4 Things That Can Slow Down Weight Loss

Weight loss can be tough. And to have it slowed down when you're putting in the time and effort can make it so much more difficult to stick with it. Here are four things that can slow down weight loss and should be kept in mind as you go through your own weight loss journey.

1. Poor sleep – If you haven’t read the previous blogs about why and how sleep affects your weight loss, we’d highly encourage you to. Sleep is when your body actually loses the most weight. That’s why you can eat great all day, even throw a workout in there, and weigh yourself at the end of the day, and you might be up in weight from this morning! During sleep is when your body does some of its’ best work in digesting your food and consuming food as energy. If you’re trying to lose weight, make sure you’re getting great sleep!
2. Stress – Stress can cause many things to happen in the body, but often it can lead to overeating. Ever been sitting there after a long day and wonder what happened to that entire carton of ice cream? It happens to some of us more than we’d care to admit. And it makes sense. So often, life feels like it is outside of our control and sometimes going in directions that we’d rather it didn’t. Often, it feels like, “the only thing that makes me feel good is food, so I want good food!” Food is comforting, it is calming, it makes us feel like we get what we want in at least this one thing today. Unfortunately, that is a tough cycle to break. You feel stressed so you eat either bad food or too much food, or sometimes both which adds stress to your system causing you to feel even more stressed and the cycle continues. If this feels like you, it might be a good idea to start in on some meditation, breathing exercises, even trying Skinny Up!®. Taking time to center yourself and remember that you are in control of what you’re in control of, and the rest will work out. You are worth time, effort, energy, money… you’re worth it all. Don’t forget.
3. Cheat days – It takes about 48 hours to get your body into a fat burning mode. When you take a cheat day, know that you’re not only sabotaging your weight loss for that day, but that it will take another two days for your body to get back to losing weight. And you’ll have to burn off whatever you cheated with as well… so please don’t. If you’re in a social situation that requires you to have some party food, try to stick next to the meat and cheese platter rather than the tray of brownies. If you have to have a drink somewhere, order a sparkling water instead of a margarita. If you’re really going for weight loss, get yourself to a state of mind that you’re in this for just a season. So, it’s not goodbye to the treats you love, it’s simply ‘see you in a little while.’
4. Medical Conditions and Medications – It makes sense, doesn’t it, that various medical conditions would slow down weight loss? Think about it. When your body has to figure out getting you healthy while trying to consume stored nutrition from your fat cells, it sometimes has too much to do! It is a lot of work to keep you going when there are medical conditions like diabetes, fibromyalgia, or even a simple cold can add stress to the body and slow down it’s ability to lose weight effectively. In the same way, medications can slow down weight loss because it is more for the body to process through. Remember, your liver is the organ that needs to work through everything that you’ve consumed. Therefore, any medication, along with anything coming out of your fat cells, has to be processed by that liver and it can only do so much in a day. Medications can be good and helpful – of course! – but we should be aware that sometimes, they can contribute to slower weight loss.