Updated October 2026
What is blocking your weight loss?
I’ve been in practice since 2009, and over those years I’ve found that about a third of my clients just need their diets tweaked so they’re eating healthy, balanced meals and can maintain the result. Whether it’s ideas they need, practical tips on food preparation and organisation, portion size, or the balance of carbs, fats and protein on their plate, once tweaked they get great results.
However, for the other two thirds it’s more complicated. If you’ve tried everything with diet and exercise and nothing shifts, these are the weight loss blockers I look at. This is where functional testing and coaching skills come into play. We work out which blockers apply to you and support your body to work through them. I literally work through the list.
If one doesn’t apply, we give that category a tick and move on to the next, until we find what creates the shift and helps you out of weight loss resistance.
The 17 weight loss blockers at a glance
- Diet – what, and how much, is on your plate
- Blood sugar and insulin resistance – the energy dips and sugar cravings
- Nutrient deficiencies – running low on what your body runs on
- Food intolerances – foods that quietly keep inflammation going
- Exercise – too little, or too much
- Toxins – metals and plastics that may be part of the picture
- Genetic variants – how your body handles detoxification
- Stress – cortisol, cravings and fat storage
- Coffee and caffeine – when it’s propping you up
- Hormonal imbalance – oestrogen, cortisol and the cycle between them
- Thyroid – the master of metabolism
- Emotional or spiritual blocks – what sits underneath the eating
- Gut infections – SIBO, Candida, parasites and more
- Microbiome imbalances – which gut bacteria are in charge
- Sleep – tired bodies want sugar
- Medications – side effects worth a conversation with your doctor
- Hydration – how much, and what quality
1. Diet
Diet is the foundation, and it needs to be right for you before anything else will shift. I get all of my clients to complete a week’s diet diary and that’s where we start. There’s so much I learn from a week of food intake. The main things I’m looking for are:
- Are you eating enough protein (or too much)?
- Is your diet high in refined carbohydrates, sugar or alcohol?
- Are you eating enough vegetables? The answer to this one is almost always no. The biggest general weight loss tip I can give is to look at ways to increase your vegetable intake.
- Are you eating too much or too little fruit?
- Are you drinking enough water?
- Do you have enough variety in your diet, or are you eating the same things day after day?
- Are you eating some healthy fat? Are you having too much vegetable oil?
- When are you eating the sugary, refined foods? Are you craving sugar because you’ve cut your carbs too low, or because you aren’t eating enough protein and healthy fat to keep you full and satisfied?
- Are you eating enough overall? Eating too little can slow your metabolism and add stress to the body, which promotes fat storage.
As well as the diet diary, the next tools I use are a symptom diary and a health questionnaire. They show me when your energy drops during the day and when you crave sugar, which gives me the clues to the next weight loss blocker.
2. Blood sugar issues and insulin resistance
If your blood sugar is out of balance and you’re eating a lot of refined carbohydrates, your body releases more insulin and you can get stuck in fat storage mode. Insulin is a fat storage hormone, and extra insulin is released when we eat a lot of sugar or refined carbohydrates (white bread, white rice, any white flour products, even wholemeal flour products).
Supporting blood sugar balance is vital to good health, and it’s something we all benefit from understanding. It’s one of the things I support clients with through my 12-week Metabolic Balance® weight loss program. If you’re looking for a nutritionist for weight loss, let’s connect and talk through whether Metabolic Balance® is right for you.
3. Nutrient deficiencies
If our diet is out of balance and we aren’t eating enough protein, healthy fat or vegetables, we can start to run low on nutrients. Vitamins and minerals play crucial roles in our bodies every moment of every day, so if we aren’t taking in or absorbing them, it can affect how our bodies function.
One you may be familiar with is iron. If you’re low in iron, you’ll often feel tired. We can test for nutrient levels and, once we know, support them back into the optimal range while looking for the underlying cause.
Your Metabolic Balance® plan is built around your own blood results and health data, so it supports balanced nutrient intake as part of my 12-week program. You can read more in how the Metabolic Balance blood test works.
4. Food intolerances
When you have a food intolerance you haven’t identified, or you know you’re intolerant to a food like dairy, wheat or eggs and keep eating it regularly, it can create inflammation in the body, which can make weight loss harder.
An elimination diet is one way to find an intolerance. We take the questionable food or foods out completely for 2 to 3 weeks, then bring them back in and monitor how you feel. With Metabolic Balance®, you receive your own list of foods that work for you, identified from your blood test and other health data.
5. Exercise
Are you moving enough? A good place to start is tracking how many steps you do each day. A pedometer or one of the free phone apps will do. Many people aim for around 8,000 to 10,000 steps a day. If you’re well below that, think of ways to build it up gradually: get out and walk, or take the stairs at work. Regular daily movement is linked with better long-term health.
Some form of resistance exercise to build and maintain muscle is also helpful for weight loss. Muscle uses more energy than fat, so the more muscle you have, the more energy you use each day. Just 20 minutes twice a week is a great start.
Perhaps you’re exercising too much. Too much exercise is another form of stress on the body, and chronic stress can promote fat storage. There’s a happy medium, and the right amount and type of exercise is different for everyone.
6. Toxins
For some people, toxic load may be part of the picture. Heavy metals can be a problem, for example mercury from amalgam fillings or lead from old paint. Plastics such as BPA and PCBs are also becoming more of a concern.
There are different ways to explore this. As an initial screen, hair tissue mineral analysis (HTMA) can give us an idea of which metals may be present, and blood, urine and stool tests can look at others. If you’ve worked in a toxic environment or suspect toxins are one of your weight loss blockers, let’s explore it together and put a plan in place to support your body’s natural detoxification pathways.
7. Genetic variants (epigenetics and nutrigenomics)
When toxins are relevant, it can help to look at genetics. Certain SNPs have been identified that can make detoxification harder, because some of the enzymes in our detoxification pathways under-function. Identifying which ones are relevant to you, and providing nutrients in the right form to support enzyme production, can be very helpful for some people. It isn’t just relevant for weight loss. Some people notice improvements in mood and energy once it’s addressed.
There are various labs and companies providing DNA analysis, depending on what you’re looking for. If this interests you, get in touch and we’ll go over what we can learn, and how it could shape your diet, exercise and supplements to complement your genes.
8. Stress
Long-term chronic stress can boost hunger through the fight or flight response and a rise in the stress hormone cortisol. Your body thinks you’ve used up calories dealing with the stress. In primal times that might have been the old sabre-toothed tiger trying to catch and eat you; in modern times it may just be your boss shouting at you as you sit at your desk. Cravings are the result of your body thinking you need to replenish those calories, even though you don’t.
This ongoing stress can turn overeating into a habit. Higher cortisol can also lead to higher insulin levels, so your blood sugar drops and you crave more sugar. Both cortisol and insulin play a role in fat storage, so managing stress and blood sugar are vital parts of the weight loss journey. It’s not just calories in and calories out.
When you’ve already cleaned up your diet and we’ve worked together on food choices but you’ve plateaued, it’s worth exploring your cortisol levels. Excess cortisol is linked with fat storage and may also affect gut health, so if you have digestive symptoms, headaches or achy joints, testing can help us see whether it’s part of the picture. If you’ve been through the tired and wired stage and feel you’re heading towards burnout, it’s even more important to look at your cortisol pattern, as levels can become very low.
My preferred test for cortisol and sex hormones is the DUTCH urine test. It gives us a clear picture of where your hormones are across four times of the day, building a full picture of cortisol’s influence, or on day 21 of your cycle to show your hormonal picture. Salivary testing for cortisol at four times of the day is also available.
Negative thoughts about weight loss can also increase stress and keep the cycle going. Stress management techniques like deep breathing and meditation can be very helpful to stop it. Other relaxation techniques and journaling can help as well. These are covered in the Mindset Modules of my 12-week Metabolic Balance® weight loss program.
9. Coffee and caffeine
If you’re in a vicious cycle of stress, poor sleep and fatigue, and you feel you can’t function without coffee, it may be part of what’s keeping you stuck. Just ask yourself:
- Do I have difficulty sleeping?
- How often do I drink coffee (or other caffeinated drinks)? Is it daily?
- Do I suffer from anxiety?
- Does the idea of giving up coffee send me into panic mode?
- Have I been told I have high or low blood sugar?
- Am I suffering from burnout?
- Have I had reflux or indigestion, or do I have a stomach ulcer?
- Do I have osteoporosis?
- Am I experiencing breast tenderness?
Coffee increases cortisol, your stress hormone, and has an impact on insulin, the two hormones involved in fat storage that I mentioned above. If you answered yes to more than 3 of these, it may be worth taking a break from coffee for a while and noticing the impact on how you feel and on your weight.
10. Hormonal imbalance
Hormone balance matters when it comes to reaching and maintaining a weight that feels good for you. Too much oestrogen, also called oestrogen dominance, is associated with extra fat storage, water retention and bloating, as well as other symptoms.
This isn’t only an issue for women. Excess body fat in men raises oestrogen levels, because fat cells are involved in converting testosterone to oestrogen. That creates a vicious cycle: extra body fat leads to extra oestrogen, and extra oestrogen makes it easier to store more fat.
Along with our bodies producing oestrogen, we take in oestrogen-like compounds from our diets and environment every day, such as pesticides, herbicides, growth hormones and plastics. Many of these have been linked to weight gain. The more weight we gain, the more prone we are to insulin resistance, which in turn can increase the risk of oestrogen dominance.
Hormone therapy such as the pill or HRT (hormone replacement therapy) can increase oestrogen levels. Researchers are also still working out the impact of hormone traces in our water supply, on us and on other species.
If you’re in perimenopause or menopause, this is worth knowing about too. Falling and fluctuating oestrogen and progesterone, poorer sleep and the natural loss of muscle with age can all make weight harder to shift, especially around the middle, even when your eating hasn’t changed. It’s worth talking to your doctor about what’s happening for you, while we look at what nutrition can support, such as protein, strength training, blood sugar balance and stress.
To explore whether excess oestrogen is one of your weight loss blockers, we can use the DUTCH test from Precision Analytical Inc. This is a urine test where we can either cycle map, to see your hormonal pattern across the whole month (especially useful for fertility concerns), or combine the stress and sex hormone profile to identify imbalances so we can work on rebalancing them.
11. Thyroid issues
The thyroid is the master of metabolism. It’s very sensitive and easily affected by oxidative stress and inflammation. The most common cause of an underactive thyroid is an autoimmune condition called Hashimoto’s. Thyroid issues are very common and can be picked up on a blood test.
Chronic stress can also play a part, as it can disrupt the hypothalamus and pituitary glands, which can lower thyroid activity. Yet again, some of these weight loss blockers are linked and feed the cycle.
If you’re experiencing hair loss, constipation, cold hands and feet as well as difficulty losing weight, a full thyroid panel is worth discussing with your doctor.
12. Emotional or spiritual blocks
Trauma, abuse, neglect and addiction can be linked with weight and with eating patterns. If these are relevant for you, extra support and counselling from a trained therapist can really help you work through the challenges that sit underneath.
13. Gut infections
The stress and inflammation caused by gut infections can get in the way of weight loss. Examples include:
- SIBO
- Dysbiosis, or an overgrowth of less helpful bacteria in the large intestine
- Yeast or Candida overgrowth
- Parasites
If you have digestive symptoms like bloating, constipation, diarrhoea or discomfort, it’s worth exploring further to find out whether a gut infection is part of the picture. Clients who work on their digestive symptoms and learn which foods work for them and which don’t often notice changes in their weight and body composition too.
I have access to PCR stool testing, comprehensive stool analysis and SIBO testing to help identify what is behind your digestive symptoms, which can also make weight loss more challenging. If digestive symptoms are your main concern, my Gut Fix program is where we would start.
14. Microbiome imbalances and dysbiosis
There is research, although still in its infancy, that suggests the balance of our gut bacteria, and which species are dominant, can contribute to fat storage. It seems the Firmicutes to Bacteroidetes ratio may influence how much energy is harvested from our food.
The encouraging part is that we can shift the balance with our diet. Plant-based, polyphenol-rich foods feed the favourable gut bacteria, so in simple terms, eat more vegetables and fruit. More vegetables is something all healthy weight loss diets have in common, so it’s a great place to start.
There are numerous tests available to check microbial diversity. The Complete Microbiome Mapping test is one such test. It shows the health of your microbiome and also looks at digestive markers that are extremely helpful if you have digestive symptoms too.
15. Sleep
The two most important elements of good energy are enough sleep and the right food for energy. If we aren’t getting enough sleep, our bodies want the instant energy sugar gives us, so sugar cravings increase. That isn’t great for weight loss. The more sugar and refined carbs we eat, the more insulin we produce, and insulin is a fat storage hormone (I know I’m repeating myself here, but it’s so important for weight loss). The more insulin we produce, the more we store fat and the harder it is to lose weight.
Another hormone we can test for is melatonin, our sleep hormone. It opposes cortisol, but if cortisol is too high we may not be producing enough melatonin for a good night’s sleep. That can contribute to sugar cravings and weight gain.
Sleep is also when we do our repair and maintenance in the body, restoring both physical and mental functions, so enough of it matters for your overall wellbeing.
16. Medications
Some medications can cause or contribute to weight gain, for example certain contraceptives and some antidepressant and anti-anxiety medications. If your weight changed around the time you started a medication, have a look at the patient information leaflet that comes in the box, or find it online on the drug company’s website. If weight gain is listed as a possible side effect, go back to your prescribing doctor to discuss possible alternatives.
Please don’t stop or change a medication without talking to your prescriber first.
17. Hydration
Do you drink enough? For most of us the answer is no. Our bodies are about 60 to 70% water. You start to feel thirsty when you’ve already lost around 2 to 3% of your body’s water. Water helps the body clear waste products, which supports weight loss. It also lubricates joints, so if you have joint aches and pains, drinking more water may offer some relief. It helps us regulate body temperature, acts as a shock absorber, and is the main component of saliva, which aids swallowing and digestion.
Some studies show that drinking 2 glasses of water before each meal supports weight loss, so it’s worth trying. Dehydration can also make us eat more, because we can mistake the cue to drink for a food craving. Try having a glass of water when a craving hits and see if it passes. When you’re drinking enough water, there’s less desire for higher-calorie drinks like soft drink or milky coffee. Aim for between 1.5 and 3 litres a day, depending on your size and activity level.
Water isn’t only about hydration. The quality of what we drink matters too. I strongly recommend a water filter to remove some of the impurities in tap water. The main one I think about is chlorine. It does a great job of removing bacteria from our water supply, but ideally we don’t want to consume it, because of its antibacterial properties and possible impact on the microbiome. Removing pesticide and other chemical residues can only be helpful for your health and your weight loss.
If you’re having challenges with weight loss and you think you’ve got diet and exercise right, it could be time to explore some of the more complicated aspects of fat storage.
Where to from here?
If you’d like help working out which of these blockers apply to you, book a free 20-minute Strategy Session. It’s just a real conversation about where you’re at, what you’ve tried, and whether my 12-week Metabolic Balance® weight loss program is a good fit for you.
The Metabolic Balance® program
Do you want to know the best foods for your health and weight?
The Metabolic Balance® plan takes your individual data into account, including your blood results, to work out the foods that suit your body best. With this information, we can support you towards a weight that feels right for you and support your overall health.
It’s not just another diet. It’s a way of eating you can carry on with. Once you’ve completed the program, you’ll have the knowledge and tools to keep eating well and feeling great, with my support along the way.
