Everybody has a different theory on the best way to lose weight. And you would think that, with all these proposed solutions out there, weight loss would be an easier process. The truth is, though, that obesity continues to be a problem globally and many people struggle to lose weight despite their best efforts. To help you sort through all the theories and make a success of your weight loss, let’s take a look at five common weight loss mistakes that hold people back.
- Treating yourself. You’ve probably been there – most exercisers have had this thought process: For weeks, you’ve been watching what you eat and you’ve just finished a particularly grueling workout. You’re hungry. So, you decide, you deserve a treat. The reasoning is that since you just burned all those calories, you can allow yourself a small indulgence. The problem is, however, that many people overestimate how many calories they’ve burned and underestimate how many calories they’ve eaten. In fact, one study found that subjects underreported food intake by an average of 47 percent and overreported calorie expenditure by 51 percent. Those large discrepancies could not only counteract weight loss effort, but encourage weight gain.
- Avoiding the weights. For some reason, cardio has become the workout of choice for those working toward weight loss. Maybe it’s the image of slim marathoners. Or maybe it’s the fact that weight training is classically seen as a way to increase muscle mass. Either way, it’s wrong. While it’s a great way to improve endurance, long periods of steady-state cardio (running at a constant speed) have been linked to hormonal changes that can actually cause an increase in fat deposits and a decrease in muscle. Both very bad things. By increasing your muscle mass, though, weight training improves your overall metabolism to help you lose weight – and keep it off. Muscle, unlike fat, is active and is constantly burning calories. If you’re concerned about becoming bulky, stop it. Large muscles do not occur overnight and require years of a specifically designed diet and workout.
- Starving yourself. Heavily restrictive diets – sometimes called crash diets – will help you lose weight. For a little while, at least. Often this approach calls for you to greatly restrict your caloric intake, usually totally cutting out entire food groups. Along with simply not satisfying your body’s nutritional needs – and causing all sorts of resulting problems, these diets will not help you in the long term. Eventually, these diets end. And so does the weight loss. In fact, after having to deny themselves so thoroughly for so long, many crash dieters tend to regain any weight that was lost. Sometimes, they even gain back more weight than they lost.
- Counting on “diet” foods. Diet foods are nothing but the result of clever marketing. On the surface, front-of-label claims like “diet” or “low-fat” seem appealing to the weight loss crowd, but these products generally aren’t doing you any favors. For one thing, diet drinks – which usually have had the sugars replaced by artificial sweeteners – have actually been linked to obesity and diabetes. Similarly, to make an otherwise fatty food fat-free, manufacturers have to manipulate the structure of the food. Usually, these results in a pretty unappetizing product. To fix this, they then throw in sugar, salt, and other additives. Frequently, the fat-free version of a food as the same amount of calories as the original – if not more.
- Focusing on calories and ignoring nutrients. Although, the weight loss formula is generally simplified as a function of calories in versus calories out, there’s more too it than that. High-protein diets, for example, have been shown time and again to be helpful in weight loss. Not only has protein been shown to be an effective aid to lose weight, it as also been linked to improve body composition. Be careful, as well, to not ignore micronutrients – vitamins and minerals – that are vitally important to a number of biological functions.
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