1 You’re not consuming enough calories.
One of the biggest mistakes I see with people trying to lose weight is that they’re actually not consuming enough calories! I know this sounds crazy, but give me a second to explain.
We all know that to lose weight and to burn fat, you need to be in a calorie deficit. But creating too big of a calorie deficit can cause you to lose the wrong type of weight and potentially make it harder to lose weight in the future {1}{2}. This is because your body doesn’t like to be in a calorie deficit. Realistically, if you were in a calorie deficit indefinitely, you would die! This is also known as starvation. When you’re in a large calorie deficit, your body will make certain adaptions such as using muscle as energy and decreasing your metabolism to reduce the number of calories you burn throughout the day. This in turn, will be a problem when your calories return to normal but your muscle mass and metabolism is slower than before, making it hard to lose weight the next time around {1}{2}. As you may know, calories are what give us energy. If your calorie intake is low, your training performance will also severely decrease, resulting in fewer calories burnt per session and a higher risk of injury. Another problem with calorie restriction is that it’s not sustainable and you will have to relapse at some point. We can’t help it, we all love food! read more