3 OF THE BIGGEST FAT LOSS NO-NO’S

Fat Loss NO-NO #1:

Most people will struggle losing body fat because they refuse to track their food. Whether that be tracking their food in an app on their phone or writing it down in a journal. Most people, probably you as well, do not take the time to track their food and most of the food they eat goes unchecked.

The most successful weight loss achievements occur in people who track their food in at least some capacity. So I urge you to begin the habit of writing down what you eat, either in an app or an old school journal.

Doing so will not only be a way of holding yourself accountable for what you eat but it also provides self education of the reality of your eating habits. Most people eat on autopilot. And then when they track their food they see for example… “Wow, I eat ice-cream 3 nights a week and eat out 4 days per week, I didn’t even realize this.”

Lastly it is a way to accurately gauge what may be causing you to not lose weight. I have had many clients just trying to coast through weight loss without tracking their food. And it still works. They still get results… until they don’t. And when results stop coming, first thing is first, time to track their food again. And every time it works! Why? Because we get lazy. We have short memories and easily fall into habits that may not support our fat loss efforts.

An example I always use is when I was working with a client and he was having great success losing weight. He started tracking his food when we started together and lost 20 pounds in about 4 months which is fantastic weight loss. And then we decided to take a break and learn how to maintain this new weight, we did this for 3 months. Then it was time to try and lose weight again, only this time he was not as motivated to track his food.

Results were still coming, but coming slower, and then they stalled. He was frustrated and I recommended going back to writing his food down. He did, and what we found out was he was mindlessly eating high calories foods without even thinking about it. He would glob peanut butter on a banana every day which would exceed 350 calories in one sitting, which is an extra 2,400 calories a week! He was also doing things like drowning his vegetables in oils without thinking twice and he was eating out more than normal. All of this didn’t even occur to him until he started tracking his food again. What happened? He lost another 15 pounds in the following 4 months.

If you are not ready to track all of your food then I urge you to practice the other form of non-mindless eating. Which is refraining from snacking! Snacking is such a mindless habit and one that destroys weight loss efforts so quickly. You cannot snack often on snack foods and achieve successful weight loss, it just does not work that way.

Try not to mindlessly snack while watching tv shows or while your working or on the phone. Snacking can easily add thousands of unnecessary calories to your diet every week which will make weight loss so much harder.

Try to have 3-4 real meals throughout the day with no snacking. If you are going to snack then keep the snack lower in calories and higher in protein. For example, having a serving of low fat greek yogurt with a handful of berries is a better snack than a bag of potato chips. Or having a protein shake with 2 oranges is a better snack than ice-cream or cookies.

If you want to see successful weight loss then you must start taking control of your mindless eating habits, its really a non-negotiable.

Fat Loss NO-NO #2:

There are so many fad diets out there and they are all so enticing. They make these big claims and flash some crazy “new” science in your face every time. Most of them are being promoted by people loaded on steroids or with some financial benefit behind the scenes.

In reality there is only one way to lose body fat and that is by eating less calories than you are burning off. If you eat more calories than your body is boring off, you will gain weight. This is a fact.

Now, there are so many ways to eat less calories than you are burning off and thats what some of these diets do without even claiming it.

Instead they claim things like “Turn your fat burning mode on all day by eating this and only this!” or “you can lose up to 50 pounds in 30 days by eating 2 meals and drinking our body fat shaver shake!”

These fad diets use fear to scare you into their diets or they use extreme claims that seem almost impossible to be true (because most of the time they are indeed not true). And they leave you worse off than when you began.

Not only this but they are usually so extreme because they want to try and stick to their claim of helping you lose 50 pounds in 30 days. This makes these diets highly unsustainable and are not a long enough duration to make a behavior change within your brain, which is one of the biggest predictors of keeping weight off long term. Which is why so many people do a fad diet for 6 weeks, lose 17 pounds and then gain all 17 back plus 5 more in the next 3 months!

Instead of falling victim and spending boatloads of your hard earned money on these dumb diets, putting your body through pointless hell and never making lasting change… I would suggest eating in a way that has stood the test of time and has some real solid research behind it.

That means sticking to the basics of nutrition. Eat mostly whole foods such as, fruits, vegetables, eggs, meat, grains, fish etc. Drink mostly water, tea, and coffee and stay away from fast foods, desserts, snack foods and easy to over eat foods like pasta, peanut butter and cereals.

Use the 70/30 rule. 70% of the time you eat whole foods, 30% of the time you eat foods that may not be the best for weight loss but they keep you sane.

If you can do this for 3,6,9,12 months then you will see great weight loss results and you will have developed new habits over that period of time which will reduce your chances of gaining all of the weight back.

Yes it is more exciting to try a new diet every month, but I promise you they never work and they do more harm than good. Start to accept the fact that being boring and eating the same foods every day is the best way to achieve sustainable weight loss long term.

Fat Loss NO-NO #3:

Along with fad diets making insane claims of burning fat fast you have the supplement industry in your face all the time on every social media platform, making insane claims that their new supplement sky rockets fat burning by 400%. They usually have a fitness model promoting the supplement, usually someone enhanced on steroids and completely photoshopped.

Supplements do not help you tremendous amounts of fat. Now, I am a fan of supplements. I take so many supplements myself! But they are SUPPLEMENTS to my good nutritional habits. I don’t take supplements to support bad eating habits. And I urge you to do the same.

First thing is first… You need to establish a solid foundation of basic healthy nutrition and eating habits. Once you have done this, for an extended period of time, and have achieved some weight loss results… Then you can dabble in some supplements.

But if you believe that taking a supplement claiming it will burn off 400% more fat in half the time, without actually addressing your terrible eating habits then we need to have a talk!

Instead of falling victim and spending boatloads of your hard earned money on these supplements that provide little to no benefit at all, putting your body through pointless hell and never making lasting change… I would suggest eating in a way that has stood the test of time and has some real solid research behind it. Solid basic nutritional habits beat supplements every single time.

Again, with all that said, I take a ton of supplements! There is a time and place for them, especially the ones that actually have merit behind them. But if they make insane claims, are fairly new and have a fad diet plan linked to them… Run!

So there you have it. 3 fat loss NO-NO’s! Do yourself a giant favor… Keep it simple and stick to the basics. Eat healthy foods, drink lots of water, indulge sometimes, walk as much as you can and lift some weights. If you do those very simple things then you will have success.

Always feel free to schedule a call with me for some help by clicking the link below and read my other posts and watch my videos.

Good luck my friend! All the best,

Coach Sam