5 Habits Keeping You From Seeing Results

When life gets a little busy, it's quite common for us to go on auto-pilot and fall into a pattern of bad habits (maybe without even realizing it!). We tend to make sure everyone else in our lives are looked after before us, while forgetting we need to take care of ourselves. If you have found it difficult to continue to live an active lifestyle, while having the energy to keep up with your everyday routine... you're not alone!

So today I'm going to hit the pause button for you, and take a look at some common actions we may take in our day that may be affecting our ability to live a healthy and active lifestyle.

1. Not Eating Enough
Most active women spend a lot of their time worrying about eating "too much" or eating the "right foods"; however, research has shown that many women - especially active women - are not eating enough to meet their bodies basic energy needs (1).

As this becomes a habit over time, our body responds and adapts to this lower calorie threshold, by becoming more energy-efficient with the amount of calories consumed.
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Yes a slight caloric deficit will probably aid in weight loss, but a large calorie deficit (which is more common) actually causes changes in your metabolism to keep your body in an energy balance. This means that in order for the body to conserve energy and give calories to the necessary bodily functions for survival.... your body will resort to burning fewer calories, EVEN IF you are exercising regularly and intensely.

SO despite you being on a low-calorie diet, and training hard regularly, you will continue to hold onto body fat. This is because when you don't eat enough, your bodies stress hormone (cortisol) production, increases. Having a chronically raised cortisol level promotes body fat, and water retention (2).

2. Not Getting Enough Protein
The amount of protein consumed is generally below the adequate level your body needs, especially for those in a caloric restriction, and this can actually lead to slower metabolism and muscle loss.
If you are exercising 5 days a week - whether that's resistance training or endurance (or both) - your body needs protein in order to replace the amino acids, and support the repair and growth of muscles used in that activity. The harder your workout, the more protein you will need.

By being more aware of your protein consumption will be beneficial for your body recovery and composition.

3. Too Much Cardio
There is a lot of advice out there saying if you want to lose weight, you should be doing cardio and lots of it! You decide to add more cardio to your routine when you stop seeing progress, hoping that extra hour or 2 a week on the treadmill or elliptical will get you to your "goal body". This was my initial approach to my fitness journey for years! Unfortunately, adding more cardio to your routine is rarely the best solution in this situation.

Unless you love doing cardio (and if you do, or you are an endurance athlete/trainer, keep doing you!), there are other ways to improve your health and body composition. Personally, I love incorporating shorter intervals into my routine once or twice a week to get the benefits of cardio, in a shorter amount of time.

High-intensity interval training (HIIT) is shown to produce the fastest improvements in your fitness and body composition (3). Completing intervals even just one day a week is better for your overall fitness and body composition than doing hours of cardio. BUT remember that there is still a thing of too much! When performing HIIT remember it is based off of intensity, and performing too much will cause your stress levels to go up and again, result in your body holding onto body fat.

4. Using the Scale
On average, women's weight fluctuates daily between 1-2 pounds- and even more in periods of high stress and during the menstrual cycle. It's also important to remember the scale does not tell the whole story. Muscle tissue is more dense than fat tissue, and it holds more water than fat. So, muscle actually weighs more while taking up less space than fat, and also leads to a larger scale fluctuation.

I highly recommend freeing yourself from the chains of that nasty scale, and let your body find its comfortable place. Don't forget that our bodies constantly change as we go through different life seasons.

5. Not Appreciating Your Body
We all have goals, and aspirations in the fitness world and outside of it. It's important to take the time to pause and acknowledge how amazing you are as a human being. I always recommend to my clients to take time everyday and think about - or even write down! - a few specific things you are grateful for, physically and emotionally. Take that time to enjoy the present, since we are commonly always focused on the future, and living busy lives that seem to fly by.

Make an effort to take time and celebrate your beautiful, powerful body.