I’m Eating Healthy. Why Can’t I Lose Weight?

Social media may say otherwise, but losing weight and keeping it off is hard. If you’ve tried to eat healthy for a while but see little to no progress, you might feel frustrated and defeated. And understandably so. 

While eating nutritious foods and consuming fewer calories than you burn are top priorities when you’re trying to lose weight, sometimes other factors work against you, keeping you from seeing the results you want. 

At Enrich Health and Wellness in Boerne, Texas, our team led by Maria Cole, APRN, FNP-C, is passionate about helping you achieve and maintain your goal weight. 

In this month’s blog, we discuss reasons you may not be losing weight despite eating a healthy diet and how we can help. 

Your hormones work against you

Fighting cravings and the urge to overeat may not be all in your head. Your hunger hormones might be out of balance, causing you to eat more than required even when your body doesn’t need any more food for energy. 

When you start to diet and shed some pounds, the hormone that signals fullness (leptin) goes down, and the hormone that signals hunger and triggers cravings (ghrelin) goes up. That can make sticking with a healthy diet difficult. 

Also, if you cut too many calories and initially lose a lot of weight, your body thinks you’re starving and slows your metabolism to conserve fat and energy. If you don’t exercise and build muscle, your significantly decreased metabolism puts the pounds you lost right back on. 

Your medications cause weight gain

Unfortunately, many pharmaceutical drugs, including diabetes medications, antipsychotics, and antidepressants, can cause weight gain as a side effect. These medications can slow down your metabolism, increase your appetite, and trigger your body to store more fat. 

Your diet isn’t as healthy as you think

A nutritious diet plays a huge role in a healthy lifestyle, but knowing what constitutes good nutrition isn’t easy. Reliable information on junk food addiction and fad diets can be hard to find, and many “healthy foods” in grocery stores are anything but. 

That means your diet might not be helping you lose weight, especially if you rely on diet supplements and fad diet foods to fill gaps in your nutrition or eating habits. 

You need an effective weight loss plan

Sometimes, you need concrete plans and accountability to keep you on track to lose weight. That’s why we offer comprehensive weight loss plans at Enrich Health and Wellness. 

We put together meal plans, nutrition supplements, and exercise routines to help you shed unwanted pounds in a way that works for you. 

A key part of our weight loss program is prescription medication, which can help you overcome barriers to weight loss that diet alone can’t. Our goal is to help you lose weight with the medications while you implement healthy lifestyle habits to keep the weight off. 

To get started with a customized weight loss plan, schedule an appointment with our team at Enrich Health and Wellness today by calling our office or booking your visit online.