A lot of people struggle to lose weight despite seemingly doing all the right things. In fact, a lot of people have reported actually stepping on the scales and noticing a weight gain after weeks of weight loss efforts. You might be wondering how that could be possible and the truth is, you might simply be doing a few minor things wrong without even realizing it. Read on to see four reasons why your weight loss plan might not be working as planned:
Insufficient sleep
The truth is, if you do not have a proper night’s rest, your body cannot probably won’t function properly. Insufficient sleep has been shown to cause a spike in the production of Ghrelin and a drop in the amount of Liptin produced in the body. These two hormones are extremely important as Ghrehlin is responsible for the sensation of hunger pangs and Leptin controls the cues your brain sends to your stomach, triggering the feeling of fullness. Clearly, acquiring the right amount of sleep is crucial.
Dehydration
Dehydration can affect your body while you’re trying to lose weight because the body has a tendency to mistake thirst signals for hunger; so you might find that when your body is poorly hydrated, you might feel a bit more hungry.
Over-training
As surprising as this might sound, over-training can be another reason why people gain weight. Longer, harder workouts might actually lead to injury and longer recovery periods which give the body enough time to re-accumulate all the lost weight.
Weight training
Muscle building is one very smart and effective way to lose fat because muscle growth stimulates higher metabolism levels which then causes more fat to get burnt up to provide energy. While this is a fairly well-known fact, not very many people know that muscles are actually heavier than fat and so you shouldn’t be surprised to see that you might actually weigh a bit more after a week or two of muscle building than when you started.
Conclusion
Any one of these factors could be responsible for any unexpected weight gain when you’re on a weight loss plan. Make sure you take care to get enough sleep, stay hydrated and do not over train. Also remember that the scales do not always tell the whole story,and your weight gain might simply be due to increased muscle mass.