9 Reasons You’re Not Seeing the Progress at the Gym
Are you not seeing results even after spending hours at the gym? Are you cutting down on carbs, calorie-tracking, and running for longer minutes on the treadmill?
If yes, then you are not alone. While tracking your diet and exercising consistently is essential to maintaining health and achieving that summer body, it is not all.
There are additional factors that play a more pivotal role in your fitness regime than you think. While there is no denying that witnessing drastic change takes a lot of time since building muscles and melting fat cells are not an overnight process, there are some things that you can be doing wrong to further stall the process.
Let’s discuss the 9 most crucial of those factors.
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Reasons Behind Not Seeing Progress At The Gym
1. Sleep deprivation
Believe it or not, sleep plays a more critical part in your fat-loss journey than you imagine. Staying up late has adverse effects on your body since it prompts your mind to snack on highly calorie food, increases your cravings, and slows down your metabolism.
Disruptive sleep is directly tied to hormonal imbalance (Source) , especially the irregular release of cortisol as well as leptin and ghrelin which are responsible for regulating one’s appetite.
Hence, it is time to stick to an early bedtime routine and cut on those late-night binging sessions.
2. The Bane of the 5:2 lifestyle
For most of us, the schedule involves leading a strict and disciplined life 5 days a week and letting it all go on the weekends. While the idea of two cheat days in a week is extremely enticing, it might be the reason why you are not seeing results in the gym even after going to the gym everyday. Imagine the calories that you consume on the weekends, be it the large pizza, a few bottles of beer, pasta, or the tiramisu your favorite restaurant just added to the menu.
This becomes especially counterproductive when you throw in a highly restrictive 5-day routine into the mix; the end result is far from what you expect. Therefore, it is always advisable to follow a moderate and balanced diet so that you can get the best of both worlds while staying in shape.
3. Properly monitoring progress
For most of us, monitoring progress is equivalent to measuring the inches around our waists, thighs, and arms. But would you believe me if I told you the picture this portrays is far from the truth?
While losing a few inches in the initial stages is normal, maintaining that progress is where you all lack. To avoid this stagnancy, it is important to set realistic and attainable small challenges.
For example, if you are working on those triceps, you might want to start by planning different stretching and lifting exercises for two weeks before moving on to larger or heavier dumbbells. You may also want to consider measuring your heart rate, oxygen intake and calories burned to constantly improve your exercises.
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4. Diversifying your workout plan
It’s natural to work continuously for months and not see any results, even with a proper diet. But that can be changed with the introduction of functional training into your fitness regime.
The idea that only rigorous cardio can help you lose weight is a myth. Only when you add strength training and flexibility training to your cardio do you get the desired results. An easy way to chalk a regime is to include High-Intensity Interval Training (HIIT) with core muscle training and weight training (you can always alter the weights to see better results).
5. Lack of Recovery Time
It is as important to provide yourself with proper and sufficient recovery time as it is to undergo rigorous training to see results. Whenever you train hard, your muscles are liable to wear and tear; this is where the soreness comes in.
To relieve yourself, it is critical that you take the time to recover such as by maintaining a proper sleep schedule that incorporates 6-8 hours of deep sleep, indulging in moderate workouts the day after, and eating more protein.
Additionally, rest days and recovery routines will further help you optimize the time you spend in the gym while being away from the gym.
6. Diet
We can all agree that seeing progress in the gym is directly linked to a clean diet.
However, when you stick to a diet consisting of only protein, vitamins and minerals you are depriving your body of the essential good fat and carbohydrates it requires to function properly.
While initially, this diet may make you feel better, do not be fooled since it is hardly sustainable. In most cases, it results in binge eating, especially on sugary and carb rich foods.
Therefore, plan to stick to a balanced meal comprising all the necessary food groups, practice mindful eating, and control portions to avoid any diet crash and complement your training.
Moreover, the supplements and processed food you are eating, believing them to be healthy are in fact causing an adverse effect on your health. Therefore, we advise you to steer clear of processed or packaged food and instead focus on homemade whole food.
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7. Don’t indulge in unattainable goals
An important cause of not seeing tangible results is setting unrealistic goals. When you set goals that are not only unachievable but also detrimental to your health, you cease to see any result in your physical configuration.
So don’t be fooled by advertisements claiming to help you lose 20 kilos in 10 days. They are nothing but gimmicks; you can only lose up to 2 kilos per month without compromising your health.
8. You wait too long between sets
The resting time between each set and rep is again correlated to the results you want to achieve. Giving yourself a longer resting period before the next set can compromise the workout, hindering the calories it is supposed to burn.
A golden rule of thumb to avoid this is to adhere strictly to the 10- 70 seconds resting time i.e., you will rest only for 10 seconds before each set or rep. This will help you maximize the results.
9. Give your body the time to adjust
If you have recently started hitting the gym, it is possible that you might not be seeing the results that you want. Exercising regularly or rigorously means putting your body under immense stress and pressure, during which different bodies react differently, either by going into fight/flight mode or retaining water weight.
Hence, practicing mindfulness during exercises and connecting your mind with your body is important to making the most of your gym sessions.
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