10 Reasons You Aren’t Losing Weight

“I was provided a free Jenny Craig Weight Loss Starter Kit. However, the opinions expressed are entirely my own.”

Losing weight is hard. I watched my mom struggle with weight my entire childhood and I never really understood why. Then I had a baby. It took four years of struggling to get that baby weight off and it took the most self control I have ever had to show. Now my little one is just about ready to wean and I am ready to focus on getting my body back. These are the reasons I struggle to get the weight off. Knowing about them helps me watch out for them and keep them from becoming stumbling blocks.

1. You reward yourself with food for exercising. We often overestimate how many calories we burned during our exercise. So if you burn a few hundred calories, but indulge in something calorie heavy as a reward. You are going to see the scale go up, not down. Be aware of how many calories your reward has in it and ask yourself if you really want to use those calories you just burned on it.

2. You drink your calories. It is so easy to pack on lots of extra calories when you are eating them and drinking them. Try switching to infused waters to give yourself a hint of flavor without adding the sugar and calories. Make sure to get adequate fluids to help facilitate your weight loss.

3. You are either cutting calories or exercising. Losing weight needs a balance of the both. Eating a healthy number of calories and exercising will provide much better results.

4. You do the same thing over and over. The longer you do a type of exercise, the more your body gets used to it. Shake it up, push a little bit harder, try something new.
5. Time. Weight loss takes time. It takes 4 weeks for you to notice your body changing, 8 weeks for your friends and family to notice and 12 weeks for the world to notice. Three months seems like a long time, but the time is going to pass anyways, so you might as well start getting healthy.
6. Focusing solely on the big goal instead of the little one. You need to set big and little goals. If you only focus on the fact that you want to lose 20 pounds, it is easy to discourage. Instead focus on losing 1-2 pounds a week and track when you meet those little goals too!
7. Giving up because you messed up. Just because you had a bad day, week or even month. Don’t give up. We have all been there. Just keep going. It is so easy for me to say oops, I ate a cupcake, I have already ruined today so I am going to eat 3 more. You don’t need to make a day worse because you had a slip.
8. Stress. When you have extra stress in your life, it is easy to pack on more weight. Make sure you take time to yourself and eliminate stress when possible.
9. Sleep. Get enough sleep each night to keep your body healthy and able to lose weight.

10. Support. This is absolutely the biggest one for me. It is so hard to lose weight alone. I have done it before, after my first daughter I was able to kick my rear in gear and lose the weight, but it took me four years. Yup, four years. I never really had a plan, I kind of just did whatever. I lost some, gained it back and struggled. This time, I am actually giving Jenny Craig a try. Walmart has these new exclusive three days trial packs, so you can try the program for three days and see if it truly is for you. You can find them in the diet/weight loss aisle and they come with 23 meals and snacks.

Walking into or calling a Jenny Craig was absolutely terrifying for me, I would never have done it, but now that I have tried the food and I feel more confident with the program, it isn’t a problem at all. Included with the kit is a free consultation to get guidance on your trial and a $50 food savings certificate if you join the program after your trial.  The think that steered me to try them is because you don’t have to count or track. You eat their food, and you don’t have to worry about the calories because they have done the work for you. You get to pick the food you are going to eat each week, so you know it is things that you like and want to eat and it is set up for you to eat six smaller meals throughout the day so you feel fuller.

Members who meet with their consultant regularly do much better and it comes down to support. You have someone who is completely on your side. Rooting for you to succeed. I love that the Jenny Craig Walmart Packs allowed me to try their product before I committed to it.

Which of these 10 things is the one holding you back?