Why You’re Not Seeing Results Even When Exercising

We have people come to our studio who have been attending a gym for months, but they’re not seeing the results that they thought they would.

It's difficult to stay motivated when you’re putting in the time and effort to reach your goals, but you’re just not seeing them.

Knowing why you’re not reaching your goals can help you make the most of your time in the gym so that the results naturally follow.

You’ve Really Just Started

How long have you been exercising? Initially, you may experience rapid strength gains, but these gains tend to plateau quickly. If you’ve only been exercising for a few weeks or even months, you’re just starting on your journey.

It takes time to build muscle or lose weight.

You’re Expecting to Lose Weight Too Fast

Almost 50% of adults in the United States have tried to lose weight in the past year. If your main motivation for going to the gym is to shed unwanted fat, you’re not alone. The problem is that you need to have other factors in order to see results, like:

• Reducing your caloric intake

• Exercising to burn more calories than you’re consuming

Even when you’re doing everything right, it will take a lot of time to lose weight. A safe rate of weight loss is 1 to 2 pounds per week, according to most studies. When you lose weight slowly, you have a higher chance of keeping it off.

If you have more weight to lose, you may lose weight even faster than this while remaining in a safe weight loss zone.

You’re Not in the Gym Consistently Enough

Be honest with yourself: how often are you in the gym? A lot of people come three days one week, one the next and miss the next week. Unfortunately, this level of inconsistency will not lead to the results that you’re seeking.

It's okay to start slowly and go to the gym two or three times a week, but continue trying to progress to where you regularly exercise four to five times a week.

“Exercise” is used loosely here.

You can hit the weights two or three times a week and do something else that you enjoy, such as:

• Hiking

• Running

• Tennis

• Soccer

• Etc.

The main goal should be to try and be as active as possible every day of the week.

Diet and/or Exercise Changes Weren’t Made

If you’re scratching your head because you’re doing everything right so far, your issue may be:

• Diet

• No routine changes

Have you changed your diet? If you’re not seeing results after a week or two, adapt your diet and see what happens. For most people, reducing their calories by 300 to 500 per day will lead to weight loss.

And if you’re not seeing muscle mass gain or strength gains, your body has likely adapted to the stressors that you’re putting it under. Routine changes will keep the body from adapting so that you can see results.

Try:

• Increasing your weight

• Changing to different exercises

• Adding more reps or sets to each exercise

Change is good and will help you overcome issues with plateaus and not seeing the results that you want.

These are just a few of the issues we see when people walk into our studios. There are a lot of factors that can derail your results.