If you’re trying to lose weight but the scale isn’t budging, the following reasons might be to blame.

Your weekend is a free-for-all

A cheat meal once a week is perfectly acceptable, even beneficial, in any healthy eating plan. But if your weekends turn into a total binge of your unhealthy favourites, it’s going to sabotage your good work in the week.

You’re not sleeping

Not getting enough good quality sleep affects all areas of your life and health including weight loss. Lack of sleep may affect levels of the stress hormone cortisol which also impacts your appetite. You’re also likely to move less when you’re tired.

Stress

Stress is horrible. And it can make shedding weight even harder. When you’re stressed your body releases more of the hormone cortisol. Aside from ramping up your appetite, cortisol is also thought to cause fat storage.

You need to move

Even if you exercise for an hour, three to five days a week, being sedentary at work all day isn’t good for you. Don’t leave all your moving around until your gym session.

You avoid weights

Cardio is great for torching calories, but for fat loss, you really need to add weights into your routine. While cardio burns tonnes of calories during the workout, that calorie burning stops as soon as you’re done. When you lift weights your body consumes more oxygen post-workout, meaning you burn more calories. Also lean muscle mass burns calories even when you’re just resting.

You’re eating too much

Do you really know how much you’re eating? You need to be in a calorie deficit to lose weight. Even if you’ve cleaned up your diet you still might be taking in too many calories.

Too much time between meals

Waiting too long to eat can hinder your weight loss plans. Having too much time between meals causes a slowdown in your metabolism making it more difficult to burn off the calories you consume in your next meal.

Sources: Healthline, WebMD, Very Well Fit