You’re “eating clean” and working out, but your body doesn’t reflect it the way you think it should. Sound familiar?

Although we are all unique individuals (I always need to emphasize that), there are also a few super common reasons we hit that roadblock and can’t seem to get the results we expect.

1. You’re not consistent

I find people can sometimes think of “being fit” as a temporary phase in their life. Like they are either on the health train or off of it. Having a few days or weeks of eating well and exercising properly can be great, but then you have a couple days or weeks of constant appetizers and beers… and the cycle continues.

News flash: you won’t see dramatic results after only a few weeks, but if you continue sustainably you will be rewarded with sustainable results.

2. You’re eating too much or too little… and not tracking

Let me put it simply: if you want to lose weight, you need to be in a caloric deficit (less calories in, more calories out). To gain, we need the opposite (more in, less out). If you don’t track your nutrient intake and you’re not seeing results, it is more than likely due to simply not consuming the right quantity of food.

If you’re an anti-tracker, let me present it to you this way – if you weren’t a fan of using the speedometer when driving, but then noticed you frequently got speeding tickets… well, you’d probably end up saying “this sure is worth a shot”. It’s the same for fat loss. Tracking doesn’t need to be restrictive and time consuming… a coach should take this guess work out for you! (#shamelessplug I make points based meal plans where you don’t need to think about calories and macros at all).

3. You don’t track weights and “switch it up” all the time with workouts

I always hear people say this: “I don’t want to do the same workout again and again. I get bored”.

Let me ask you something: do you train solely for fun? You may say yes, but I betcha deep down of course we all want some physical (aesthetic or performance based) end result from our training. Why else would we sweat several times a week willingly?

Your body needs time to adjust to a new stimulus (your program). In the first couple workouts, you are just getting familiarized with the movement patterns and/or assessing what your real working weights will be. As the weeks go on, you increase your weights in your exercises – this is known as progressive overload. In short, no progressive overload, no gains.

Which brings me to this: weight tracking!! It’s so important (for all reasons mentioned above). If you do the same weight and rep range forever and ever, guess what? Same old results, or lack thereof.

4. You compare yourself with others

You know what they say – comparison is the thief of joy. Instagram has a funny way of making us women feel super bad about ourselves. Actually, it’s not funny…it’s sad and needs to stop. Someone’s chapter 20 shouldn’t be compared to your chapter 1. And all you have control over is yourself anyway.

By focusing so heavily on where you’re not and not celebrating the awesome stuff you’re already doing, you’re setting yourself up for that “fuck it” mindset real fast. Forget the pineapple drinking yogi who looks super fit and has 1 million followers despite making 1 word posts every day. You do you.