Effective,
healthy weight loss isn’t only due to the simplistic calories in,
calories out paradigm. Nor is it solely reliant on diet and exercise.
It’s everything – it’s all the various signals our body receives from
the environment that affect how our
genes express
themselves and thrive. How we approach the subject matters, too. Our
mood, our methods, our temperament. Our conscious decisions and our
willpower. It’s setting good habits and expunging bad ones. Most of all,
it comes down to keeping our genes happy by providing an environment
that approximates evolutionary precedent.
1. You think you’re eating healthy, but aren’t.
Does your diet consist of a massive amount of “products”? Low-carb or not, you want to eat
real food.
Flagons of diet soda, plates of pure fiber in the shape of noodles, and
loaves of 1g net carb “bread” do not a Primal eating plan make. You’re
just feeding an addiction and consuming empty calories – sound familiar?
Disregard the labels and look inside for what you know to be true: this
crap isn’t food, and you shouldn’t be eating it. It’s about way more
than just low-carb.
2. You’re under too much stress.
The stress response system is subconscious; it responds to stimuli
and nothing else. Emotional stress, physical stress, financial stress,
relationship stress – I hesitate to even make these distinctions,
because the body does not differentiate between sources of stress. They
all cause the body to produce
cortisol, the fight-or-flight hormone that catabolizes muscle, worsens insulin resistance, and
promotes the storage of fat.
For 200,000 years, stress meant a life or death situation. It was
intense and infrequent, and the cortisol release was arresting and
extreme enough to improve the chances of survival. Today, our body
responds to a stack of paperwork the same way. Traffic jams are like
rival war bands. A nagging boss is like a rampaging mastodon, only on a
daily basis. Take a step back from your life and take stock of your
stress levels – they may be holding you back.
3. You need to watch your carb intake.
Carbs are key, as always, especially when you’ve got weight to lose. Veer closer to the bottom of
the curve, taking care to avoid all processed food (hidden sugars). You might also try skipping fruit.
4. You’re adding muscle.
I always tell people
not to get hung up on the scales
so much. Those things are useful – don’t get me wrong – but they never
tell the whole story, like whether or not you’re adding lean mass. The
PB will spur fat loss, but it also promotes muscle gain and better bone
density. If you’re feeling good but failing to see any improvements
register on the scale’s measurements, it’s most likely extra muscle and
stronger bone from resistance training. You wouldn’t know that just from
the bathroom scale. If you absolutely need objective records of your
progress, get a body fat percentage test (although these
might not even tell the whole story) or try measuring your waist.
5. You’re not active enough.
Are you
Moving Frequently at a Slow Pace
for three to five hours every week? Remember: the near-daily low-level
(between 55-75% max heart rate) movement should be the bedrock of your
fitness regimen. It’s easy to do (because every bit of movement counts)
and it doesn’t dip into your
glycogen
reserves (making it a pure fat burner, not a sugar burner). If you’re
on the low end of the spectrum, crank it up toward five weekly hours and
beyond.
6. You’re lapsing into Chronic Cardio.
Of course, you can go too far with the low-level movement – you can begin to lapse into
Chronic Cardio. When you stay above 75% of your maximum heart rate for extended periods of time, you’re burning glycogen. Your body in turn
craves even more sugar
to replenish the lost stores, so you polish off a heap of carbs,
preferably simple and fast-acting. You can continue down this route if
you wish – I did, for a couple decades – but you’ll gain weight, lose
muscle, release more cortisol, and compromise any progress you might
have made.
7. You still haven’t tried IF.
Results vary, but if you’ve seemingly tried everything else,
intermittent fasting can be a great tool to break through a
weight loss plateau. Make sure you’ve fully transitioned onto a Primal eating plan and
start small.
Skip breakfast and eat a late lunch. If that feels okay, skip breakfast
and lunch the next time. Just take it slow and pay attention to your
hunger.
Eventually, try exercising in a fasted state to maximize the metabolic
advantage. If all goes well, your hunger won’t necessarily disappear,
but it’ll change. A successful IF tames hunger, makes it less insistent
and demanding.
8. You’re eating too much.
Low-carb isn’t magic. It reins in wild hunger and tames insulin, but
calories do still matter – especially once you approach your ideal
weight. In fact, those last few pounds often don’t respond to the same
stuff that worked so well to get you to this point. Eating
nut butter by the spoonful and hunks of
cheese
without regard for caloric content may have gotten you this far, but
you’ve got to tighten things up if things aren’t working. And that’s the
real test, isn’t it? There is a metabolic advantage to eating according
to the PB, but if the weight isn’t coming off, something’s up – and
calories may need to come down.
9. You haven’t overcome bad habits or developed good ones.
Be brutally honest with yourself. Do you engage in
bad habits?
If so, identify them. Make tentative, loose plans to disengage from
their clutches, and tell people close to you. Make it public, so you
can’t back out without losing face. You’ve also got to
develop good ones.
Follow roughly similar guidelines as when kicking a bad habit –
identification, planning, publication – and you’ll be on your way.
10. You haven’t purged and Primalized your pantry.
Out of sight, out of mind; out of reach, out of mouth. Keep the crappy junk food
out of your pantry,
if not out of your house altogether. Go down the list and toss the
stuff that doesn’t apply. As for the rest of your kitchen, check out the
fridge interiors and
grocery lists of some other Primal folks for inspiration.
11. You’ve reached a healthy homeostasis.
It may be that your body has reached its “ideal” weight – its
effective, genetic set point. Reaching this level is generally painless
and effortless, but it won’t necessarily correspond to your desired
level of leanness. Women, especially, tend to achieve healthy
homeostasis at higher body fat levels. Breaking through plateaus can be
hard enough, but plateaus ordained by the body itself can be nearly
impossible. It’s probably going to take some serious tinkering with
carbs, calories, activity levels, sleep, and stress. If everything else
is on point and accounted for, you may be looking at
healthy homeostasis. Then, the question becomes: do you want to mess with a good thing?
12. You’re low on willpower.
Willpower
is like a muscle. It must be used or it will atrophy. You’ve also got
to provide fuel for your will – little victories to start out. Go for a
walk if you can’t muster the will for the gym. Take note that willpower,
or lack thereof, might actually be an indicator of your body’s needs.
If you truly can’t muster up the will for the gym, it may be that your
body needs to
recover. When that’s the case, overtraining is a bigger danger than lack of will.
13. You’re full of excuses.
If you find yourself having mini self-contained internal arguments
throughout the day (and you lose), or (even worse) lying to yourself
about what you’re eating and doing, you’re probably also full of
excuses. Read
this, maybe twice, then follow up with
this.
14. You haven’t actually gone Primal!
We get a good number of new readers on a regular basis, and not all
of them take instantly to the Primal concepts. And yet they come back.
They read the
archives,
the comments. Something draws them near, while at the same time keeping
them at arm’s length. Why is that? What’s stopping them? If that
describes you, what are you waiting for? Take the plunge.
Go Primal for 30 days and see how you like it. I assure you; the many
enthusiastic community members are here because it works.
15. You’re not getting enough sleep.
Chronic levels of sleep deprivation cause the release of cortisol,
our old fat-storing friend. The biggest spike in (fat-burning, anabolic)
growth hormone plasma levels
occurs in deep sleep. And a recent sleep study showed that
truncated sleep patterns are linked to weight gain. Get seven to eight hours of sleep a night.
16. You haven’t given it enough time.
The Primal Blueprint is a fat loss hack, undoubtedly, but it isn’t always a shortcut. Some people get instant results from dropping carbs,
grains, sugar, and
vegetable oils,
while others have to take a month to get acclimated and only then does
the weight begin to slide off. Either way, though, this is a lifestyle.
You’re in it for
the long run. Approach it with the right mindset and you won’t get discouraged.
17. You’re eating too much dairy.
Some people just react poorly to dairy. We see this time and time again listed in the
forums;
dairy just seems to cause major stalls in fat loss for a good number of
folks. There are a couple speculative reasons for this. One, folks
coming from a strict paleo background may not be acclimated to the more
relaxed Primal stance on dairy. Reintroducing any food into the diet
after a period of restriction can have unintended consequences on
body composition.
Two, dairy is insulinogenic, which is why it’s a popular post-workout
refueling tool for athletes. Does a non-strength training PBer need to
drink a few glasses of milk every day? Probably (definitely) not.
Bonus Reason: Sprinting is not part of your fitness routine.
I’ve found that many assume that they’re getting everything they need
from their workouts from plenty of low level aerobic activity and a
couple of strength training sessions each week.
Sprinting is often overlooked, but it’s one of the
Primal Blueprint Laws for a reason. Nothing shreds you up faster than
sprinting. I’d ease into
sprints
if you’ve never done them or are extremely out of shape or overweight.
That is, I recommend you have some measure of fitness aptitude before
you jump into a routine. But once you’re ready do 6-8 all out sprints
(with short breaks between) once a week to break a weight loss plateau
when all other attempts have failed.
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