Why is it so Hard to Lose Weight?

Trying to lose weight can be extremely frustrating, especially when the idea behind losing weight is so simple. All you have to do is eat less and exercise more, apparently, yet if it was that easy there would definitely be fewer overweight and obese individuals than there currently are! As it is, most people struggle to lose weight because it is hard to become more regimented with your eating and exercise habits when you're used to eating whatever you feel like and lazing around. Losing weight really shouldn't be that hard, in theory, but it is clearly something many people are struggling with.

It doesn't help when you put yourself on the strictest diet possible, believing this will help you to shed the pounds extra fast. You end up going on an extremely low-calorie diet that barely provides you with any energy, so that you find yourself walking around like a zombie. When you don't have any energy, you are liable to snap at anyone who does something to annoy you, which doesn't take much, and it is much more difficult to concentrate. You feel low and when this is the case you can find yourself drawn to stodgy, calorific, comforting food, even though this means breaking with your diet.

Indeed, comfort eating is something many people struggle with, because it is difficult to stay in control of your calorie intake when you are worried about something else or feeling sad. When you're down, you feel as though you're going to remain fat whatever you do and so you basically give up. You beat yourself up for falling off the wagon and struggle to get back on, but sometimes you just don't think that it's worth it and so go back to the familiar old habits that caused you to gain weight in the first place. You may be unhappy with your size, but you feel powerless to change it and so just eat to make yourself feel better.

As well as emotional eating, people's lifestyles can make weight loss harder, especially when you don't have time to calorie count or exercise. If you find that there are not enough hours in the day, you may not feel like cooking a proper meal when you get home and so you may just pick up some fast food on the way home or nibble on junk food to keep yourself satisfied. You can quite easily consume too many calories when your diet consists primarily of junk food. The situation is only exacerbated when you fail to get enough exercise to justify the number of calories you consume.

It can therefore be hard to lose weight when you have a set of habits that have become so entrenched that you can't imagine doing anything differently, particularly in relation to diet and exercise. However, that doesn't mean you have to give up on your weight loss aims. It does mean, though, that you have to be prepared to tackle the issues that make it hard for you to reduce your calorie consumption and increase your calorie expenditure, so that you can build up a calorie deficit and lose weight consistently.