By Jay Shreddinger
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May 2, 2024
"Im doing classes everyday, why am I not losing weight?" "Im hardly eating.." Two common things I hear, and whilst it sounds unbelievable, sometimes exercise does not equal to weight loss. Here are three questions you should honestly ask yourself. Are you really in a calorie deficit? To lose weight, you need to create a calorie deficit consistently over time. Essentially, burn more calories than you’re consuming over a long enough period, and you will lose weight. Exercise burns calories so it must automatically lead to weight loss, right? Not always! Unless you are maintaining that all-important deficit in your energy balance. This is why tracking your meals in a food diary and monitoring your daily activity levels with step count can be useful tools to highlight any areas which might be holding you back. Perhaps you are not a calorie-counting type of person. A caloric deficit will feel like you are starving yourself. This is where people fall into a trap and go on 30-hour fasts because they're not used to eating to a state of satiation, instead they eat to satisfaction, to the point where eating to satisfaction feels like its just enough. Eating to satiation is giving your body just enough nutrients and calories to go about your day, by today's standards its like starving yourself (do you get my drift?!). Are you moving less outside the gym? Non-exercise activity thermogenesis (NEAT) plays a significant role in weight loss—it's the energy expended in activities like walking, playing, or even fidgeting. Starting an exercise program can sometimes lead to a decrease in NEAT, which reduces energy expenditure and undermines your calorie deficit. Maintaining a high NEAT by aiming for at least 10,000 steps daily can counteract this effect.