Berita Hari Ini: Why Your Diet Isn’t Working 😕

Why Your Diet Isn't Working

Your diet just isn't working. You're doing all the right things, and eating all the right foods. But you just can't seem to lose weight.

"Why isn't my diet working?"

"What am I doing wrong?"

"I can't seem to figure this out."

Sound familiar? Lets try to shed some light on why your diet might not be working for you. Keep in mind, the focus will be on fat loss as the target goal here not just weight loss (water/fat/muscle/etc). Sustainable fat loss requires mindfulness and a strategy that is specific to you.

These are the top five reasons your diet isn't working, and how to execute it properly.

1. You aren't tracking anything.

Simply put, if you can measure it, you can manage it. The truth is, you can attempt to lose body fat without tracking calories or macronutrients (macros). However, it most likely won't be optimal or sustainable. You may see some results at first but will plateau and end up frustrated at some point. Tracking calories and macros just gives you a roadmap to your destination. Without a map, your journey gets really inefficient and takes forever due to a lot of unnecessary pit stops and hassle.

Tracking also teaches you what is in food and what you respond well to so that you can develop your intuition about food. Ideally, you can learn about tracking through your fat loss phase and slowly become intuitive as you maintain your goal! That is the whole point. But you can't get there without putting in the time to build food awareness and knowledge. Tracking is the first stop on your roadmap.

2. You are tracking incorrectly.

You can track calories and macros all day, but it clearly will not serve its purpose if you aren't doing it correctly. Eyeballing does not work and even for those of us who are "pros" at eyeballing; it doesn't work lol

Make it a priority to measure your food and learn what true portions should look like for the macros/calories you are shooting for. We always underestimate the calories/portions we see in restaurants. So, we need to retrain our brains to learn what an actual 4-oz chicken breast looks like. There is also a difference between volume and weight measurements of food. Weighing food is more accurate than using volume measurements.

To track your keto macros, you can use KetosisCalculator.com

Also, keep in mind that food labels can be incorrect when it comes to their gram-to-volume conversions or cooked vs raw meat. Cooked-weight macros and raw-weight macros are not the same. As we cook meats, water evaporates from the meat, leaving it "lighter" post-cooking. Therefore, 4oz of raw chicken is about 3.2oz cooked for the same macros. So, my suggestion is to use whatever method you feel comfortable with, whether it be volume or weight, but if you are trying to achieve a high level of leanness, stick with weight measurement.

3. Your energy expenditure is too low.

Don't make your fat loss efforts harder than they need to be. Track your steps to make sure that you are at least in the ballpark of general energy expenditure. If you are unknowingly getting 2,000 steps a day, your caloric deficit will need to be extreme to see fat loss. However, if you can get your daily steps closer to the 10,000+ range, it will be so much easier to lose body fat, and you will be able to eat more to do so! I highly recommend tackling daily steps before adding or increasing structured cardio into your regimen (which can be added later at some point).

4. You are not being patient.

"Fast" and "fat loss" should never belong in the same sentence. (though some people can ONLY do it that way - that is not the norm). Our bodies can only lose so much body fat in a day, in a week, in a month. Typically, one pound a week is ideal on average. However, when starting the fat loss phase, you may lose more than this at first from any water retention you were holding. The initial weight drop on the scale during the first week of the fat loss phase is usually a mix of fat and water weight. But the weight loss should slow down.

If you want the majority of your weight loss to come from fat, then you need it to be slow. Stop setting your expectations for what actually does not exist. Fast fat loss is not a real thing. This is a natural and good sign. (PSMF Diet is a WHOLE other topic and actually is FAST). Expecting fat loss to be fast is setting yourself up for failure. The more patience you have, the more successful you will be.

5. You are not addressing your lifestyle.

Set yourself up for success and create an optimal foundation of health before initiating the fat loss phase.

Super stressed?

Hormones out of whack?

Only get four hours of sleep a night?

Good luck losing body fat with all of that going on.

Don't get me wrong—you can do it, but it's going to be a huge pain in the you know what!

So, take care of your foundation first before you start adding drapes to your windows. Take an honest look at your life.

Not addressing underlying issues is going to make fat loss damn near impossible, so getting lifestyle factors in line will serve you in the long run.

6. You are not sticking to the plan.

Just as important as patience is to be CONSISTENT! You can't eat great Monday through Friday then ruin it all Saturday night and think this will result in any sort of successful fat loss. It will just drive you nuts; even those nuts are keto friendly...

Building a habit of healthy, consistent eating will help you lose fat more consistently, even if it's at a slow pace. And you won't go into panic mode after you mess up every weekend. You will feel good come Monday and even more motivated to stick to the diet!

👉 I hope that these tips gives you some guidance and direction for your fat loss efforts. It truly comes down to the little things we do each day that add up to our ultimate outcome.

Good luck - Summer is just around the corner!