4 Weight Loss Challenges And How To Overcome Them

If you’ve taken up a weight loss challenge recently, you know how challenging it could be to achieve your goal. The reality is you’re not alone. Every person who sets out to lose weight may experience challenges that are unique to their circumstances. These challenges could range from unmet targets and stress to struggles with creating time for workout and even genetics.   

Even so, experiencing these challenges doesn’t mean you couldn’t overcome them and realize your weight loss goals. However, to succeed, you’d need to be conscious about the challenges you’re dealing with and find ways to rise above those barriers.  

Below are some common types of weight loss challenges and how you can overcome each of them:  

  1. Physical Challenges  

Physical challenges present significant barriers that could make it difficult for people to lose weight. Often, these challenges manifest in a variety of ways, including body discomfort, medical problems, dehydration, lack of sleep, and fatigue. If you find yourself struggling with physical challenges, there are several things you could do to overcome them.  

Perhaps the most effective solution is to see a physician and get advice on the lifestyle changes you may need to make to improve your ability to reduce weight. In some instances, your inability to lose weight may be due to medications you’re taking for a medical condition. Talking to a physician could help you understand how drugs like steroids, birth control pills, and depression medications may be contributing to weight gain despite your efforts to reduce it.   

If you’re a woman, hormonal changes may be causing you to gain weight. Talking to a physician could help you find a solution to this challenge. You could also address physical weight loss challenges by embracing a healthy routine that’s characterized by getting adequate sleep, staying hydrated, and eating healthy food.  

  1. Emotional Challenges  

Though weight loss is largely considered a physical activity, your emotional status could enhance or undermine your weight loss efforts. Your emotions could be affected by several things. These include high stress levels, negative attitude toward physical activities, lack of motivation, and even skepticism about your ability to realize your weight loss goals.  

If you realize emotional challenges are holding you back, consider setting aside several minutes each day to engage in simple activities to keep your stress levels down. Some good activities to engage in include yoga and meditation.  

You could also consider taking short walks to breathe in fresh air and step out of situations or environments that drain your energy. Your appetite hormones may be affected by inadequate sleep. This could cause you to overeat and reduce your chances of achieving your weight loss goals. To avoid this, try to increase the number of hours you sleep if you’ve not been getting adequate sleep. If you want to see stories on how people overcome emotional challenges to realize their weight loss goals, you may read more here

  1. Challenges Relating To Work Environment 

Your work environment may pose a challenge to your weight loss goals, particularly if you spend your days sitting behind a desk. Such a work environment reduces your physical activity significantly, which means your calorie intake remains higher compared to the rate you burn those calories. This would make any weight loss efforts counterproductive because you gain more weight than you lose.  

To overcome this challenge, make a deliberate effort to take short exercise breaks every so often. If you can’t take two or three half-hour breaks a day, try to get off your desk and move around every hour of the day. Alternatively, you may get a standing desk. These desks give you an excuse to engage in physical activity. In doing so, you’d be able to burn calories in a passive way since your body would require energy to maintain the standing posture. 

  1. Aging Challenges  

As you advance in age, you’d find it challenging to reduce weight the way you’d want to. This is largely due to declining physical activity. To address this challenge, consider getting a fitness professional to develop a customized exercise plan for you. Such a plan could focus on strength training to help with the conversion of fats into muscles. This would boost your weight loss goals since muscles are more active metabolically and therefore better at burning calories.  

Final Thoughts 

The journey to losing weight may be different for every person. As such, the challenges people face in the quest to lose weight would vary. But whatever challenges you experience in your weight loss journey, you can overcome them if you take the right steps. If you’re experiencing any of the challenges described above, try to take the suggested actions and get yourself on the path to successfully achieving your goals.  

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