FITNESS
Six Reasons Why You’re Not Hitting Those Gym Goals Sleep, diet and consistency all play a part in a successful workout BY MICAELA WHITWORTH DAVID DWORKIND One of Canada’s Top Fitness Trainers, personal trainer and founder of Love Your Bod, based in Edmonton, AB. MICAELAFITNESS
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t’s a brand new year and you’ve been hitting the gym hard. You’ve improved your diet and even hired a personal trainer. Despite all your hard work, you’ve noticed that instead of losing weight as intended, you’ve gained weight. So, what gives? It’s no doubt that you feel frustrated, and you can feel your motivation dwindling. But don’t throw in the towel just yet. A lack of quantifiable results can happen for many reasons. First and foremost, you must remember that there are many factors that can affect your weight: exercise, how and what you eat, hormones, genetics, stress, metabolism, and inadequate sleep, to name a few. Before you go blaming your genetics, it’s important to review some of the most common reasons why people go wrong. It could be any combination of these factors that are making you feel like you’re not getting the results that you’ve been working so hard for.
EXERCISE INCONSISTENCY Often due to life’s unpredictability, it can be difficult to maintain consistency with one’s workouts. If you’ve been unable to stay on track with your intended workouts, try to make some changes to your schedule so that you can prioritize exercise more. If making it to the gym itself is the issue, try planning to do some of your workouts from home instead. If that’s not possible, be sure to adjust your caloric intake to match your decreased activity levels.
INACCURATE CALORIC TRACKING Logging your food intake with an app can be an important tool for weight loss. However, it can be very easy to miscalculate. Don’t assume your portion sizes by eyeballing things. Weigh your foods for best accuracy. That extra “tablespoonful” of peanut butter,
26 I Inspiration Issue 2023 I IMPACT MAGAZINE
Before you go blaming your genetics, it’s important to review some of the most common reasons why people go wrong.
the cream in your coffee, packing a measuring cup too tightly with pasta or rice, the amount of oil you’re cooking with—not tracking these things accurately can lead to hundreds of extra calories from what you intended. Always input your recipes and log the specific brands of foods that you eat. A slice of bread could be 50 calories, or it could be 150 calories—be specific and accurate.
TOO FOCUSED ON THE SCALE The scale isn’t always the best unit of measurement for fat loss, especially when it comes to individuals who already have a low body weight to begin with. Make sure you are also noting how your clothes fit as it could be that you’ve lost inches but not weight. It doesn’t mean you’re not making strides toward your goals, it just means that your body composition is changing: more muscle and less excess fat. Exercise also puts stress on your muscle fibres. This causes micro tears and mild inflammation which may also cause the scale to go up after you’ve started exercising.