Let’s go through the most common mistakes I’ve seen myself and my fitness warriors do, which cause weight loss stagnation or even weight gain.
I am taking it as a given that you are logging everything you eat and drink, logging your daily exercise, and staying on your weight loss budget. We call this process ‘Stalking Enemies Territory’ in Queen’s Quest. If you are not ‘stalking’ yet – you have no idea how much food and what type of food you really consume. Without having an idea about ‘how little is your little’ – there is no way to lose weight. As simple as that.
So let’s say you are ‘stalking’ daily, staying on budget and still your weight is not changing. Here are several important points to pay attention to.
1) Alcohol.
Alcohol is quite a disadvantageous type of food. It has its own agenda and is a Trojan Horse, boldly stripping you off your personal power.
I know – we are not afraid of personal power loss. We barely remember having it, so who cares? Therefore I’ve decided not to give you any wishy-washy spiritual reasons, but a single one appealing to your rational mind.
Here it goes – If you drink alcohol you can not lose weight because:
a) Your body can not store alcohol.
b) Once you’ve consumed alcohol – your body starts metabolizing it out of your system.
c) As long as your body metabolizes alcohol – it is not able to metabolize stored body fat.
d) By consuming alcohol you are actually hindering yourself to burn body fat by at least 48 hours!
If you drink every day – you never burn body fat.
2) Eating after 6 pm.
If you just Goodle ‘eating after 6 pm’ – you’ll get a huge variety of reasons why not to eat at night. For me most of those reasons are secondary and may be even far-fetched.
The most important reason is – we need a minimum period of fast every day to manage our weight. The minimum length of this period appears to be 12 hours: from 6 pm to 6 am.
The night time appears to be the easiest time to fast. During sleep, hormone leptin levels increase, telling your brain you have plenty of energy for the time being and there’s no need to trigger the feeling of hunger. Therefore we do not feel hungry at night and can easily fast.
Skeptical? Think about this one word: ‘breakfast’. This is something we do in the morning. We are breaking the fast. 🙂
3) Going to bed after 12 am.
“The hormone leptin is intricately involved in the regulation of appetite, metabolism and calorie burning. Leptin is the chemical that tells your brain when you’re full, when it should start burning up calories and, by extension, when it should create energy for your body to use.
During sleep, leptin levels increase, telling your brain you have plenty of energy for the time being and there’s no need to trigger the feeling of hunger or the burning of calories.
When you don’t get enough sleep, you end up with too little leptin in your body, which, through a series of steps, makes your brain think you don’t have enough energy for your needs.
So your brain tells you you’re hungry, even though you don’t actually need food at that time, and it takes steps to store the calories you eat as fat so you’ll have enough energy the next time you need it.
The decrease in leptin brought on by sleep deprivation can result in a constant feeling of hunger and a general slowdown of your metabolism.” [Source: https://science.howstuffworks.com/life/sleep-obesity1.htm]
4) Drinking less than half a gallon (two liters) of water per day.
Drinking not enough water results in your body:
a) holding on to water reserves (water weight),
b) overeating (we do confuse thirst for hunger and eat more than we need)
c) and slowing down your metabolism.
5) Drinking soda and / or eating junk food (even if you stay on budget).
There is a science behind it. Once I’ve done my research I will report to you what really happens on the biochemical level. At this point in time I just share my observation from the my secret online fitness game: Women who consume junk food, even if they exercise and stay on budget – tend to stagnate in their weight loss.
6) Eating your largest meal in the evening.
I’ve noticed that weight loss goes smoother for women who make their dinner the lightest meal of the day, consuming most of their calories during the breakfast and lunch.
If your weight loss is stagnating – please check across these six points and adjust accordingly.
Much love,
Baby J (The Perfect Queen)
This and more fun insights in My Secret Online Fitness Game! Not in the game yet? Let me know in the comments!
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