Are you on a journey to shed excess body fat?
Well, cheers to you for taking that step to improve your health and create a better lifestyle for yourself!
Fat loss is both a physical and mental endeavor. While consistency and patience are key, avoiding these 3 common pitfalls is equally crucial for achieving sustainable and successful fat loss.
In this blog, I'll dive into three common mistakes individuals often make during their fat loss journey and provide insights on how to avoid and overcome them.
Common Mistake 1: Extremely Cutting Your Calorie Intake
One of the most common mistakes when talking about fat loss is the idea that you need to drastically slash your calories to take the quickest route to your final fat loss goal.
However, this approach ends up doing more harm than good. Severely restricting calories is NOT sustainable. This extreme act can lead you to lose and regain the same weight over and over constantly.
What happens is you cut your calories dramatically, which may last a week to a month or so. But in the end, you will feel tired, deprived, and burnt out.
And, when you have some flexibility or increase your calories, you don't learn how to incorporate “less nutritious” foods into your diet. Once you feel like you "ruined" your progress, you go banana pants and consume thousands of calories.
Severely restricting calories, especially below a thousand per day, not only causes nutrient deficiencies but can lead to negative habits for your health. For example the cycling of binge eating: cutting calories dramatically, to binge eating back to cutting calories, and so on.
It doesn't have to be all-or-nothing! To counter this mistake, instead of trying to make progress as fast as possible, make progress as sustainable as possible. Allow yourself to eat as many calories as possible, while still making progress. A reasonable progress rate will be .25% to 1% of weight loss on average per week.
This will ensure you can still enjoy your favorite foods in moderation AND make progress.
(PS if you want to know how to find your starting calorie target, check out my blog, The Ultimate Guide for Fat Loss!)
Mistake 2: Overestimating Calories Burned/Eating Back Your Calories Burned
Regular physical activity is fantastic to add to any effective fat-loss plan. Strength training with some cardio can greatly help you manage your calorie deficit (outside of just living a healthy lifestyle). However, a common pitfall is overestimating the number of calories burned through exercise.
It's easy to believe that an intense workout session warrants indulging in extra calories, but this mindset can undermine your efforts. Overestimating calorie burn can lead to eating more than necessary, ultimately sabotaging your progress.
Here’s the deal…
Stop getting caught up on your fitness watch numbers, especially the number of burned calories!
Look at this example of my Whoop vs Apple Watch:
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This is from a recent run of mine.
My Whoop measured 100 fewer calories burned with .3 miles more than my Apple Watch on my run.
Your fitness watch is excellent for giving a general sense of your movement and activity for the day.
But your watch isn't going to be 100% accurate. If you felt you had a great workout, don't be disappointed if your watch shows a lower amount of calories than you expected. That doesn't mean you had a poor workout!
I see too many people caught up in their watch data that it becomes an unhealthy relationship.
Also, if you are trying to lose fat, just because your watch said you burned a certain number of calories doesn't mean you should "eat back" those calories for that day. There is a good chance it is inaccurate and will make fat loss much more challenging!
Having a realistic understanding of the relationship between exercise and calorie consumption is crucial. Remember that while exercise is important for overall health, it's only one part of the equation. Paying equal attention to your food and nutrition choices is going to be the driver for effective fat loss.
Mistake 3: Being Impatient and Setting Unrealistic Expectations
In a world of instant gratification, it's common for individuals to expect rapid results from their fat loss efforts. However, this can lead to disappointment and even more extreme measures like crash diets or excessive exercise.
The truth is: this shit takes time!
Sustainable fat loss takes consistency with a lot of patience. So, unrealistic expectations often cause people to abandon their efforts prematurely, preventing them from experiencing the long-lasting results they desire.
You need to make sure you are setting realistic goals with realistic expectations.
Instead of focusing on one big end goal, which may be a certain bodyweight number, make sure you celebrate those small victories along the way. Victories include improvements in energy levels, clothes fitting better, consistency with habits, strength progress, or improvements in your quality of living.
Shifting your focus from quick fixes or quick results to long-term sustainability can help you stay motivated and committed. Remember, the goal isn’t just to lose weight and lose fat, but to be able to lose weight and lose fat AND maintain all that progress you make…
Avoiding these common mistakes requires adopting this realistic and sustainable approach to fat loss. Instead of resorting to extreme caloric restrictions or overestimating your calories burned, focus on creating a calorie deficit that allows you to eat as much as possible while still making progress and using your training to build muscle, get stronger, and improve your health.
Cultivate a mindset centered on patience and the understanding that the journey itself is an experience that takes time.
By avoiding these common mistakes and making the proper adjustments, you'll be well-equipped to navigate through these challenges of fat loss.
This is a marathon, not a sprint, and the progress you make along the way is just as important as the destination you aim for.
I hope this helps!
If you are interested in getting some extra guidance, support, and accountability during your fat loss journey, fill out this form HERE so we can team up and see if we are a good fit!
Cheers,
Kevin
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