Why Losing Weight Is Hard (And What to Do About It)
Losing weight is hard for the same reason you can’t train at a 10 out of 10 every day.
It can be a problem with sustainable effort.
If you’ve ever had a workout that really pushed you, you understand this concept.
Ideally, in training, most days you’re working at about a 7/10 effort. It’s challenging, but repeatable. You can come back tomorrow and do it again.
But during something like the CrossFit Open? You will hit the workout with all your might, a 9/10 or 10/10. The tank may run dry.
Pic: Bobo. 26.3 Last heat of the day. Full send!
That level of effort has its place. But you can’t live there. It doesn’t hold up.
Nutrition works the same way.
“It’s too much effort to eat well.”
“I don’t have time to cook.”
“I can’t stick to anything.”
For many people, especially those of us in our forties and beyond, the issue isn’t knowing what to eat to reach our goals; it’s that executing on it can become too much with everything else going on. Long workdays. Meetings. Commutes. Family needs. By the end of the day, without a plan, your energy is gone, and you're calling for wine and takeout to “get through.”
If eating well feels like a 9-out-of-10 effort, it’s not going to be sustainable, and that is a big reason why losing weight feels so hard. The act of eating for our goals gets lost in the shuffle of life.
The question to ask yourself is: “What can I actually keep doing on repeat during a normal week to reach my goals?” It will take time to answer this question properly plus some trial and error, but where there is a will, there is a way.
As a prompt, think in terms of defining your nutritional RPE (rate of perceived exertion) with your eating habits on a scale:
1 = very easy
10 = hard to keep up
If your nutrition plan is sitting at an 8, 9, or 10, it’s only a matter of time before it falls apart when life gets busy.
What you’re looking for is:
Enough effort to move you forward
Low enough effort that you can repeat it daily
For most people, that’s around a 6–7 out of 10.
Because weight loss doesn’t come from what you do for a week. It comes from what you can keep doing.
Lower the effort. Start with one or two of these:
Hit 30g of protein at breakfast
Add vegetables to one meal per day
Remove stress-eating foods from the house
Create 2–3 repeatable meals for busy days
Plan for your hardest day of the week, not your easiest
If your nutrition feels harder than it needs to right now, we can help!
Meet with us, and we’ll get you working at about a 6 out of 10, so that you can reach your weight loss goals in a slow but steady way!.
Motor’s Granola Bars
The best homemade granola bar I have ever eaten. The secret ingredient is crispy cereal. She subbed agave nectar for honey. She brought a batch to the Saturday Sweat and Socials, and you may be craving them now. Here is the recipe she based her’s on so you can try your hand at them. There is a time and a place for these bars in our lives!
