Reasons You’re Not Losing Weight

and reasons you’re gaining it

It seems like most women have struggled with weight at least some point in their life. The precise details of that struggle can vary from person to person, but the undeniable truth is that body image and a woman’s overall happiness are often interlinked, making weight a top concern.

It’s hard to admit, but I know that this has always been true for me. And, it honestly pains me when I meet new clients whose self-confidence and self-esteem have tanked so low because of weight. Many of them have tried and failed to lose weight so many times that they’ve given up on it even being a possibility for them.

They say they want to feel better, to have more energy, more focus, less stress. They tell themselves they don’t care about how they look. That it’s anti-feminist or misogynistic to care. They feel guilty for not loving their body “at any size”. And let me be clear- it IS so valuable to love yourself and your body at any size. But it’s ok to want to change it, too. And I find most women who say they don’t care about weight secretly do care. But they’re afraid to admit it, even to themselves.

I think a big part of the problem here is that most women- heck, most people, period- don’t really know why they’re gaining weight, or how to lose it and not gain it back. It feels like a losing battle.

But it doesn’t have to be. And that’s what this article is about.

Let me share a little story to illustrate how these misconceptions about weight play out in the real world.

I recently was doing intake on a new client, and when we started getting into what led her to seek me out, weight gain topped the list. She was exhausted and experiencing all kinds of hormone-related symptoms. But weight? That was the big one. She’d struggled with weight most of her adult life and had always seemed to be able to keep it in check, at a level she felt satisfied about.

But recently, her weight had ballooned to the highest it had ever been. Health-wise, it wasn’t good for her. And mentally, the weight was taking a toll- she no longer felt like her sexy and beautiful self, and her self-esteem was in the tank.

The most frustrating part? Only a couple years earlier she had been at her lowest weight ever! During the pandemic, she was working remotely and had a little extra time on her hands. So she’d go on long walks and do high impact cardio classes at home using her favorite workout DVDs.

“But then menopause happened, and I gained all the weight back, plus more!”

Let’s pause for a moment.

Her thinking was: I gained all this weight because I hit menopause and my hormones changed. And that’s what happens with menopause. You gain weight.

I can’t tell you how common this line of thinking is among women 40 years old and up.

But I wasn’t convinced this was the best explanation for what was going on. So we dove a little deeper. It turned out that for the past year or so, my client was no longer doing all those long walks and cardio classes she used to do. In fact, she’d gotten an injury and wasn’t able to exercise for months.

On top of that, she’d been feeling unhappy about not being able to exercise and often used food to comfort herself.

So let’s sum this all up:

• First, she lost significant weight doing lots of exercise.

• Then, she stopped exercising and started eating a lot more- much of it less-healthy ‘comfort’ food. And she gained all the weight back, plus more.

This weight gain happened to occur around the same time that she entered menopause and was also experiencing hormonal changes in her body.

But was menopause the reason she gained the weight?

There’s a lot of misinformation circulating on the internet about the relationship between hormones and weight. It leads women to ignore some of the more obvious explanations for weight gain. And it makes wellness trends like supplements, apple cider vinegar shots, and red light therapy incredibly appealing when nothing else has ‘worked’.

As for my client, the most obvious explanation for why she lost and then regained all that weight wasn’t menopause or hormones- at least not primarily. It was that before, she was doing lots of exercise and eating less. But then she stopped exercising and was eating a lot more. This is actually pretty common among women of all ages.

Bottom line: sometimes hormonal imbalances are the reason behind a woman’s weight gain or difficulty losing weight- and I’ll cover that below. But usually, it’s not the only reason. And identifying the best plan for losing weight requires figuring out why you’ve gained it - or why you’re struggling to lose it- in the first place.

two myths about weight

Before I get into the reasons behind weight loss struggles, let’s clarify two big misconceptions when it comes to weight. Oh- and they’re biggies.

Myth #1: You’ve got bad genes

You and your friend go out to lunch. She has the cheeseburger and is as skinny as a rail. Meanwhile you struggle to maintain your weight eating salads. You must be doomed, right?

Wrong.

Yes, there is a genetic component to metabolism- the process by which your body converts food into energy. Some people naturally have a faster metabolism than others. They got lucky!

But that doesn’t mean you can’t speed up your metabolism. And honestly, if you read anywhere that it’s not possible, I just want you to consider for a moment that many bodybuilders are able to eat almost 5,000 calories a day and remain a healthy weight.

They weren’t born like that. They trained their bodies to require more energy.

With the right diet and exercise, you, too, can speed up your metabolism. And with the wrong diet and exercise, you can slow it down. It’s that simple. You are not genetically doomed.

Myth #2: You’re getting older and can’t lose weight

Did you know: metabolism in adult women and men remains stable from age 20 to 60. Yes, you read that right. Your metabolism didn’t slow down when you turned 40 or entered menopause. That’s good news! It means you have much more control over your weight that you thought.

But guess what doesn’t remain stable as you age? Muscle mass.

After as early as age 30, if you’re not doing anything to build or maintain muscle (like lifting weights), then you are losing muscle. And when your muscle mass goes down, your metabolism goes down and your body fat percentage goes up.

That means you need to focus your efforts on maintaining and building muscle through strength training and eating enough protein. That’s what helps you avoid a metabolism slow-down as you grow older.

So let’s bring this back to menopause. Yes, sex hormones change when you hit perimenopause. And one big thing that tends to change is where your body stores fat. When you’re younger you tend to store fat around the hips and thighs, and in the (peri)menopause years that shifts to your belly area. But it doesn’t mean weight gain is inevitable. Weight gain is more a result of the factors I discuss below.

For most people, your weight is within your control. So let’s talk about the reasons why you might not be losing weight.

The more common reasons for weight struggles

Reason #1: You’re in a calorie surplus

Usually I hate to talk about calories. And I find many women hate to even think about calories. But at the end of the day, a discussion about weight wouldn’t be complete without addressing the role of calories. And the fact of the matter is, when you consume more energy (in the form of calories) than you expend, you’re going to gain weight.

This is commonly referred to as the law of thermodynamics, or ‘calories-in-calories-out’. It forms the theoretical basis of a lot of weight loss programs and, I’d venture to say, most people’s understanding of how weight loss works.

It leads most people to calculate, “ok, so if I exercise more and eat less, then I’m going to lose weight”.

And yes, done correctly, you will lose weight by being in a “calorie deficit”. And you’ll gain it if you’re eating more energy than you burn. But the fact is, metabolism is pretty complex. There are a lot of things that can speed up or slow down your metabolism and impact how much food you need to eat in order to lose weight- I’ll cover some of them in this post.

And that’s why weight loss is so challenging for so many women. Because controlling and monitoring your calorie intake is pretty straightforward, but:

• Your body will metabolize different types of food differently. All calories are not created equal.

  and

• Speeding up your body’s metabolism is not straightforward.

I think because we’ve been taught the wrong things for so long, most women end up believing that their metabolism is “fixed” by genetics, and that they need to eat like a bird and do tons of cardio to lose weight. Or even worse, that they’re broken and just can’t lose weight. But nothing could be further from the truth.

Reason #2: you’re restricting calories too much

Too much restrictive dieting will almost always result in weight gain. Whether that takes the form of going on and off Weight Watchers or keto, or doing too many detoxes or juice cleanses (and staying on them more than a couple days), restricting calories for too long trains your body to survive on fewer calories.

This is actually lifesaving! Because suppose food were actually scarce? Your body is equipped to survive by slowing the rate at which it converts calories into energy (your metabolism) so that you can live on less.

Essentially, when you go on a restrictive diet, you signal to your body that:

a) food is scarce, and

b) we need to change how we do things so we can survive on less food.

This is called metabolic adaptation. It’s why women eventually plateau when they’re on a diet. In other words, many women will go on a restrictive diet, and at first they’ll lose a bunch of weight. Maybe 10 or even 20 pounds (depending on their starting point). And then the weight loss slows down or even stops. At this point women often cut calories even more, thinking that they need to eat less in order to lose weight.

But eventually this gets tiring- both physically and mentally. Cravings for ‘off-limits’ foods intensify. And eventually, most women give in. And they end the diet and go back to eating more. And with their new, slower metabolism, they quickly gain back all the weight they lost, plus more.

An addendum to this: if you’re doing any kind of strength training, you need to fuel your body. When you lift weights, your body gets the signal that it’s time to build muscle. But if you’re not giving it the raw materials (calories & protein) to build the muscle, not much will happen. The end result might be that you’re working out but not seeing much results in the way of muscle tone or fat loss.

Reason #3: you’re Overdoing Cardio

I was talking with a friend the other day about how when we were teenagers in the 90’s, all the fitness “influencers” and magazines pushed cardio as the way you lose weight. All the classes at the gym were cardio. Most of the machines in the gym were cardio machines. That’s just how it was.

And even today, this line of thinking seems to prevail among many women. Most of my clients, when we start discussing exercise, want to get back to what they used to do. And usually it’s running. Or HIIT classes. Or spin.

And while running, HIIT, and other forms of cardio are good for cardiovascular fitness (heart health), they are not good for sustainable weight loss, especially if you’ve got a lot of weight to lose.

This can be hard to wrap your head around because, similar to restrictive dieting, it seems to make sense that if you want to be in a calorie deficit then you need to expend more energy than you take in. And cardio uses up a lot of energy!

Most people, when they start doing lots of cardio, do lose weight. And that can feel exciting! But it also tends to be short lived and lead to a weight loss plateau. Once you reach that plateau, you’ll have to do more cardio to continue losing weight. And eventually you’ll plateau again.

This is how so many women find themselves doing cardio, running, HIIT classes, and bootcamp six days a week and feeling like a failure because the weight’s not coming off.

Just like with calorie restriction, when you engage in excessive cardio, you’re teaching your body to become more efficient with the way that it expends energy. Your metabolism slows down, and your body starts shedding muscle mass because it’s more ‘expensive’ to maintain (remember, muscle burns more calories than fat). With less muscle, your metabolism slows even more.

Once you stop doing all the intense cardio, you’ll likely gain back whatever weight you lost, and then some.

after reading this far, what if you think you’re doing all the “right” things, but you’re Still not losing weight?

There are some additional factors to consider- especially relating to hormone and gut health- that can provide a more detailed understanding of why you’re gaining weight or having difficulty losing it. Here are the most common ones.

Reason #4: You have poor Gut health

Let’s talk about weight and your gut microbiome. Inside your gut (digestive system) live billions of microorganisms that influence not only your digestion but also your mood, hormones, metabolism, and- you guessed it- your weight. A growing body of scientific research on the relationship between the gut microbiome and weight shows that people who are overweight or obese usually have what’s called “gut dysbiosis”- a condition where the bacteria and microbes in your gut become unbalanced and there exists an overpopulation of “bad” bacteria. By contrast, people who have a healthy gut microbiome, with a large diversity of microbes and healthy balance of the ‘good’ and ‘bad’ microbes, tend to also have a healthy weight. (For an easy to understand summary of this growing research, see this article).

The reasons for the connection between weight and gut health are complex. On the one hand, there’s the obvious fact that people who have a healthy gut microbiome also are likely to eat an anti-inflammatory, gut-friendly diet filled with lots of plant foods- the kind of diet that also would help you maintain a healthy weight.

But studies also reveal other, sneakier ways that the gut microbiome impacts your weight. For example, when certain “bad” microbes outnumber good ones, they can cause changes in the balance of hormones that are responsible for metabolism and regulating your appetite, leading you to eat more and to crave foods high in sugar, salt, and fat (see this study for more).

What does this all mean for you?

First, for maintaining a healthy gut and healthy weight, the quality of the food you eat is at least as important (if not more so) than the quantity you eat. Generally speaking, a diet high in plant-based foods is a gut-friendly diet. Second, there’s also other things you can do to maintain a healthy gut- like manage stress, avoid unnecessary antibiotics, and limit the use of NSAIDs (i.e., ibuprofen).

Reason #5: You’re chronically stressed

For some people, stress kills their appetite and leads to unhealthy weight loss. Personally, I’ve experienced this myself and I’ve worked with women who react this way to stress, as well.

However, for most people, chronic stress brings on weight gain. Let’s explore how and why this happens.

If you’ve been under a lot of stress for weeks, months, or longer, you can easily develop a cortisol imbalance. Cortisol is a hormone your adrenal glands release and that you need for proper energy balance- it should be high in the morning to help you get started with your day, and then taper off till its lowest point, at nighttime, when you need to sleep. This is cortisol’s normal daily pattern in a healthy person.

Extra cortisol is released when you encounter stress of any kind. It’s part of your body’s natural “stress response”, meant to keep you safe from danger- you might know it colloquially as “fight or flight”. But it’s not just life-threatening stressors that lead your adrenal glands to release cortisol. It can include stresses that you might not even think are serious. For example:

• Emotional stress- like work, a toxic relationship, being a full-time caregiver, or just general overwhelm with everything you have to do.

• Physical stress- like an illness or injury, especially an ongoing one.

• Food stress- consuming processed foods or foods that you’re sensitive to, or not consuming enough foods with nutrients your body needs.

• Blood sugar imbalances- when your blood sugar goes low and you get that “hangry” feeling.

• High intensity cardio exercise- spin, bootcamps, CrossFit, Body Pump, running.

• Lack of sleep

If you’re often stressed and cortisol is continually spiked, cortisol levels in the body can reach a point where they become abnormally high all the time or at the wrong times of the day (i.e. high at night, when they should be low). Most women I’ve worked with in my coaching practice have experienced some sort of cortisol imbalance, usually after years of pushing themselves hard at work and in life.

High cortisol can lead you to gain weight in a couple ways. It increases your appetite and cravings for foods that provide quick energy- like sugar, fat, and ‘empty’ carbs. And it slows down your metabolism, and typically leads you to accumulate fat around your waist (visceral fat, known to be inflammatory). For more details see my blog post explaining the stress-weight connection.

What does this mean for you? Prioritizing stress management and bringing cortisol levels back to normal needs to be part of your strategy for weight loss and more generally, for living a healthy lifestyle.

Reason #6: You’re developing insulin resistance

If your doctor has said you have type 2 diabetes or pre-diabetes, what’s really going on is that you have insulin resistance- you have too much insulin and it no longer works the way it should. Let’s break this down.

When you eat a meal containing carbohydrates (for example, sweets, bread, pasta, potatoes, grains), your pancreas releases insulin into the bloodstream to help shuttle glucose from the carbohydrate-containing foods into your cells, for energy.

If you eat a lot of sugar and refined carbohydrates, your cells can eventually become resistant to the effects of insulin. Your pancreas will need to release more and more insulin to complete the job of regulating the amount of glucose in your blood (blood sugar) and getting the glucose into your cells. Eventually it will stop producing so much insulin. Then, when glucose can’t get into your cells and builds up in the blood, it ends up getting stored as fat. And once you start accumulating that kind of fat- especially around your belly area- losing it can be challenging.

Generally speaking, if you’re carrying significant weight around your belly, you’re at risk for developing insulin resistance. But, keep in mind that most doctors don’t order bloodwork to check insulin levels. The means even if you haven’t received a diagnosis of insulin resistance, you still might be experiencing it.

The solution? Eat a diet that’s good for your gut and your hormones, and balances blood sugar. Include lots of plants, protein, and omega-3 fats- and limit refined carbs and sugars.

Reason #7: You have a thyroid condition

Your thyroid plays a central role in regulating metabolism. An under-active thyroid- i.e. when your thyroid hormones are too low- can slow down metabolism and prompt weight gain, especially around your belly. This can happen even if you haven’t yet been formally diagnosed with hypothyroidism or Hashimotos- an autoimmune condition where the body attacks the thyroid.

If you’ve suddenly gained significant weight over the course of less than a year’s time, but you’ve changed your diet, exercise and daily routines very little, then consider getting your thyroid checked. If you do decide to go that route, be sure to ask your doctor to run the full spectrum of thyroid tests. Most doctors will test only for TSH (thyroid stimulating hormone), but this test misses many people who have an under-functioning thyroid. Instead, you can ask your doctor about running additional thyroid tests including:

• TSH

• Free T3

• Free T4

• Thyroid peroxidase antibodies (TPOAb) 

• Thyroglobulin antibodies (TgAb) 

• Reverse T3

And if you do receive a diagnosis of hypothyroidism or Hashimotos, the good news is that with that diagnosis, next steps become clearer. There are medications available and dietary changes you can make to improve thyroid function, improve your metabolism, and get back to a healthy weight. (I’ll save discussion of those dietary tweaks for another day!)

Reason #8: You’ve got estrogen dominance

An excess of estrogen, often called estrogen dominance, can make weight loss difficult. This can develop for a number of reasons, including:

• poor gut health (see above!)

• too much stress

• exposure to endocrine disrupting chemicals (found in plastics, household cleaners, and bath and body products)

The solution here is also pretty straightforward: eat a diet that’s friendly to your gut and hormones, find ways to manage stress, and look for ways to eliminate toxins from your home. I’ll get into all these things in future posts!

WHAT TO does all this mean for you?

First of all, the definition of a “healthy weight” isn’t at all clear. But if you’ve made the very personal decision that you want to lose weight, whether on recommendation from your doctor or to feel better about how you look and/or feel, I hope this post has given you a little insight into the key reasons behind weight gain and weight loss resistance.

For most people, the real reasons for weight struggles are multiple.

Think about this all-too-common scenario: you could be eating more calories than you burn, and if those calories come from processed foods and sugars, then you can develop gut dysbiosis. If you’re eating those foods as a reaction to stress in your life, you’ve also probably got a cortisol imbalance. Over time, eating high amounts sugary, processed, carb-laden foods can result in insulin resistance, both leading your body to store excess glucose as fat and placing greater stress on the body, thus impacting cortisol.

In other words, many things can be going on at once, and healthy weight loss can require a number of shifts in your diet, exercise, and daily lifestyle. There’s never a single ‘silver bullet’ that will solve weight loss resistance. Each person’s starting point and best strategy for moving forward can be a little bit different.

Learn more and take the right steps

Weight loss is a complex subject, so if you’ve got questions after reading this, please leave them below or feel free to shoot me an email. And if you’d like extra guidance on what your next steps should be, just book a quick Burnout Breakthrough Chat and we can get into the details of your specific health and/or weight struggles and how I might be able to help you move forward. I’m here to support you in whatever way I can.