Everyone thinks they know what it takes to lose fat and get in shape. Even the one hundred pounds overweight guy will tell you why your diet is “stupid” and what instead you should be doing. These seems to be common in many different subject areas of our time. For some reason people think that simply because they have a mouth that they are required to dole out advice on any and every subject under the sun even if they don’t know the first thing about it and diet and nutrition is no exception to this. As a matter of fact diet and nutrition is probably one of the worst areas for this. And of all the different things that diet and nutrition covers fat loss is probably the worst for this.
With that being said because everyone just “knows things” (whenever the masses agree on something it’s a good chance that it’s wrong) there are tons of myths, half-truths, and flat out lies that are pushed as truths. Here I’m going to debunk some common fat loss mistakes that people make because of what they hear from those who don’t know what they’re doing (including many doctors, personal trainers, and especially talking heads on TV). Your life will be best in all facets when you live in accordance with the truth. Take the truth even if it’s bitter and goes against your beliefs over the comfort of lies even if they’re sweet to the ears. Alright now for the 3 most common fat loss mistakes that the majority of people make when trying to get rid of that excess fat.
Mistake #1 – Thinking A Calorie Is A Calorie
Now before you start pulling out all your hair and banging your head against the wall screaming “thermodynamics” at the top of your lungs listen to what I have to say. Believe it or not but the human body isn’t a math equation. What I mean by this is that many oversimplify all that goes on in what takes place in your body especially when it comes to gaining fat. Most would say it’s simply calories in and calories out. Meaning a person could eat 1000 calories of pure sugar a day and another person could eat 1000 calories of vegetables and grass fed meat a day and they’d end up the same. A bit of an exaggeration but not really by that much. Your body is not a machine it takes a lot more than simply watching calories to achieve good health, one factor of which is losing excess fat.
All calories are not created equal and will not have an equal effect on your body. Watching calories isn’t the best use of your time for health, fat loss, or any other goal that you have. Instead what you need to focus on is what’s going into your body, meaning food choice. A meal (even if the calories are the same) of steak, broccoli, and eggs isn’t going to do the same thing as a meal of soy, sugar, and grains. It’ll have a different effect on your hormones, body composition, and overall health. Put simply a calorie is not a calorie and your body is not a mathmatical equation or a machine. Calories certainly matter but they are not the end all be all for health and fat loss. Counting them beyond a certain point simply wastes your time that could be spent doing other more productive things.
Mistake #2 – Thinking Exercise Alone Will Cut It
I’ve talked about this before but it bears repeating. You cannot out exercise a bad diet, it just doesn’t happen. Maybe, just maybe a professional athlete with great genetics who spends all day exercising might be able to out exercise a bad diet but even then it’s unlikely and I’m guessing that doesn’t describe you. Exercise is great and has numerous benefits and can certainly help with weight loss but is is in no way, shape, or form a replacement of diet. Even focusing on exercise over diet is going to be detrimental to your fat loss program. Diet comes first and not by a hair more like by a mile. Again be sure to exercise as there are many benefits of it, especially with weights if your health permits it but it is no replacement for diet.
I see so many people wanting to lose weight so they start hitting the treadmill, trails, and gym in hopes to shed their weight before summer or sprint break but without a change in diet it just isn’t going to work. Even high intensity exercise such as sprinting or barbell complexes (which as far as exercising for fat loss go can’t be beat) isn’t going to undo eating pizza, drinking beer, or eating breaded foods on the weekend. As far as fat loss goes you should see weight training (or exercise) as supplemental to a good fat loss program. The vast majority of your results are going to come from dietary changes not from gym or track changes.
Mistake #3 – Going On A Diet Instead Of Changing A Lifestyle
Focusing on one goal at a time can be great especially for making concentrated progress. For example if you’re trying to bulk up for football, cut up for spring break, as well as run a marathon all at the same time it just isn’t going to work. You need to focus on one thing at a time to make sure that you are getting the results that you want. This doesn’t mean that you let other things slide during that time of course simply that you don’t focus on it. With this being said it’s also important to make sure that you aren’t doing things that are unsustainable. It might be nice to diet down for a photo shoot or competition but that’s not going to have lasting changes.
You need to make changes that are sustainable and that you’re going to be able to follow for a long time. Losing fat is part of improving your overall health. Doing a starvation diet to lose it not only is not good for your overall health (or body composition) but isn’t sustainable. You can suffer for a couple months maybe but at a certain time you’re just going to say no more. And if you go right back to what you were doing before you’ll be in the same spot that you were before. That’s why it’s important to make lifestyle changes that you can do forever and not worry about it. Even if it’s just eating eggs instead of a muffin or oatmeal for breakfast. Little things add up overtime. Once you get used to something then add another things in. Focus on overall lifestyle over crash diets where you always end right back up where you started from.
Summary
Alright so here you have three of the most common mistakes that people make when they’re trying to lose weight, fat in particular. Steer clear of these and you’ll already be ahead of the majority of the population. Always remember to test things out for yourself there are plenty of foolish doctors, idiotic personal trainers, and misleading talking heads out there that will mislead you. Even those who do their best to provide the best information possible fall short of the mark from time to time. You were given a brain to use not to be filled up and controlled by others, so make sure that you’re using it. Not just in the field of health and nutrition but across all fields. Test what you hear and then see if it works for you because that after all is what matters.
If you have any questions you would like to see answered in a future post send them to me at charlessledge001 (at) gmail (dot) com. If you found value in this post then I would encourage you to share this site with someone who may need it as well as check out my books here. I appreciate it.
-Charles Sledge
