Could these 4 reasons be stopping you from reaching your goals?
As wheelchair users we burn fewer calories than able bodied people. Your legs and glutes are big muscles, and big muscles burn more calories. When I work out, I always use my apple watch and FitIv app to track my work out (found here - This app is my favorite fitness tracker: . In a one hour workout, I burn about 200 calories.
It takes 3,500 calories to lose one pound. To lose weight by exercising will take a long time. Compared with an able bodied person, few calories are burned because I am only using my arms and torso. Exercise does build strength in your heart, lungs, arms, torso, and more, which in turn will burn more calories everyday, so exercise!
Don't reward your hard workout with eating an ice cream afterwards! It's tuff to burn those calories!
2. Let's take a look at what you're eating. If you are eating the same amount of food that you did prior to injury, you will gain weight. If you're eating the same amount of food as others at the table, you'll likely gain weight. Frankly, you just don't burn as many calories because you're not using as many muscles.
Are you soothing painful emotions with food? Let's face it- being in pain all the time sucks. Losing ability and all the things just sucks. When I gained almost #100 pounds post injury, it was because I was using food to soothe myself. When I was exhausted after fighting with insurance, I comforted myself with candy bars. I looked forward to eating chocolate. I can burn 200 calories an hour exercising, and I can inhale 800 calories in candy bars in 10 minutes. If you do the math, I was never going to lose the weight by turning to my favorite treats every day.
This might seem weird, but are you eating enough calories? Simply not eating enough food or calories will cause your metabolism to drop. The more fad diets you do, the worse your metabolism gets. I recommend you eat every 2-3 hours. Something small. Imagine instead of having a whole sandwich for lunch, you have half a sandwich for lunch and half a sandwich in a couple of hours.
Each time you eat, your body's metabolism revs up, let's keep that engine revved up!
Comment below with what you think is keeping you from reaching your goals.
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