you won’t see the immediate decline in cash that it leads to. You should also always go to the grocery store with a list that corresponds to your meal plan for the week so that you can tell yourself no to anything not on that list.

Sleep Deprivation

You know that lack of sleep is not good for the body, but it’s not always easy to make sure you get enough sleep. Demands from work, family, and friends can cause you to go to bed later, wake up earlier, or just lose sleep in general.

Not getting enough sleep increases the levels of cortisol in the body. Cortisol is a stress hormone and increases your appetite, making it tough to lose weight.

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Medications

If you have a health condition that you take medicine for, that medicine could be causing you to gain weight. Antidepressants, steroids, and even heartburn medications can cause weight gain which may be the reason you aren’t seeing the pounds fall off like you expected.

Another medication that is known for causing weight gain is the birth control shot Depo-Provera. A study showed that 25% of women gained 5% or more of their starting weight during the first six months on the shot.

You shouldn’t discontinue any medication without talking to your doctor first. If you suspect it is causing you to gain weight, your doctor can suggest things that you can do to counteract the side-effects or offer you an alternative drug.

Alcohol

You don’t want to hear this, but the alcohol you consume could be crashing your fitness goals. If you do everything right through the week, but attend the occasional party or go to the clubs on the weekend and drink, you won’t see the results you want. Alcohol is full of calories and it’s easy for some people to drink a couple of glasses at a time.

Instead of spending your time with alcohol in hand, reduce your alcohol intake and find ways to fill your time that don’t involve drinking.

Snacking Throughout the Day

If you “graze” throughout the day – eating small amounts here and there, you aren’t doing your body any favors. You may think that since you aren’t eating a lot, it’s not doing any harm. The truth is that your body is getting used to the added calories throughout the day and eating like this prevents your body from being able to burn fat as well.

Cut out the snacks and adapt a diet around intermittent fasting, a pattern of eating that helps your body burn off more fat throughout the day.

Rewarding Yourself for Exercise

Rewarding yourself for exercise is fine and even encouraged for those that hate exercising, but you have to be careful what the reward is.

If you find yourself justifying that candy bar or that slice of cheesecake because you’ve already worked off the calories during your hour of exercise that morning, your reward is undoing all of your hard work.

You may do enough exercise to burn off several hundred calories, but if you eat them all back afterwards, what good does it do? Find other ways to treat yourself instead, such as with a TV show or a fun activity. If you must reward yourself with food, set incremental goals (lost 5 pounds or ran 5 miles) that will happen twice a month or less and keep the treat small.

You may be eating right all week and exercising every morning, but these hidden saboteurs of weight loss could still be lurking in your life. You won’t hit your health and fitness goals like this, so do what you can to discover these sneaky causes of weight gain and eliminate them from your life so you can see the results you desire.

Kacey Mya is a lifestyle blogger for “The Drifter Collective.”  Throughout her life, she has found excitement in the world around her.  Kacey graduated with a degree in Communications while working for a lifestyle magazine. She has been able to fully embrace herself with the knowledge of nature, the power of exploring other locations, cultures, and styles, while communicating these endeavors through her passion for writing and expression. Her love for the world around her is portrayed through her visually pleasing, culturally embracing and inspiring posts.

The Drifter Collective: An eclectic lifestyle blog that expresses various forms of style through the influence of culture and the world around us.

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