For 99% of you, it’ll likely be because of one of these five reasons:

1. You’re Eating Too Much

More often than not, the number one reason is you’re eating too much.

People tend to underestimate just how many calories they eat; especially when they add up all the little snacks and drinks they mindlessly have during the day.

When we take new clients on board, we’ll typically ask for a 3-day food diary. What we’ll often see is a perfect set up, with the client scratching their heads as to why they’re not progressing.

When we dig deeper to find out what they snack on, as well as their weekend intake, it’s easy to see how they end up averaging at maintenance calories, or even slightly higher.

To lose body fat, you need a consistent calorie deficit throughout the week. While we think we’re pretty good at producing transformations, we haven’t figured out how to beat the law of thermodynamics yet!

2. You’re Too Sedentary

How many times have you or someone you know complained about their ‘slow metabolism’?

And how you can just ‘look at food and gain body fat?’

Unless you’ve got a legitimate endocrine problem, this is usually just an excuse for your lack of movement. More specifically, it’s typically a NEAT issue.

NEAT stands for Non-Exercise Activity Thermogenesis, and refers to everything we do that isn’t sleeping, eating or intentional physical activity. Things like shopping, cooking, cleaning, fidgeting, walking and maintaining posture are some examples of what NEAT encompasses.

The reason it’s so important is that it can be responsible for up to 15-50% of your total energy expenditure.

We’ve seen increasing NEAT to be a game changer in many of our clients.

One that comes to mind is Shyam, who for weeks was supposedly doing everything right, but was progressing extremely slowly.

Given his calorie intake and training schedule, we couldn’t figure out why he wasn’t dropping body fat.

It wasn’t until we asked him about his daily routine that it clicked. This was how he spent most of his days:

• Wake up and get ready for work
• Sit in the car and drive to the station
• Sit on a train to work
• Sit at the desk for 8 to 12 hours at work
• Sit on a train on the way back from work
• Eat dinner and sit in front of the TV
• Sleep

We realised that besides his 3-4 weight training sessions, he wasn’t moving at all.

What seemed like a calorie deficit was actually maintenance calories.

So what did we tell him to do?

Start moving more!

NEAT can be difficult to track, so I told him to start tracking his step count. After a week, his habitual average was between 2-3K a day – which is basically nothing.

So we set a target of 10,000 steps a day to begin with, making a conscious effort to build more movement into his daily routine.

After a few weeks, we were shocked as to how effective this was. He started dropping fast. Over the course of the next few months we increased it slowly, with next to no dietary changes.

This was the end result:

3. You’re Looking For A Quick Fix

Detoxes, liquid diets, super high protein, zero fat, zero carb, dust…

What do they all have in common?

They’re all quick fixes which might give you some results for 10-14 days, but that’s about it.

After that you’ll be miserable, ravenous and end up overeating yourself into a binge fest.

Next thing you know you’ve rebounded and gained back MORE body fat than when you started it.

It’s easy to get sucked into these marketing scams promising quick fixes.

But what you have to think about is how much time and effort went into getting fat in the first place. Think about all the crappy meals you ate, and all the training sessions you skipped.

Do you really think a 5 day juice cleanse will reverse this?

You’re not alone.

That’s what Arwinder thought too.

Until we told her to stop all the BS dieting and make healthy eating part of her daily lifestyle.

After spending a few months eating a balanced diet of protein, fats and carbs with NO extreme measures taken, she went from struggling to fit into her clothes to being able rock fitted dresses on nights out.

4. You’re Not Training Hard Enough

While it’s true you could probably get into decent shape through just increased general movement and a calorie deficit, if you want a jaw-dropping transformation, you need to train hard too.

This doesn’t mean light weights with high reps done in circuit fashion for the ‘metabolic burn.

To make sure you’re losing body fat and not lean muscle mass, you need to be training with progressive resistance with a focus on developing strength in a wide variety of rep ranges.

Similarly, your cardio should be treated in the same manner.

You want to approach your cardio sessions with the aim of being progressive. Your body is highly adaptive to cardio, so if you’re not pushing it they can end up being a waste of time.

Next time you’re doing LISS, pick a measure – calories burned, steps taken, distance covered etc., and focus on improving it over time.

If it’s HIIT, apply the same principle to your sprints.

Shifting to a progressive mindset will not only build more muscle mass, but it’ll ramp up your metabolic rate to allow you burn more fat at all times.

5. You’re Not Consistent Enough

In the age of information overload, the number one factor in holding many people back from reaching their fat loss goals is a lack of consistency.

If one week you’re doing high carb, then the next week you’re on low carb, then keto, followed by intermittent fasting, etc., you’re not going to get anywhere.

You need to stick to ONE thing and be super consistent.

Every diet works, it’s about following something that fits your lifestyle and goals and then executing the plan day in, day out.

Remember, fat loss is simple.

Stripping it right down to basics, all you need to do is the following:

• Stay in a calorie deficit
• Eat the right amounts of protein, fats and carbs
• Strength train 3-5 days a week
• Aim for at least 10,000 steps a day

That’s all there is to it really. All you need to do is do it consistently.

If you can string together enough days, weeks and months, amazing transformations are possible.

BONUS – You Don’t Have Accountability or Social Support

Two of the keys to fat loss success lie in having the right accountability and social support in place.

That’s why our clients at RNT achieve the results they do.

Not only are they held highly accountable to us, but they’re surrounded by like-minded people who are all striving towards the same goal in our High Performance Community within RNT Pro!