Not losing weight with intermittent fasting?
It can be very frustrating.
Here you are, you think you’ve finally found the magic pill. Then, it just stops working.
Today, I’m gonna show you 5 reasons why you’re not losing weight with intermittent fasting. Or worse, why you might even be gaining weight even though you’re intermittent fasting.
Imagine that.
5 Reasons Why You’re NOT Losing Weight With Intermittent Fasting
Let’s start with the most obvious reason why you’re not losing weight with intermittent fasting.
Don’t feel bad if this is you. This is very common for a lot of people.
1. You’re simply still eating too much
You fast for however long you decided to fast. But after that, all bets are off during your eating window. It’s a free for all.
This is one of the biggest mistakes I see why people aren’t losing weight time and time again.
Yes, intermittent fasting is one of the best tools to have at your disposal when it comes to improving your health and reaching your fat loss goals.
But, it’s just that. It’s just a tool. It’s not a magic bullet.
More than anything, it’s an extremely easy way to put yourself on a calorie deficit because you’re eating less frequently. It’s also an unbelievably effective way to moderate insulin which is your storing hormone.
When insulin is low, it allows you to tap into your almost unlimited fat stores and burn it for energy. But that doesn’t just happen overnight. Especially if you’ve been overweight for a long time.
You develop something called insulin resistance.
You need to practice intermittent fasting long enough, and that’s another mistake in in itself where you’re just impatient, while pairing it with a diet that moderates your insulin levels to reverse it.
Eventually, you’ll get to a point where you become metabolically flexible.
Metabolic flexibility is when you can easily tap into your fat stores and burn it for energy in between meals.
But if your diet is average at best. You’re still eating a lot of refined carbs and sugar. It’s only gonna be a matter of time until you hit the dreaded weight loss plateau.
You’re basically counteracting all the benefits you just got from intermittent fasting. Eating junk promotes metabolic inflexibility. You’re basically taking one step forward by fasting, and two steps back because of your diet.
What you eat and when you eat are equally important when it comes to losing weight.
Intermittent fasting takes care of the ‘when you eat’ part. But you also have to start optimizing the ‘what you eat’ part of the equation.
Don’t eat like an a hole.
Yes, I’ve talked a lot about how to lose fat without counting calories on my channel.
But this is also when having some sort of idea how much you’re actually eating by tracking your macros can be really helpful. Remember, what gets measured gets controlled.
You should check out my video on counting macros properly if you no idea how to do it.
2. You’re drinking unnecessary “healthy” liquid calories
Consuming liquid calories is one of the fastest ways to derail any weight loss effort.
This also includes “healthier” options like juice, fruit smoothies, green juice, and coconut water. It doesn’t matter that they contain vitamins. You can get your vitamins and minerals from better sources like meat.
When you eat fruit in its unprocessed form, and I’m not even a fan of eating a lot of fruit to begin with. But, there are levels to this.
Fruit will naturally contain fibre which slows down the absorption of vitamins and minerals and give you some level of satiety. Your body also has to physically digest the fruit.
But if you consume it in its juice form, it basically becomes rocket fuel. Most of the fibre gets taken out and you’re just drinking liquid sugar at that point.
If you blend your fruit, it makes it a lot easier for your body to break down because there’s not a lot digestion necessary.
And because it’s so easy to break down once it enters your system, those sugars are really quickly gonna be absorbed in your blood stream causing a huge spike in blood glucose with a corresponding spike in insulin.
Which brings me to my next point. Sugar, in case you didn’t know, is one of the most insulinogenic foods on the planet. It causes a huge spike in insulin.
Not to mention fructose, which is the type of sugar found in fruit, is extremely lipogenic because your liver has to process it first and turn it into glucose to become usable energy.
That’s why considering fruit a “health food” is a myth.
Again, one of the proven benefits of intermittent fasting is improved insulin sensitivity because you’re not eating as much. Remember, every time you eat, your insulin goes up.
When you’re not eating, insulin stays low, and you activate your built in fat burning mechanism.
It only makes sense that when you break your fast, you want to do your best to still keep insulin moderated by only drinking and eating foods that aren’t insulinogenic or lipogenic.
Again, what spikes insulin the most? Carbs and refined sugar. Like, I don’t know, liquid calories?
Plus, drinking juice and smoothies just promotes over consumption. A normal human being for example would only eat one orange or one apple in one sitting, right?
But if you buy even a tiny bottle of juice, it’ll say that it contains 5 oranges.
My question is, who the heck eats 5 oranges in one sitting?
The problem is, it’s not satiating at all because it’s already been processed and it only contains sugar at that point.
Same thing when you get a smoothie from a place like Jamba Juice. A small Orange Supreme smoothie has the same amount of sugar as a can of coke.
If you really want to eat fruit, stick to low sugar types of fruit like berries and avocado and only eat fruits that are in season.
3. You’re still eating frequently during your eating window
Again, every time you eat, assuming that it’s a blend of carbs, fat, and protein, your insulin goes up. Your body goes into fat storing mode.
Which means that if you’re eating frequently during your eating window, you’re constantly gonna be secreting insulin which keeps your body in fat storing mode.
Eating frequently is also a sign that you’re not eating satiating meals. Because if you were, you should easily be able to go 3-4 hours in between meals.
It also comes down to a numbers game. The more frequently you eat, the higher your chances are of being on a calorie surplus.
If you want to lose weight, you need to be on a calorie deficit while keeping insulin, cortisol, and other important fat loss hormones moderated.
Plus, we usually don’t snack on the healthiest stuff. We snack on chips, cookies, crackers, candy, granola bars, protein bars, and designer coffee. Which again are all extremely insulinogenic.
Ideally, you just want to aim for 2-3 highly satiating meals during your eating window.
There are other fun and interesting things to do in life than just stuffing your face with food every time you’re bored.
I personally eat one small meal followed by one big meal during my 4 hour eating window. Sometimes I only eat one giant meal.
Best believe that those meals are filled with single ingredient, mostly unprocessed, nutrient dense foods that are all extremely satiating .
4. You’re not eating enough protein
I have to mention this because I see a lot of people commenting on my videos asking why they’re not losing weight with intermittent fasting. But worse, they’re losing their hair.
This is why it’s crucial that you prioritize getting enough protein in your diet.
Because the amino acids in protein becomes the building blocks that your body uses to build itself from within. Protein and fat are essential to the human body. You would die without it.
Fun fact. There are no essential carbs. Your body can make its own glucose through a process called gluconeogenesis. Tell that to your bro or trainer who still tells you that you need to carb load before your workout.
Going back to prioritizing satiety when you eat, if you meat, you’ll automatically get a combination of fat and protein.
Protein and fat are the most satiating macronutrients. Protein activates Peptide YY (PYY) and fat activates cholecystokinin (CCK) which are key satiety hormones.
The bioavailability from animal protein is also far superior than getting your protein from plants.
In fact, eating mostly animals is so effective at turning off hunger and producing some pretty fascinating weight loss transformations that an elimination diet like the Carnivore diet has gained tons of popularity lately.
It’s not a fad diet. Some would even say that a mostly carnivore or carnivore-ish diet is the original human diet.
You won’t find a short list of testimonials of people that swear by it especially when it comes to reversing autoimmune disease.
You’ll usually hear people say they fixed their allergies, eczema, arthritis, and completely transform their bodies by going on the carnivore diet. That’s kinda hard to ignore.
In fact, I’ve recently switched back to a mostly carnivore-ish type of diet since I moved to Mexico mostly out of necessity. I don’t have a full kitchen right now so I’ve just been buying cooked meat.
And you know what? I love it. I feel amazing. Best believe I’m getting enough protein through this diet.
If you’re wondering how much protein you need, the general rule is you want to eat 0.7 grams per pound of lean body mass.
For example, a 200 pound man at 20% body fat would have a lean body mass of 160 pounds. Which means he would need to eat a minimum of 112 grams of protein daily to maintain and build muscle.
If you play sports, you’re really active, or if you’re pregnant, you can generally eat more.
You can go as high as 1 gram per pound of lean body mass. Going back to our previous example, that person would need to eat 160 grams of protein.
But that 0.7 multiplier is the bare minimum for protein. If you don’t meet that criteria, that’s when your body starts to think you’re in a state of famine.
It goes into survival mode. It starts to prioritize more important functions like keeping your heart pumping and your organs working properly.
That’s why people start losing their hair because technically you can go without hair. It’s not essential to keep you alive.
Also, losing weight is gonna pretty low on your body’s priority of things to do because your body is going to want to hold on to your fuel reserve aka body fat.
A really easy way to get more protein in your diet is to eat more eggs. Eggs are one of the most nutritious foods on the planet. I personally eat 3-4 eggs a day.
Shawn Baker, a doctor who’s really big in the carnivore diet space, claims to eat close to 100 eggs a week. And he looks like that. He’s obviously doing something right.
Also, don’t worry about eating protein right away after your workout. Especially if you workout in the morning but you don’t break your fast until noon.
So you resort to drinking a protein shake because you’re worried about the “anabolic window”.
That’s a myth. As long as you get your protein at some point during the day and you get enough of it, you’re fine.
But that’s the biggest selling point for protein powder companies. By the way, if you drink a protein shake during your fasting window, that automatically breaks your fast.
Some people think otherwise because they’re not eating solid food. But, that’s a mistake. Again, anything that activates digestion or anything that’s sweet will break your fast.
Plus, protein powders are typically high in sugar or artificial sweeteners.
Whey and casein, the type of protein found in protein powders, are also extremely insulinogenic because they’re extremely processed.
The more processing your food goes through, the worse it is for you.
And because it’s in powder form, again it’s like rocket fuel once it enters your body because it’s so easy to digest. It just passes through you which means you’re going to be hungry again in no time.
But if you eat real food like meat and eggs, it’s also gonna contain some fat which keeps you satiated longer.
Plus, there’s also the thermic effect of protein from eating real food. 30% of the calories in animal protein is burned through digestion. So 100 calories of meat only gives you 70 calories net total.
This is why I always say that not all calories are created equal.
5. You’re inadvertently breaking your fast
I kinda brushed on this already but it bears repeating and explaining.
Other than eating too much, this is the biggest culprit for a lot of people why they’re not losing weight with intermittent fasting.
And I still see this in the comments of a lot of my videos where people ask if they can drink this or eat that? The short answer is, no.
That’s not the right type of mindset you should be in. Fasting is all about taking a break from eating and giving your body a chance to use your fat stores for energy.
It’s not about trying to see what you can get away with and cheat the system.
You’re only gonna be cheating yourself. And you’re gonna be severely disappointed with your results. Or, lack thereof.
The only things you’re allowed to have during your fast are water, soda or seltzer water, black coffee, or tea. That’s it.
Drinking diet soda, using artificial sweeteners in your coffee, or drinking fruity types of tea will break your fast. And I used to be guilty of this. This is usually a big “Aha” moment for a lot of my students.
For the longest time, I put Stevia in my coffee. I thought it was a better option than Splenda because it was “natural”.
But, I was also stuck. I couldn’t seem to lose those last 5 lbs. I also struggled with hunger pangs during my fast. It was making me miserable.
That is until I read about something called the cephalic phase insulin response (CPIR).
It’s your body’s physiological reaction whenever it tastes something sweet like artificial sweeteners. It thinks you’re about to eat.
Your brain, being the supercomputer that it is, sends a signal to your pancreas to start producing insulin in anticipation of all the food that’s coming.
The problem is, there is no food.
Not only have you inadvertently broken your fast by using Stevia. But you also now have to deal with stronger hunger pangs because you’ve just confused your body by giving it the signal that you’re about to eat.
If you really want to optimize fat loss from from intermittent fasting, you want to stick to what a lot of experts refer to as a “true fast” or a “clean fast”.
No cheating the system. It also makes it so much easier to fast longer if you do things the right way.
The only small exception here is adding a tiny splash of heavy cream to your coffee. This is helpful if you can’t drink black coffee. It’s not the end of the world.
Because pure fat has little to no effect on your insulin levels. This is why fat doesn’t make you fat. I hope that helps.
As always, if this was helpful, share it with a friend who could benefit from it as well!
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