At the most basic level, not reaching your weight loss goal can occur when calorie intake is equal to or higher than calorie use. Try strategies such as mindful eating, keeping a food diary, eating more protein, and doing strength exercises.
Muscle is denser than fat.
While one pound of fat weighs the same as one pound of muscle, muscle occupies about 18 percent less space. In addition, muscle burns calories while fat stores them. So, if your weight isn't decreasing but your clothes are starting to fit more loosely, you may be building muscle.
Many factors can affect your ability to lose weight, including certain health conditions, your dieting and weight loss history, age-related changes and your mother's diet and weight changes during pregnancy.
If you're consuming too few calories your body essentially goes into starvation mode and receives the message that it needs to protect itself. This means holding onto weight for protection's sake. The body perceives reduced calorie intake as a stressor.
Your Metabolism Will Slow Down to Store Fat
The more you work out or manage your calorie intake to lose weight, the more your metabolism wants to compensate by slowing down to maintain your current weight, this is called metabolic compensation. It kicks in to preserve and store fat for future energy.
You're eating too much during your eating window.
“If you end up consuming the same number of calories (or more) during your eating windows as before you started intermittent fasting, then you won't lose weight.”
You've Gained Muscle Mass
If you're exercising regularly and doing a mix of cardio and strength training, it's very likely your body composition (ratio of muscle to fat) is changing for the better. If you're gaining muscle while losing fat, the scale may not show any weight change.
If you eat too much junk food, then you probably won't lose any weight, and you may even gain weight. You should eat the same amount of food as if you hadn't been fasting at all. The 5:2 diet involves eating normally for five days per week, then restricting your calorie intake to 500–600 calories on the other two days.
One of the main reasons why burning calories through exercise may still not result in weight loss is due to overexertion, or inflammation of your body. If you exercise too hard on a daily basis, there is an excess of inflammation in your body. All the added up inflammation makes you gain more weight than lose.
The hormone leptin is produced by fat cells and is secreted into our bloodstream. Leptin reduces a person's appetite by acting on specific centres of their brain to reduce their urge to eat. It also seems to control how the body manages its store of body fat.
Some of the best natural metabolism boosting supplements for this are caffeine, capsaicin, green coffee bean extract, and green tea extract. Including them in your diet will help you see some benefits, but the greatest effects come from taking metabolism pills such as Leanbean or PhenQ.
Magnesium helps regulate metabolism and supports healthy muscle function, both of which are essential for weight loss.
1. Magnesium: Magnesium levels in the body regulates blood glucose levels and a good control over glucose matters a lot when it comes to weight loss.
Probiotics may help you lose weight and belly fat
In particular, studies have found that certain strains of the Lactobacillus family can help you lose weight and belly fat. In one study, eating yogurt with Lactobacillus fermentum or Lactobacillus amylovorus reduced body fat by 3–4% over 6 weeks (29).
Over time, studies have shown that metabolic rate (how fast we burn calories) starts to slow down by 2 to 3 percent each decade, beginning in our 20s. It becomes more noticeable between ages 40 and 60.
There is research to support that strength training and high intensity interval training (HIIT) are ways to improve your lean body mass, which in turn can improve/speed up your metabolism. These exercise methods, while intuitively eating and taking rest, can help improve your overall metabolism.
The diet doesn't have enough calories
Eating too little — say, 1,000 calories a day — can prevent you from losing weight, too. "When you don't eat enough, your body is starving and it's not going to lose any extra weight" because it needs those energy stores to keep you alive, Fakhoury said.
Lummus says that when your body goes into starvation mode, your metabolism slows to a crawl, burning calories as slowly as possible to conserve its energy stores. This is why people who cut their calories too much may reach a plateau and stop losing weight.