If you ever wonder why some people have it so easy, stop yourself. This mindset needs to change and it needs to change ASAP.

There is no doubt that some people have it easier. They have a higher metabolic rate and are less prone to getting fat. That’s just the way things are. Everyone in your family may be overweight and you gain weight easily. Maybe that’s the hand you are dealt with but your genes do not hold you back.

You hold yourself back by thinking in this manner. People who are naturally thin are lucky but people who have had to fight to become slim are strong. If you are overweight, the struggle and challenge of shedding all that weight will make you physically and mentally strong.

In many cases, if everyone in the family is overweight, most of the time it is due to poor dietary choices. The grandparents ate poorly and passed on those habits to their children who will in turn pass them on to their children. Most of the time their diets are atrocious and the live they lead are sedentary.

If your parents eat all the time, that doesn’t mean you have to. Cut down your food intake and watch if it makes a difference. If it does, then it’s not the genes that are holding you back but your eating habits.

If you have been watching your diet closely and training but still see no results, there are several reasons why this may be so. None of these have anything to do with your genes.

You may not be eating enough. You should aim for a daily caloric deficit of about 500 calories. Many beginners make the mistake of cutting their calories too drastically. When you do this, your body panics and goes into starvation mode. It desperately holds on to every bit of fat that it can. Once this happens, you will find it very difficult to melt the fat off.

Another reason could be a lack of water consumption. Your body needs water to metabolize fat. Make sure you are drinking enough of it.

How about overdoing cardio? Does that hold me back? You bet it does.

Once again, this is a beginner mistake. They pound the track for hours hoping to burn off the fat as fast as they can. Too much cardio is counterproductive because of the law of diminishing returns. Your body will be stressed out and release the stress hormone, cortisol, which indirectly makes you gain weight.

Poor planning is another reason that you might not be making headway. Are you really hitting your caloric deficit? The occasional snack here and there adds up. Many beginners who train often mistakenly believe that they burnt a whole ton of calories so they can be a little lax with their diet.

Guess what? 2 slices of pizza is enough to wipe out an entire hour of cardio. Imagine that. You can undo an entire hour of sweating and panting within 15 minutes. Maybe you’re watching TV and decide to just pop in 3 Oreo cookies in your mouth. That’s about 160 calories. That may be about 15 minutes of weight training gone. What? You only trained for 25 minutes? Tough luck.

Watch your diet with the eyes of a hawk.

These are just a few of the reasons you may not be progressing. There are quite a few more and you will need to do more research online to brush up your fitness knowledge. Your genes are not a death sentence on your weight loss dreams. You definitely can lose weight if you really want to. Millions of people with genes just like yours have lost weight and kept the ugly fat off.

Join them. It’s yours for the taking.