That's Fit

If you're busting your tail in the gym, but the pounds keep sticking around, you're probably wondering why. If you're eating as healthy as you can, but your bulging waistline serves as no indication of your effort, you're probably wondering why. And if you're doing both of these things and more, you're probably ready to punch a hole in the wall and scream at the top of your lungs: "Why am I not losing any freakin' weight?!!!"

Okay ... calm down. Everything is going to be just fine, I promise. Tell you what, why don't you take a second to let your blood at least reduce from a boil to a simmer and then we'll start to deconstruct your approach and, as best, we can come up with a solution. To help us in this endeavor, we'll refer to a recent article published in the current issue of Maximum Fitness magazine, which is aptly titled 6 Reasons You're Not Losing Weight.

For the next six days, I'll offer one of the tips in the order that they appear in the Maximum Fitness magazine article. So, you can either wait to read them day by day or, if you don't have that kind of patience, you can run out to the bookstore and pick up a copy of the magazine. Your call. Either way, we're going to get to the bottom of all this and find out what's keeping the numbers on your scale from getting any lower.

Possible Reason #5: You're Eating Too Many Foods That Make Your Body More Acidic. According to the Max Fit article, when your body is more acidic, it retains more water and congests tissue, ultimately leading you to look and feel bloated. Since your body strives to remain alkaline (which it is able to do when you consume plenty of fruits and vegetables, for most types of produce are also alkaline) eating foods that tend to to be more acidic (such as those high in protein and/or fat, as well as foods high in simple sugar and/or chemicals) put the body in a more inflammatory, acidic state. The solution? No brainer here: Keep acidic protein, fat, and simple sugar consumption under control and, as best you can, fill you diet with alkaline fruits and vegetables.