Eating Healthy and Exercising But Not Losing Weight? 14 Reasons Why the Scale Isn’t Moving.

By Ashwini Achutharaman, RD Intern & Dr. Abrar Al-Shaer, PhD, RD
April 26, 2025
Overall Hormone Healths

Picture this. You want to lose weight. You start exercising for an hour every day. You start cooking at home instead of ordering takeout. But no matter what you do, your weight just does not want to budge. Sounds familiar? Your body weight is connected to so much more than just what you eat and how much time you spend working out. Hormones, the environment, genetics, food quality, and stress all play a role in the number on the scale.

Hormonal Imbalances and Weight Gain

Hormones are messengers that send signals throughout your body to tell it how to function so that you can live optimally. Your body makes over 50 hormones, and there are four main ones that can be connected to your weight.

Insulin

Insulin is the main hormone that helps your body process the energy that you get from your food. It is released by the pancreas when you start eating and tells your cells to take in the nutrients from your meal to use as energy. The process is drawn out below.

Insulin resistance is one of the most common hidden causes of weight gain and fatigue. Understanding how your body responds to glucose can help you break free from the cycle and support long-term weight health. When you eat a meal, your pancreas makes insulin to process the glucose in that meal. If your cells operate normally, they will absorb the glucose and use it for fuel. The more glucose you give your body, the more insulin it makes. Constantly eating high amounts of glucose makes your body less sensitive to insulin. Think of it like someone knocking at your door. Initially, you will respond within a few knocks. If they keep knocking, you are likely to tune out the noise. When your cells stop responding to a lower level of insulin, it is called insulin resistance. Instead of using glucose immediately for fuel, your body changes the glucose into fat and stores it. Since the cells did not get their fuel, you feel tired and hungry and continue eating, and keep gaining weight, hence perpetuating the cycle.

Leptin

Leptin is a hormone that is produced by fat cells in your body and is responsible for sending signals to the brain to tell you that you are full and should stop eating. However, your body can build up a resistance to leptin too. The more fat cells you have, the more leptin they release, which makes your brain more desensitized to leptin. Your brain requires more leptin to get an “I’m full” signal so you continue eating. Your body does not know what to do with the extra energy it gets from the food and stores it as fat for later use.

Thyroid Hormones

Another important set of hormones that affect weight gain are thyroid hormones. The thyroid is a small organ that produces two main hormones to regulate nearly every function of your body. For your thyroid to release its hormones T3 and T4, it gets a signal from the brain in the form of TSH. A higher level of TSH is associated with a more “sluggish thyroid” and causes an increase in weight. A very common symptom that women with ”sluggish thyroids” report is “I started gaining weight all of a sudden for no reason, and no matter what I do, I keep gaining”. If you feel like your thyroid might be the reason you feel sluggish, read our blog post Thyroid Blog 1: Do I Have a Thyroid Problem? to learn more.

Menopause and Weight Gain

Finally, when you go through menopause, you are likely to gain 5-10 pounds of weight, especially around your abdomen. This is completely normal! During menopause, your estrogen levels drop, which changes how the fat in your body is distributed. Estrogen helps direct your body fat to your curves so without as much estrogen, your body fat will straighten out. The fat that may have resided in your curves before moves up to round out your belly area.

How the Environment Causes You to Gain Weight

Our external environment is filled with toxic pollutants called endocrine-disrupting chemicals (EDCs). Some of these are known as “obesogens” because of how they bind to your DNA and mess up its code, which creates signals for more and bigger fat cells. EDCs are found in both indoor and outdoor products. Personal care products can contain parabens, plastic water bottles can contain bisphenol A, air fresheners can contain phthalates, and meat can contain persistent organic pollutants. All of these chemicals ultimately send unhappy signals throughout your body, which makes it harder for you to lose weight.

Wondering which specific products to avoid? Check out our blog post on chemicals in products that you might use in your day-to-day life. Our team also has a helpful video that goes over the chemicals to avoid and the common products they are in.

Is Weight Genetic?

Genetics and weight loss are closely connected. Your genes are your fundamental building blocks, containing information that tells your entire body how to function. Scientists are still researching what exactly each gene controls. So far, they have identified at least 30 spots on your genes that are directly linked to your weight. Some of these genes are related to your brain’s signals for hunger while others connect to your body’s internal clock to tell you what time to eat. Variations of these genes can make certain people more likely to gain weight after eating foods high in sugar, salt, and/or saturated fat.

If you are interested in learning about which food groups are more likely to make you gain weight, our team would be happy to guide you through the appropriate tests.

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For more insight and personalized guidance, feel free to reach out to our team to help you discover the best steps to reach your weight and health goals.