Why Can't I lose Weight?

I get the question every week from someone. “Why can’t I lose weight? What am I doing wrong? I understand the frustration. Before I reached my goal of 160 pounds and that wasn’t really my goal, I just wanted to lose body fat. I didn’t know what weight I’d end up at. But once I fell below 160 and I knew I hadn’t been that low since high school, and I was 70 years old, it was time to stop losing weight and start building muscle.

This is a 1200 word post, you might want to save it and read it when you have time.

I was the king of yo-yo diets. Over 30 years, I gained and lost more weight than I can count. I started at 220 pounds back when I was around 35 years old. I’d lose some weight because I cut back on some foods and I was able to keep off some weight, but the progress I was making was very slow. It took me about 10 years to get down to 185 and maintain that weight. Yes, I was still yo-yo-ing but now I just weighed less. About 180 pounds was the plateau I couldn’t break. I stayed at that weight for a few years until I knew the only way to become fit and healthy was to lose body fat. All the time I was working to lose weight, and I did drop 35 or 40 pounds, I wasn’t losing any fat and I thought it was my workout, but I didn’t know how to fix it.

I started to eat better, healthier foods but I wasn’t making a total change to a healthier diet. I was taking the advice of others who would tell me that all I had to do was make a few changes and you’ll lose weight. After I decided that wasn’t going to work, I started reading about “losing body fat” and discovered that all of us don’t lose fat the same way. It all depends on your age, your sex, and the big one, “how much body fat you have”. There are a few more variables like prescription drugs and your race, but the first three are the big ones. Let’s talk about the first three: age is a fact in how you lose fat because a young person with a strong heart can do different exercises than I can because I’m a senior. Your sex makes a difference because women lose fat differently than men and women carry fat differently than men. And then, the big one, “how much fat do you have now?”

What makes this a little complicated, is you first want to know how much fat you have now, you want to know your percentage of body fat, then taking into consideration your age and sex, you can make a plan to lose your fat. Having said that, no one can lose all their fat and stay healthy, but you can be about 20% body fat and be healthy as long as you keep a proper weight. Now, if all of this sounds a little too complicated for you, just remember, I didn’t learn everything I know about weight loss or reduction in body fat, all in one day. But if you have been fighting your weight loss problems for years, you might want to become a student in the subject and read all you can find on the subject.

I could tell you, just to see your doctor, which is a good idea if you’re taking prescriptions or see a dietician or a fitness guru, but losing body fat is not the same as losing weight and you can’t lose fat and build muscle both at the same time. You want to lose your fat first then work on building muscle to make you stronger and to maintain your weight.

Losing fat is about changing how you eat. First of all, I’ll tell you how I did it.  I read that your body needs to burn some fat every fat, but it’s fussy about the type of fat it burns. First of all your body burns calories to provide the energy your body needs to work properly. 30% of those calories will come from fat. 70% is calories from protein and carbs. The real breakdown looks like this:

Fats 30%

Protein 20%

Carbs 50%

The average person today eats all wrong. They eat too much protein and fats and not enough carbs. We get the protein and fats from the meats and other processed foods we eat. If you overeat on animal meat you also are getting the animal fat that’s in all animal meat, you can’t avoid it.

If you want to lose body fat, the only way is for the body to burn your stored fat as energy. The way I lost my excess fat was to stop eating animal meat. The body needs to burn 30% of those calories in fats of one kind or another but it will go for the easy fats first. Your body has to burn some of each type of calorie for different body functions. It burns fats for your heart and your joints, but it doesn’t care where the fats come from, so if you’re not eating enough fats it will burn some of your stored fats, and that is how I lost my excess fat.

I know what you’re thinking, “why doesn’t the body burn more protein?” Okay, good question, Protein is a very heavy material and so when the body burns protein for energy it gets twice the energy per gram of protein than it would from Fat. Basically, one gram of fat will produce 4 calories of energy and one gram of protein produces 8 calories of energy.

Now we have even a bigger question, “how many calories does your body need to burn in one day. Not as much as you might think. If your body is getting all the nutrition it needs from all three of the food groups, it will probably only need about 1500 calories for a woman and about 200 more for a man. But those numbers all depend on your age, sex, and activity level or how active you are. And another mistake we make is that you should be adjusting your calorie intake by your activity level. In other words, if you work out today you should eat another 300 calories more than if you sat at your desk all day and came home and watch TV. The more you’re on your feet the more calories you’ll burn.

The body works in real-time and we should adjust our calories to match our activity level that day. Eating should be done to replace the calories you burn. We as modern men are trying to burn all the calories we consume and that is an impossible task. So if you can’t burn all the calories you consume that day, the body will turn the excess into fat and store it in fat cells. I get the question every week from someone. “Why can’t I lose weight? What am I doing wrong? I understand the frustration. Before I reached my goal of 160 pounds and that wasn’t really my goal, I just wanted to lose body fat. I didn’t know what weight I’d end up at. But once I fell below 160 and I knew I hadn’t been that low since high school, and I was 70 years old, it was time to stop losing weight and start building muscle.

Look for my podcasts on anchor.fm, or the podcast app on your cell phone. Search “howbaddoyouwanttoloseweight”.

If you really want to lose your body fat then look for my e-books at the websites listed below. You’ll get information on Healthy eating, exercise, and diet. Instead of spending hours on the internet reading dozens of posts, you can save time by picking up one of my e-books.

There are two e-books. “How Bad Do You Want To Lose Weight?” is available at all the online bookstores selling for $3.99. Go to any of the websites below and search the title to find my e-book. This book gives you all you need to lose weight without spending money on gym memberships, diet plans, or meal plans. Look for my book. at Amazon.com, B&N.com, iBooks, Kobo.com, Scribd.com, or Gardner Books in the U.K.

My new e-book is available on Smashwords.com, just type “getting to a Healthy Weight” in the search box at the top of the home page.