Losing weight is hard. Especially in college! Despite how often you exercise and how hard you try to keep up a healthy diet, the pounds just aren’t coming off as easily as you’d imagined. So why is this happening? Well, there may be just a few surprising reasons as to why you just can’t seem to lose any weight.
1. You eat too much
Lengthy and intense workouts can be misleading for some collegiettes, especially those who don’t work out very often. Sometimes when we finish a vigorous workout, we tend to eat more afterwards because we think we burned more calories than we actually did. And, not only that, but we also tend to think that we deserve a reward for our hard work and, basically, eat back all the calories we lost in the first place. Pay attention to what you’re eating and make sure you’re not letting the hard work you put in at the gym go to waste.
2. You don’t eat enough
Finding the time to catch a quick and healthy meal, specifically breakfast, can sometimes seem a little impossible considering our busy college schedules. But studies have shown that breakfast eaters have a better chance of being able to lose weight and keep it off than those who choose to skip breakfast. As you hurry on to class every morning, be sure to make enough time to eat something filling enough to keep you from eating unhealthy snacks throughout the day.
3. You eat “healthy” foods
Propaganda like “low calorie” or “low sodium” has a way of tricking us into thinking that we’re eating super health friendly foods when, in actuality, those foods are still processed and loaded with unhealthy additives. When grocery shopping, it’s important to pay attention to labels and to know what’s not supposed to be in your food. Try buying whole and fresh foods instead.
4. You spend too much time sitting down
Whether we’re in class all day or staying up late studying, we spend a lot of time sitting down and being stationary. After a few hours, the body stops making lipase, an enzyme that helps burn fat, so it’s important to stand up and stretch a little every few hours to boost your metabolism. Even fidgeting and doing tedious things like twiddling your thumbs can help burn a few calories.
5. You’re stressed
Stress hormones increase cravings for carbs and fatty foods. When we’re stressed about midterms and ten-page papers, it’s so easy for us to turn to quick and unhealthy meals as a way to cope. Exercising more can reduce stress and eating healthy meals can repair the damage that stress does to your body.
6. You don’t get enough sleep
When you lack sleep, your body goes into survival mode which means that, if you don’t get enough sleep, your body craves more fatty foods causing you to eat more. Think twice before you pull that all-nighter and make sure that you get up to at least 7 hours of sleep a night.
7. You’re grazing
Grazing, which is replacing your actual meals with small snacks throughout the day, doesn’t work for everyone. The diet trick can help you lose weight as long as you watch your portion sizes but not everyone can control the amount of snacks that they eat. Grazing is okay just as long as you’re paying attention to what you’re eating and making sure that, by the end of the day, you don’t end up consuming more calories than necessary.