Change Things Up to See Results

It’s a well known fact that the sooner that results are seen, the more motivated this leaves you to tackle the week or weeks ahead. You want those results, and quite frankly you want them fast since you are working really hard every day and want to see the fruits of your labor. 

First and foremost, it is worth mentioning that you must be patient with weight loss. If you are losing weight in a slow manner, then that is most likely an indicator that your diet approach is sustainable, helping you to create a more healthy lifestyle and keep the weight off in the long run. 

Many will ask the question, “How long is long enough to wait to see results?” There is no magical time frame; however if you are not seeing some results in two weeks then I would advise changing up a few things: 

Lower your calorie intake

Normally, as a general rule, weight loss is about a calorie deficit and doing more activity. If you are eating a certain amount of calories and aren’t seeing results in two weeks to one month, then you should try lowering your calories. This does not mean that you should just cut your calories entirely. When you restrict your calories for an extended period of time, your body wants to conserve energy and protect you from starvation. Therefore, it enters a state of adaptive thermogenesis, sometimes referred to as metabolic damage or starvation mode. However, this state of thermogenesis is much more difficult to achieve than people realize and for the most part, lowering calories is normally the best option for weight loss purposes. 

Increase protein or carb cycling 

If you are tracking the protein, fat, and carbs that you are eating on a daily basis, then you can look into changing the distribution of what you’re eating. If 50% of your diet involves carbohydrates and only 10% protein and 40% fat, then you could look to changing those ratios. 

Achieving higher protein amounts is normally a goal advisable to the general population for weight loss purposes. Protein helps to sustain muscle mass during weight loss. Sustaining muscle mass is important because having more muscle allows you to have a higher basal metabolic rate, meaning that you burn more calories at rest. 

If you are one to track these numbers, then you can also look into lowering your carbohydrates further on rest days versus active days to give your body that extra push to let go of that fat. 

Be patient

If someone is advertising a pill or a program that you are going to lose 10 pounds in 2 days, or something drastic then this is something that you should run far away from. Weight loss at that rate and volume is unsustainable nor desirable or healthy. Depending on the person, it is healthy to lose around two pounds per week as you slowly move in the direction of your goals. 

Nutrition is everything. Normally you can tweak things in your diet to get the results that you want. However, you want to make sure that your workouts are appropriate for the goals that you have set for yourself. By increasing your lean muscle mass, you increase your basal metabolic rate. Your basal metabolic rate is the number of calories that you are burning at rest. 

Change up your workouts 

The last thing that you want to do is to deplete muscle by eating very little and doing hours of cardio. This is only going to lower your muscle mass, lower your basal metabolic rate and make it even harder for you to diet in the future. A more sustainable change would be to switch from long cardio sessions to resistance training and high intensity interval cardio sessions. High intense cardio sessions are proven for better fat loss than a long steady state cardio session. 

Always, it’s very important to not lose hope. If you still don’t see results after making certain changes, then you simply need to keep searching for the approach that works better for you. It’s much easier to look back in six months, and feel in your heart that you know you achieved your goals regardless of what the scale says versus knowing that you gave up on your goals. 

So, keep pushing, make positive, impactful changes, and reach out to those around you for extra help if you are still struggling to find what works best for you.

Katie is a pharmacist from NC. She moved to New York City with her husband and two teacup yorkies for an adventure. After completing her doctorate in pharmacy last May, Katie decided to pursue nutrition coaching. Katie specializes in creating custom macronutrient profiles for clients based on their individual goals. You can find Katie on her blog Katiesfitscript.

Main Photo Credit: antoniodiaz/Shutterstock.com; Second Photo Credit: alexpro9500; Third Photo Credit: Lopolo/Shutterstock.com; and Fourth Photo Credit: fiphoto/Shutterstock.com.