8 Probable Reasons Why You're Still Fat

1. You Cut Back Protein

Trying to cut back protein calories triggers your body to preserve calories rather than metabolise them. In order to make certain vital operations are not compromised, your body is forced to break down muscle tissue for fuel. So what happens? Less muscles means more fat deposits, whereas more muscles means faster metabolism and less body fat.

If you have to cut down your calories by 500 to lose weight, choose food referred to as ‘empty calories’. For instance, rather than take out chicken or milk from your diet, remove those pastries, or fried foods, or soft drinks from your diet. Ensure you are eating at least 1,500-2000 calories a day to stop your metabolism from crashing. Eat your protein. If you are 91kg and do little exercise, you should eat about 75grams of protein (about two chicken breasts) a day to preserve your muscles. If you strength train, go for 150 grams of protein. If you are an aerobics enthusiast eat about 100 grams.

2.  The Smell of Food Makes You Fat

When the delicious aroma of fresh bread, fried chicken stew, or fresh meat pastries hits your nostrils, you become helpless, and of course gobble it down so fast you end up sending out several belches. Before you know it you've eaten twice as much as you intended, since your stomach had no time to alert your brain to tell your mouth to quit chewing before your stomach explodes.

Try this exercise for real. On every bite, chew, swallow, put down your fork, and take a sip of water. See how long it takes you to eat. Now, during subsequent meals, take just as long to eat. Another meal-prolonging ploy for men with regular dinner partners: Turn off the TV, put down the newspaper, and actually have a serious but interesting conversation.

3. You are Addicted to Processed Food

Many processed breads and cereals contain little fiber, the calorie-free component of plant foods that fills you up, without adding fat to your hips and butt. In addition, fibre rich foods help control blood glucose and insulin levels.

Shift your focus away from processed food and go for the natural stuff like wholemeal grains, corn grits, corn meal, oatmeal, wholemeal bread, nuts, and beans.  There is no really no excuse for not switching to wholemeal foods. They are available and taste great and nutritious, even if not calorie-free. But watch out for the sugar-added variety. Fill your stomach on unprocessed wholegrain rice, yam, potatoes, plantain, and lots of leafy vegetables. Try to substitute ice cream for fresh fruits, and French fries for baked potato.

4. You Don’t Sleep

Sleep deprivation decreases the odds of shedding weight and keeping it off. Researchers found that healthy men who slept only four or seven hours a night for six nights in a row had higher glucose and insulin levels in their blood. This is a sluggish state of metabolism for a man who is fighting the weight battle, since surplus insulin boosts body-fat storage.

It’s good to get eight hours undisturbed sleep each and every night and great if it’s regular: that is same time for going to bed and waking.  Select the time you have to get up on those days, and make sure you are in bed at least eight hours before. 

5. Exercise Does Not Mean Slim

The hard truth is that exercise alone would not make you slim.  You need to combine it with healthy eating habit. As a matter of fact, exercise may not prevent you from gaining weight if you ate more than you are burning.

What you need to do is to control your portion sizes as well as indiscriminate eating. And the best way to control portion size is to limit how often you eat takeout  meals. This is simply because you have no control over the way the food is cooked and the portion served. However if you prepare your meals at home, you have control over how you cook it, what you put in it, and the portion you put in your plate. 

6. You Can’t Cook

Your boyfriend hates your food, you also can’t stand it. So you resort to takeout fried chicken and French fries, burgers, pastries and so on. A woman whose only kitchen skill involves reheating Chinese fried rice and chop suey, or microwaving left over party food packs, or cold deep pan pizza is stuck with a diet of grease, salt, white bread,  white flour, processed pasta, and sugar. 

Instead of takeout meals, buy fresh groceries, fruits, vegetables, and meat from the supermarket or neighborhood shop. Take a bold step into the kitchen. Unwrap your vegetables, meat, fish or chicken. Chop, rinse and place on the gas cooker. Open your freezer. You should see frozen ground pepper and other soup condiments. Start cooking. Open your fridge; you should see milk, yogurt, and eggs etc. Make yourself nice savoury pancakes for snacks. Look into your cupboards. You should see some spices, cereals, dried fruits, custard, yam flour, rice, beans, wholemeal semolina, and slow-cooking oats. Really what are you waiting for?  These foods help you lose weight because they are filling but low in calories. Most exciting of all, you don't need much more than a pot, stove and some simple tricks to turn them into a nutritious meal.

7. You're Thirsty

Try to aim for the recommended eight glasses of water a day. When you are thirsty, water is your best friend. At the gym when working out, water helps you to rehydrate. Moreso, you need it to flush the waste products your body makes when it breaks down fat for energy, or when it processes protein. You need it to transport nutrients to your muscles. You need it to help digest food and keep your metabolism working fine. And water keeps you from dehydrating during rigorous exercise on hot days.

8. You Become Self-satisfied

You lose five or ten kilos and start to get contented and boasting about your weight loss. In the process, you gradually slip into the old routine of soft drinks and pastries, and before you know it back to the original weight.

There’s nothing wrong in patting yourself on the back.  The kudos is in order for losing those extra pounds, but you should sit down and reassess your diet and exercise program. If you were watching your food intake and exercise level when you started, run a new set of numbers, based on your new weight and activity level. If you still have to shift another five kilos, go back on the offensive, alternatively maintain the five kilos you lost by sticking to your healthy eating and exercise habit that got the loss in the first place. But if you regain the five kilos you lost, you have wasted a lot of effort.

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