Hey ,

Alright, so let’s cut the crap. Another week has gone and you are still thinking “why can I not reach my goals?”

Below I have listed a few reasons that a number of us don’t reach our goals.

Genetic makeup
Unfortunately, we are all different body shapes and sizes and our metabolisms work at different speeds. It sucks but some of us just need to work harder than others. Trust me, I know! If I didn’t work as hard as I do I would be double the size. My nickname as a kid was Michelin woman…if you don’t know who the Michelin Man was then Google it! You’ll see!

So there’s a theory of the ”set-point weight range”, which is the range that your body is essentially happy at. It’s where you might land if you’re living a healthy and happy life (eating nutritiously without restricting yourself, and exercising but not overly so). If you try to reduce your weight too far below your “set point”, your brain responds to weight loss with powerful tools to push your weight back up to what it considers normal. Your body will always want to try to get back to it’s ‘set-point’ and if you are not happy with this then you will need to continue to eat mindfully and train harder.

Age
As us women hit menopause our oestrogen levels begin to dip and we lose muscle. In fact, muscle mass decreases around 5% every decade after age 30. It is a fact that muscle burns calories three times as fast as fat. As we get older, unless we make an effort to increase our muscle mass, we will naturally start to burn calories slower therefore will be more prone to putting on weight. So many of us use age as an excuse and I always say; what a load of rubbish – stop using your age as an excuse; and instead you need to realise that the older we get the more effort we need to make to reach our goals. Again, it sucks, but that’s life for ya!

Portion Size
Portion size is a huge factor in not reaching your goals. Restaurants and takeaways will always serve us bigger portions than we will actually need, and most of us will eat everything on our plate. Underestimating your portion size could lead to overeating by hundreds, if not thousands of calories.

Mindless eating
Repetitive hand-to-mouth snacking while you’re in a daze watching TV or on your phone can make you wonder: What did I just eat?! Research shows that when you eat distracted, you’re more likely to eat more. When you’re aware of what you’re eating, you can make the brain-body connection that you’re full and satisfied, in short quit shoveling crisps in your mouth whilst watching TV.

You skip meals
In an effort to cut calories, it’s tempting to go through the day trying to eat as little as possible and even skip meals. But if you do this, your body will push you to eat — and this deprivation can backfire. Did you know that ninety percent of weight loss clients don’t eat enough during the day, and then end up bingeing at night. Don’t be that fool to think that starvation is the way forward. You would’nt expect your car to run with no petrol, so don’t expect your body to run with no food.

You overestimate calorie burn
When you’re trying to lose weight, what and how much you eat is more important than your exercise habits, however exercise is the secret to keeping weight off because exercise stimulates the synthesis of mitochondria within muscles. (Mitochondria are the energy powerhouse of cells, according to the National Human Genome Research Institute.) Ultimately, this makes you a better fat- and carbohydrate-burning machine. One thing you must not do is think that because you exercise you can eat more – 90% of us do this and actually you end up eating more than you have burnt; which can lead to weight gain! Just because you have smashed out an exercise session doesn’t mean you should go and face plant a burger! Unfortunately, it doesn’t work like that! be sensible and keep eating mindfully!

Any questions then just give me a shout!

xx