Carrying excess fat around your waist and having trouble getting rid of it can sometimes be due to reasons that aren’t that obvious.
If you’ve stumbled upon this article, it’s very likely you’re already pretty knowledgeable and selective about the foods you eat, and you work out regularly. You eat clean, you train hard – but you still can’t get rid of the extra tire around your waist, the love handles won’t budge and the shredded abs are nowhere in sight. It’s frustrating, because you think you’re already doing everything right.
Well, the solution to this problem isn’t always straightforward. Sometimes good nutrition and regular exercise aren’t enough, because other factors like sleep, stress and even the medications you take can affect your progress. Here are the 8 most common reasons why you’re still not losing belly fat – and what to do about each one.
1. You Stay Up Late and Don’t Sleep Enough
If you’re working long hours, staying up late and starting again early in the morning, or simply watching TV late into the night, you might be setting yourself up for a rear end and gut expansion.
Research shows that people who don’t get enough sleep feel hungrier and crave more junk food. In one study from the University of Pennsylvania, people who slept only four hours a night for five nights in a row ate around 500 extra calories – most of them late at night. And when you’re tired, you’re also more likely to skip the gym.
Short sleep also messes with your hunger hormones and raises cortisol, which can make it even harder to lose belly fat. Try to get 7-9 hours of sleep a night. Here’s more on how loss of sleep can make you fat and how sleep deprivation affects your health.
2. Your Stress Levels Are Too High
The link between stress and weight gain has been studied for a long time. One survey by the American Psychological Association found that close to 40 percent of people with high stress levels deal with their problems by overeating or eating unhealthy food.
On top of that, chronic stress keeps your levels of cortisol, the stress hormone, elevated. High cortisol increases your appetite and cravings for sugary, fatty food, and it’s linked to storing more fat around your belly. Regular exercise, enough sleep, time outdoors and simply learning to switch off can all help bring your stress down.
3. Your Lifestyle Is Working Against You
The choices you make every day affect your body weight, and a hectic lifestyle can make you pack on the pounds even if you think you’re eating well. College students are a perfect example.
In one study that followed about 130 college students for four years, around 70 percent of them had gained weight by graduation – about 12 pounds on average, with the biggest gain being 38 pounds. Other studies have found smaller average gains, but the point is the same: whether it’s staying up late studying, living on junk food or drinking too much beer, a busy, irregular lifestyle makes it easy to put on weight.
And you don’t have to be in college for this to apply to you. Late nights, eating on the go, long hours at a desk and weekend drinking add up for everyone.
4. You’re Drinking Too Much Alcohol
Speaking of beer – alcohol is one of the most common reasons why people with a “good diet” still have belly fat. Alcohol is packed with empty calories, it lowers your willpower around food (hello, late-night pizza), and it hurts your sleep and recovery. A few drinks every weekend can easily wipe out the calorie deficit you built during the week. Here’s more on how alcohol affects your gains.
5. You’re Dieting the Wrong Way
Eating clean shouldn’t be something you do for a few weeks just to get ready for summer. If you want a lasting change in how your body looks, clean eating needs to become your lifestyle. Otherwise, you’ll always get short-term results that disappear as soon as you stop your diet.
The same goes for crash diets. Nobody can deny that they work for a while, but most people gain the weight back soon after. When you drastically cut calories, your body is deprived of vital nutrients, you lose muscle along with fat, and your metabolism can slow down. They can also hurt your training performance and your overall health.
Make sure you’re not eating more than you think, either. Healthy foods like nuts, olive oil, smoothies and granola are easy to overeat. If you’re stuck, track what you eat for a week or two – most people are surprised by the numbers.
6. You’re Only Doing Cardio and Crunches
Here’s the hard truth: you can’t spot-reduce belly fat. Doing hundreds of crunches will make your abs stronger, but it won’t burn the fat sitting on top of them. Your body decides where it loses fat from, and for many people the belly is the last place to go.
The best approach is to lose fat from your whole body with a calorie deficit, enough protein and strength training. Lifting weights helps you build and keep muscle while you diet, which helps your metabolism and makes you look leaner when the fat comes off.
7. It Could Be Due to Some Meds You’re Taking
Certain medications can cause weight gain over the long term. These include some antidepressants (paroxetine, sold as Paxil, is one of the best-known examples), antipsychotics, antihistamines, beta blockers, oral corticosteroids, mood stabilizers and some diabetes medications. More than one in ten adults in the US takes an antidepressant, so this is more common than you might think.
Some of these drugs increase your appetite or cause fluid retention, while others slow your metabolism or affect blood sugar control.
However, this doesn’t mean you should stop taking your medication, especially if it’s helping you. Talk to your doctor about it instead, and ask if there’s an alternative or a way to minimize the weight-gaining effects.
8. You’re Not Giving It Enough Time
Belly fat is usually the first fat you gain and the last fat you lose. If you’ve been dieting for only a few weeks, you may be losing fat elsewhere without seeing much change around your waist yet. Take waist measurements and progress photos every couple of weeks instead of relying only on the scale, stay consistent, and give it time.
How to Finally Lose That Belly Fat
- Sleep 7-9 hours a night.
- Find healthy ways to manage your stress.
- Cut back on alcohol.
- Eat clean most of the time – and make it a lifestyle, not a crash diet.
- Track your food for a while to make sure you’re really in a calorie deficit.
- Lift weights at least 2-3 times a week, and add some cardio on top.
- Talk to your doctor if you think your medication might be the problem.
- Be patient and measure your waist, not just your weight.
Want more practical tips? Here are 13 tips on how to lose belly fat as fast as possible, and make sure you’re not making the most common fat-loss mistakes.
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