Weight Loss traps

Trap 1 - Ignoring Calories!

There have been several diets over the past few years that try to promote to you the idea that calories don't actually matter. I'm going to squash that myth now, and tell you that Calories Do Matter! If you want to successfully lose fat, you need to be following a calorie controlled diet. To lose fat you need to be in a calorie deficit, this means you need to be using up more calories than you are feeding your body with. This can be created either by reducing the calorie intake in your diet, by burning off calories via exercise, or ideally a combination of the two. Which ever the case is, you need to be controlling the amount of calories in your diet. If you don't create this calorie deficit then you won't lose fat, simple as that. If you are just guessing your calorie intake then you can't be sure that you are in a sufficient deficit, counting calories will enable you to efficiently burn off fat. It is a good idea to keep either a food diary, noting down the amount of calories that you have consumed each day, or even better to plan your meals for the next day. This will allow you to effectively monitor your calorie intake.

Trap 2 - Trying to be ‘too perfect' with diet!

This is more of a psychological problem that is also very common. People tend to set themselves up with a diet plan that may be quite challenging to stick to in the first place, but then also get them self into a mindset where they have got to stick with this plan 100%. They allow themselves no breathing room, no room for error, and when they eventually slip up and give into temptation, in their minds it is disastrous, no matter how small the slip up. That single chocolate bar, or slice of pizza breaks there 100% perfect diet plan, and the effect of that is often a complete relapse. Rather than just seeing this as a slight slip up and getting back on the diet, they just give up completely. There is a very simple way of avoiding falling into this trap, don't aim for perfection! If you have a slip, just forget about it and carry on with your diet, don't see it as a big deal. A useful tool that will help you with this a cheat meal or off day, basically allowing yourself a meal or even a day a week where you can eat anything that you have been craving for. Obviously this has to be slightly controlled, you should go and consume a weeks worth of calories in that one day! Allow yourself that slice of pizza that you've been craving or that chocolate bar that been calling you! This will help to eliminate the temptation to stray away from your diet on the normal days, and also give you a moral boost, as you will only ever be a few days away from a nice treat! Give it a try, I think that you will find that it will help no end.

Trap 3 - Trying to ‘lose weight' rather than trying to ‘lose fat'!

This is another very common mistake that people make, and it is not really there fault. A lot of products and adverts out there sell the idea of fast weight loss, rather than promoting actual fat loss. Let me explain the difference, weight loss will not necessarily come from just body fat, if the weight loss process is to fast or extreme then, a lot of the ‘weight' that is actually lost is from broken down muscle and water. You often here stories of people who have lost pounds and pounds within weeks, what they don't tell you is that only a portion of that is actually from fat the rest is muscle and water. You should be aiming to lose only fat, and trying to hold onto muscle at all costs. Studies have shown that it is only possible to lose around 1 to 1.5lbs of fat per week, anymore than that will more than likely be from muscle and water. Ok so your ‘weight loss' won't be as fast, but I assure you that you will have much more success with fat loss. We have talked about the effect that muscle has on fat loss, by burning up calories by just maintaining itself, if you are trying to lose weight too fast and eating away at this muscle, you are reducing the amount of calories that your body is burning up each day, making it more difficult to lose fat. So just to reiterate, you should aim to lose 1 to 1.5lbs each week to ensure that you aren't burning up your valuable muscle. It is also a good idea to take weekly body fat measurements and weigh ins, so that you can work out your lean body mass and fat mass. This will allow you to monitor your weight loss.