10 Reasons Why You Aren't Seeing Results

The New Year has come and gone. Maybe you made resolutions, maybe you didn’t. Regardless, we are officially 6 weeks into 2021.

You can’t expect to get your final results in just 6 weeks if you just started this January, but I have reason to believe you’ve tried to shed weight and get in shape before.

You try to get to workouts done and you try new diets. It’s not like you’re not trying, despite your crazy schedule and demanding family life.

But nothing seems to work.

Sometimes you get discouraged.

The same stubborn 10-15 pounds always seem to creep back on. Pretty soon you’re back to where you started: with a closet full of clothes that don’t quite fit. You feel more than a little “meh” and think everyone is judging you.

You have a harder time keeping up with your kids, and taking off layers when the weather warms up seems out of the question. You know it’s time for a change, but aren’t quite sure what to do.

1) Cutting Carbs/Calories Too Drastically

What may seem like the best option because of the quick change is not a good one.

With low carb diets, you are going to see a faster weight loss, not fat loss. That is from muscle glycogen and water being depleted. Again, it is not fat loss right out of the gate. Carbohydrates hold 2-3g of water per gram of carb so naturally, when they are cut out almost entirely, there is a huge weight shift.

As far as performance goes, low carb diets proved less advantageous for endurance and strength performance. While you may not lose a ton of strength on low carb, you will be hard-pressed to maximize your training and output without intaking sufficient carbohydrates.

Adherence would be the number 1 argument against a low carbohydrate diet. If you are someone who enjoys carbs and can manage your total calories while consuming carbs, you are better off staying away from this approach.

2) High Reps, Low Weights

The reason you should keep using moderately heavy weights while losing body fat is that you want to stimulate and maintain that hard-earned muscle mass.

With a calorie reduction, a slight dip in strength, and the potential for losing muscle you definitely don’t want to completely back off and start training like an 80s aerobics instructor.

You want a lean and defined body. Well, you need your muscles to pop out for that to happen and they aren’t going to pop or show tone if you aren’t training them with a decent stimulus.

 Your muscles are not provided with enough stimulus to grow (more muscle = more caloric burn over time)

You are not burning more calories by doing so many extra reps because your muscles aren’t being challenged enough

3) Blow Out Weekends

Here’s a snapshot of what generally happens.

You start your week off pumped up and prepped, eating all the correct meals and loving life.

Tuesday and Wednesday come around and you’re still on track, but you’re feeling hungrier than usual. On top of that your coworker just got back from Chipotle and man does that look good.

Thursday comes around and since it’s almost the weekend and you’ve eaten clean all week, you decide a little treat won’t hurt. You’re also way hungrier than you were to start the week off, but no pain no gain right? Let’s see.

Its the weekend and everyone’s going out for drinks! You stuck to your plan and deserve a bit of a break from the diet so you go out. Notice the trend in calories here.

Its Saturday and you’ve already gone over Friday night by ~1000 kcals…fuck it, let’s grab a pizza and beers tonight too. You already cheated Friday night, might as well scrap it and start fresh tomorrow.

Well Sunday rolls around and you’ve eaten ~6000 calories instead of 3000 you were supposed to over Friday and Saturday. You sit and stare at the scale Sunday thinking “wtf happened this weekend. I need to be better”. So you meal prep for the next week, getting geared up for the diet again. But not before that hangover breakfast of leftover pizza.

If this sounds even remotely familiar, know that you’re not alone. Also know that there is a better way to lose body fat. Skip the super restricted diet plan, increase your calories to a reasonable deficit (not a huge one) and enjoy things in smaller amounts so you don’t feel left out.

4) Strictly Isolation Training

Isolation training has its place in programs, but compound training provides the most caloric expenditure.

Isolation – bicep curls, leg extensions (1 muscle group)

Compound – bench press, squats (different muscle groups)

Having a body part split (arm day, shoulder day, etc) is not the best way to go about losing fat.

You want to burn as many calories as possible, and actually make your muscles work. This means compound movements (squat, bench press, rows, deadlifts, lunges) with moderately heavy weights. Doing these types of exercises will burn more calories in a short amount of time and still keep you feeling strong and energetic.

Try to get stronger as the weeks go by and progressively overload to maintain your muscle and strength during your fat loss phase.

5) Too Much Cardio

Cardio is completely unecessary for fat loss.

It’s also a very inefficient way to approach your goal.

The more cardio you do to try and burn fat, the better your body gets at the cardiovascular exercise. That means it’s burning less calories for the same distance/time you are running.

To increase the amount of calories you are burning, you are going to have to increase the amount of time you are running or increase the frequency of your cardio output.

You have to spend more time doing more cardio to burn more calories.

Solution = spend time getting stronger and controlling your calorie intake. You save a whole bunch of time (you’re busy enough) and you can actually get stronger while losing body fat. This is going to give you a much better look overall while managing your time efficiently.

If you like cardio, go ahead and do it. Just know it’s not the magic solution to your fat loss problem.

6) All or Nothing Approach

The journey to put on muscle, lose body fat, and eat a healthy balanced diet is difficult. It takes time, patience, and a real mindset shift to follow through for an extended period of time.

The issue is the constant barrage of unrealistic expectations and “success” stories all over newstands,

It creates this pressure like we have to lose all the weight NOW! And if it can’t be lost ASAP then we’re not doing it at all.

This is the exact reason why you have rebounded in weight, yo-yo dieted, struggled, and gave up trying to lose fat.

It’s hard and it’s not fast. The opposite of seemingly everything else today.

What I need you to do is take a step back, analyze your lifestyle and figure out why you want to change.

Once you’ve got that down, hire someone or find a flexible approach that works for you for the long term. Something you don’t have to overly fight yourself on each and every day. (e.g. If you enjoy carbs, don’t cut em out). The rate of weight loss is anywhere from 1-2% of your body weight each week. Read that again and make sure you don’t get confused with the latest magazine telling you to lose 30lbs in 14 days.

Take your time, enjoy the process and your results will come to you. You won’t be chasing them anymore.

Once you can remove the “All or Nothing” approach and find something sustainable that allows “mistakes” or “going off plan”, you’re going to be able to stick to it for lasting results.

7) Lack of Consistency

8) Not Enough Recovery

More workouts does not equal more fat loss.⁣⁠
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And while I understand you feel like you’re cheating yourself by taking days off training, trust me – you’re not.⁣⁠
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You need to rest and recover,⁣⁠
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Drop the “more is better” approach and try this instead:⁣⁠
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Keep your training to 4 days MAX, and make those sessions worth your while.⁣⁠
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Work hard.⁣⁠
Aim to increase the weights you’re using over time.⁣⁠
Don’t waste time.⁣⁠
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Ask yourself:⁣⁠
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How often do you train each week?⁣⁠
How many rest days do you have?⁣⁠
When’s the last time you took a deload/recovery week?⁣⁠
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Take 2-3 days off from strength/weight training to allow for recovery.⁣⁠
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When you do this, studies have shown:⁣⁠
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-strength improvements⁣⁠
-lean body mass/muscle gains⁣⁠
-neuromuscular adaptations⁣⁠
-improved hormone levels⁣⁠
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Stop trying to outwork your diet, and put your focus on the most efficient places.⁠

9) No Awareness of Calorie Intake

You will lose fat when you eat fewer calories than your body burns.⁣⁠
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That’s the formula.⁣⁠
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I’ve had clients (before they were my clients) gaining weight but because they were eating all-natural all the time, they assumed they would be losing weight. It wasn’t until we looked at their calories and saw that they were overconsuming every single day.⁣⁠
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Nuts, olive oil, smoothies. Sure, they’re “healthy” but if they’re leading you to overconsume calories, they’re not serving you well.⁣⁠
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I’ve also had clients eating 1-2 of their meals out and about and still shed weight. Sure, there were processed foods but it helped them stay within their calories each week and lead to more results.⁣⁠
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Bottom line, if you’re stuck and you have yet to really look at how many calories (and protein) you eat every day. I strongly suggest starting now.⁣⁠
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If you’re honest with your tracking, you will be surprised by how much you’re actually eating on a daily basis

10) Focusing on the Minutae

Way too often I get questions or see comments about the most minute things. “Fasted or fed cardio?”
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“Which fat burner is best?”
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“Should I stop eating after 6?”
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“Does intermittent fasting burn more fat?”
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Why do we inherently make things more complicated than they have to be? The same people asking these questions have no idea how much food they’re eating, don’t train consistently, but are expecting to yield results.

Focus on the things that matter most and will have the biggest impact on your progress. Meal timing/frequency, types of cardio, supplementation all mean nothing if you are not:

• training consistently
• getting stronger
• hitting your nutrition targets

Focus on how much you’re eating, not so much what time you’re eating.⁣⁠
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Get your workout in, regardless of your mood or how busy your schedule is.⁣⁠
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Motivation low? Good thing you are disciplined with your actions.⁣⁠
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Stop looking up supplements online, they are not going to help.⁣⁠

This is the sure-fire way to get the results you’ve worked so hard to achieve.

What I’m Saying is…

I could look back and tell you how many times I tried to “game” the system to try and get faster results.⠀