Alcohol is a poison that when ingested will halt your bodies natural detoxification and fat burning processes. However, alcohol WILL make you a better dancer, something kale can never claim.

The real problem with alcohol is when it’s consumed in conjunction with other foods and mixers that have a lot of calories. So that beer you’re having with nachos, the wine with dinner, or the 6 Long Island Ice Teas (hey, no judgement) start to stack up.

While your body is filtering out the poison you just pounded so that you’d have the confidence to go talk to the 10 at the bar, your body takes all those other calories including that late night burrito, and throws that right at your midsection until it *ahem* gets around too it. 

All this doesn’t even take into account that calories stored while drinking are shown to go to visceral fat around the organs, which leads to a “distended” abdomen, which many people simply know as a “beer belly”. Not good.

Beer bellies show up a little different from normal belly fat – they’re generally more dense, and aren’t “squishy” when you press on them. That’s due to the fact that a lot of the fat is below the muscle because it’s “visceral”.  Which means that most of it is around the organs, which makes it the most dangerous type of fat.

Trans Fats

Trans fats are the worst type of fat to put into your body. They’re generally used in packaged goods to make extend the shelf life of processed foods that you shouldn’t be eating anyways.

Like vegetable oils, these cause inflammation, heart disease, atherosclerosis, and a host of other maladies with long-ass names. According to several studies trans fats are also closely linked to visceral stomach fat, the most dangerous kind, and the most difficult to get rid of.

Good news is that you can ditch these easily by cutting out processed foods from your diet and making most of your food at home.

Sedentary Lifestyle

As technology advances, we get tons of cool new stuff like iPhone, self driving cars, and toasters that burn your pet’s face into your bread of choice. Unfortunately all this tech makes us a much more inactive society, because we are no longer foraging for berries and grubs, and instead have job titles like “Social Media Liaison” and “Instagram Influencer”.

Most of our time is spent sitting – at a desk, on the couch, between sets of biceps curls…not good for our fat stores.

Our bodies are spectacular and very smart, but since most of this technology has popped up in the last hundred years or so, we haven’t had time to adapt to this new normal. So when we crush a burger, fries, and a milkshake, our body thinks that we’ve been met with a windfall of good woolly mammoth meat and stores it, because let’s face it – Woolly Mammoths are hard to come by.

Increase your movement outside of formal exercise by parking farther away from the store, taking a walk every night, or adding in 5 minutes of movement in the morning (also a great policy for feeling amazing all day)

Too Many Calories/Carbohydrates

At it’s core, losing weight is simply an equation. Calories consumed must be less than calories burned. BUT carbohydrates are the easiest type of calories to consume, and they provide us with energy to do the activities for our day. If we’re not spending a ton of energy than all those carbs and calories are going to be stored as fat.

Start thinking of carbohydrates as simply “fuel” for your activities. Is your day low on activities? Then it should be lower in carbs. Simple, but not easy.

This re-framing can be incredibly helpful in flipping the switch from “I can’t eat these potatoes ’cause I’m on a diet” to “I don’t need extra potatoes today because its a low activity day”

Plastic

If you’re eating a lot out of plastic Tupperware, drinking out of plastic water-bottles, or buying things that come in plastic containers, you could be unknowingly sabotaging your results.

This is especially true when you’re re-heating food in plastic, or drinking out of a water bottle that’s spent the majority of the summer sitting in your hot car. Plastic is filled with parbens that can leak into your food and water when warmed. This can be a death sentence for healthy hormones, as well as being a precursor to worse stuff like auto-immune diseases and even cancer.

Additionally, this can increase estrogen in men causing decreased sex drive, lower energy, and gynocomastia (the dreaded “man-boobs”). All bad.

Eliminate this as much as possible by switching to glass containers for leftovers (Pyrex is my go-to) metal water bottles like Hydro Flasks, and stop buying microwavable meals. That’s not good for you on several levels.

Poor Gut Health

The “gut” is responsible for digesting food, separating nutrients from waste, the majority of your immune system, and making whale noises when you’re in a quiet room. It’s filled with healthy bacteria that keeps you healthy and aids in the the breakdown of food.

But after years of stuffing our bellies full of pizza, hot dogs, and mountain dew like an unsupervised 12 year old at a Sizzler it shouldn’t be a surprise that sometimes old faithful isn’t working at 100% capacity.

If you’re not digesting your food correctly, even when you do start to eat healthier and make changes you might not see a difference because your gut is still reeling from the last several years of ultimate nachos and fireball shots.

You might need to think about adding a pro-biotic supplement to help replace the gut bacteria that has gone on strike against your poor eating choices. In certain extreme cases this can even require a “fecal transplant”.

No I’m not kidding, nor will I be taking any more questions about that particular subject. Go ask your mom.

Finally! We get to blame someone else!

Not Enough Sleep

Getting enough sleep is imperative for good health. People who sleep only five hours per night are on average going to be 30lbs heavier than People who sleep seven plus hours per night. This is a HUGE difference.

Not only that, but the quality of sleep matters too. Men with sleep apnea are much more likely to have additional weight around the waist than those without a sleep disorder.

Make sure you’re averaging at least seven hours of sleep per night to get the most out of your fat loss. Sometimes this can be the key piece that people miss. I’ve seen many times where clients have no change for weeks on the scale, but then start seeing big changes AS SOON as they begin sleeping more.