One of the most googled questions online are the questions about losing weight and how to do it. It doesn’t come as a surprise that many people who struggle with their weight loss journey, try to find a way to make this process more efficient, faster and easier if possible. However, the answers are usually the same: you have to exercise, sleep well, drink a lot of water and finally – have fantastic nutrition in order to stay healthy and get the results you want.
Although this sounds like a simple concept at first, the vast majority of people aren’t really capable of maintaining a healthy lifestyle or at least fitting it into their busy lives. We are all trying to handle all of our daily tasks and when we get some time for ourselves, we usually just want to relax, more often than we want to include some extra activities.
This means that when the weekend finally arrives, not so many people are willing to sacrifice a few hours or even a whole day in order to prepare meals for the next week, exercise or improve themselves in other ways. Many of us just want to sleep, get the much-needed rest or simply relax with a favorite TV show or a favorite book.
Finally, before you notice, the weekend is already gone and you have to go back to your work duties, and you have to deal with the same challenges you are dealing with every day, which seems like a burden that is already too big, to even try and fit anything else.
While losing weight is one of the top concerns people have all over the world, there still is a category of people that would die to gain a couple of pounds. These are the people that no matter what they do, cannot gain the weight they’ve always wanted to.
They are skinny and they usually don’t know the reasons behind their low body weight. Some would say that people like this are happy to be skinny since they don’t have to deal with losing weight, while in reality – this is a problem that is as equally big as a problem with having excessive fat.
We all know that obesity is one of the biggest causes of death, and it’s one of the biggest issues that can cause serious mental and physical problems and reduce one’s quality of life tremendously, causing heart problems, diabetes, even some types of cancer.
But conditions such as anorexia or bulimia or just a body fat percentage that is too low can also cause certain problems in your organism that can be equally serious, such as cardiovascular diseases, shorter life expectancy, a poor immune system that can easily get attacked by many infections, viruses or diseases, and finally – even brain and nervous system disorders.
That being said, it seems like being healthy is somewhere in the middle. What about being lean or bulky?
What if you’re completely healthy and you’re just trying to gain weight? You’ve started exercising but nothing happens. You are also eating properly and trying to prepare your own meals and consume only healthy foods, but it seems like you’re losing weight instead of gaining it. What’s the reason behind this? There could be several reasons you should know about. Let’s dig into it:
1. Calorie deficit
This is the number one reason why you’re probably not able to gain weight no matter what you do. Food is essential for being able to gain muscle (and fat!); consuming enough food also means taking supplements in order to be in a calorie suficit, rather than a calorie deficit.
Just like people who want to lose weight have to constantly be in a calorie deficit, if you want to gain weight you need to be eating more and be consistent in eating more than you think is the right amount of food for you. In order to be able to do this, you have to make a detailed plan of your meals and plan your nutrition beforehand. Check out a beginners guide to supplements by visiting Bulk Nutrients online.
There are also some factors that may contribute to you not absorbing calories the right way, and those factors could be your hormones, digestion, or the amount of exercise you do on a daily basis. But the rule is simple – you need to reach a certain amount of calories per day, and you also have to eat enough protein.
Considering the fact that sometimes it’s too hard to get that much protein, you need to include BSc protein powder with pure creatine and other supplements such as weight gainers in order to hit that calorie number, while at the same time, ingesting enough protein, carbohydrates, fats and other essential nutrients for your body.
2. The wrong type of workout
If you don’t have a good workout plan, this could also be counterproductive. In case you didn’t know, too much cardio might be the reason why you’re losing weight instead of gaining it. Cardio workouts are meant to burn your fat and this is exactly what you don’t want to achieve.
If your workouts are cardio-based, you’re not only going to lose weight, but you will also lose muscles because the very type of workout has been shown to slow down the development of your muscle mass.
A better option for you would be to lift weights at least four times a week or combine lifting weights and hiit workouts.
img source: betterme.worldYou can also schedule your workouts through the best online personal training software.
However, in your case you need to understand that less is more and you need to pay attention to the number of your workouts per week. You need some quality time to rest and some good night’s sleep. if you excessively workout too many times a week, you won’t get the results you want in the end.
3. Not being consistent
The one thing you need to constantly keep in your mind is the fact that nothing comes overnight. Losing weight is a slow process but it is still much faster when compared to gaining weight. Don’t think that you’re not making any progress, only because your progress is slow. You need to mentally prepare to combine good nutrition, great exercises and other elements for an extended period of time if you want the best results. Also, you need to make sure that you’re being consistent with your workouts because working out once or twice a week will do nothing for you, especially if you make even bigger breaks between your workouts. Three workouts per week is an ideal number if you are a beginner, and four times a week if you are advanced.