It seems like the world is populated by slim people. How do they do it? You’ve been getting more active, you watch what you eat and yet you can’t get the weigh scale to budge. It’s usually at this point that many people give up and decide that they “just can’t lose weight”. They resign themselves to living an overweight life and tolerating everything that comes with that, from the hurtful comments, to the bubbly looking cellulite on their butts and thighs. First of all, with few exceptions, most people are physically able to lose weight. That’s not to say that the seeming inability to lose weight is purely a mental or emotional problem, but it’s certainly at least as much so as it is physical. It’s yet another reason why fad diets rarely produce lasting weight loss. They set up unreasonable short-term expectations which, when not met, would need massive emotional fortitude to conquer. But you’re over that. You now the secret to permanent weight loss is to eat a healthy, balanced diet and get as much activity as you can.

So Why Do You Still Not Lose Weight?

It is so disheartening to make huge adjustments in your lifestyle and diet, only to have it all produce zero results. The fat and cellulite remain. There are two basic reasons why eating well and getting exercise doesn’t work for everyone.

1. You Overestimate the Calories Burned During Exercise

Regardless of whether you lost weight or not, you must admit that you feel great (at least after you catch your breath and cool down) after a good workout. Even a brisk walk can get your blood flowing, increase your metabolism and give you energy.

But, in a way, all that good feeling and energy is the problem. We feel so good, we think we’ve burned way more calories than we actually did.

A study done by the University of Ottawa found that, when participants were asked to eat the number of calories they thought they burned during a workout, they consistently ate two or three times more calories than they burned.

2. You Underestimate How Many Calories You Eat

Numerous studies prove that we all underestimate how many calories we eat and even how often we cheat on our healthy eating habits.

Even if you eat nothing but health foods, there is a tendency to think that, if it’s good for you, you can eat it, regardless of how much you’ve eaten already today.

It’s when the “over estimating how much we burn” and “underestimating how much we eat” phenomena collide that some serious damage can happen. Like when we use food as a reward for a good workout. Let’s say you went for a very brisk walk of 6.5 km/h (normal walking speed is about 5 km/h), for half an hour every day. That would be quite an achievement. So you wouldn’t be blamed for encouraging yourself on the way home with a treat, especially a relatively healthy one like a bran muffin. If you did that exercise/reward combination, you would gain over a third of a pound every week – even while doing a fairly strenuous exercise.