M
Mrloseit
Member
- Sep 11, 2014
- 22
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You can’t seem to make your diet work? Or you somehow found a way to lose some pounds with big sacrifices but after a while, you gave up and the pounds are back?
Most popular diets nowadays promise you the cure for fat loss… the interminable problem we are all being faced at one moment…
If you are currently on a diet or you’ve been doing diets for a while, I believe you worked hard to achieve some results. And at least once in your lifetime, you’ve experienced some weight coming back.
Looking at research, did you know that only 17% of Americans are able to maintain 10% long term weight loss?
This means that the remaining 83% of people that diet and lose weight will regain most of it back. The numbers don’t look too good…
The reality is that losing weight and keeping it off shouldn’t be hard. It should be easy. Why I am saying this?
I am saying this because I was once the guy that couldn’t make any kind of diet work. I failed many times in my life… but all that disappointment made me stronger. Made me want to discover the real way to get lean. And I found it somewhere along those lines…
I did many mistakes that were ruining my dieting efforts. Now I see them. Now I know what I have to do to get perfectly ripped every time. I want to help you avoid the mistakes I personally learned from… and propel you forward by showing you the fixes.
There’s a saying: “You should learn from someone’s else mistakes and avoid them”… A good saying but most of the time, we have to hit our head in the wall to get the truth.
If losing weight has been hard until now, it will definitely be easier after you learn from my mistakes. Let’s look at the mistakes that can ruin your dieting efforts:
1. You Overestimate Your Caloric Expenditure
This one is interesting. Most of the time, it’s a hidden reason why you can’t lose weight. Did you know that even dietitians do this mistake?
Yes. It is true. Even people that should teach you the right way to diet and lose weight do this mistake. There are many research studies pointing this out.
Where’s the problem here?
I’m glad you asked. Let’s take an example. Let’s assume you currently require 2000 calories every day in order to maintain your current weight. Let’s say you believe you actually need 3000 calories per day in order to maintain your weight. What happens here?
You will try to hit 3000 calories or lower so you can maintain or lose weight. You won’t maintain your weight. You won’t lose weight. You know why?
Because you will eat too many calories over your maintenance caloric intake without even realizing that.
Many people overestimate their caloric intake and fail to lose any weight. Make sure you don’t fall into this trap. Again, make sure you correctly calculate the calories you expend and go for a deficit.
2. You Don’t Track Your Calories
This is the number one reason why most of us can’t lose weight. Is it that simple?
Well, the answer is… Yes… But this subject requires a more in depth explanation. Maybe you were promised that if you cut out carbs, fats or even meat, you will lose weight. Maybe somebody told you that eating sugar is the main reason why you are getting fatter. Some people are starting to take a stance against eating fruits lately.
Everything seems to be bad when it comes to weight loss. There are plenty of books on shelves that just wait for you to read them and implant a new fear on you. If you take a look on popular sites that are selling diet books, you can find all sorts of bogus diets. Let’s not even talk about reading articles on the internet. You can find cabbage soup diets, meat only diets, low fat diets, low carbohydrate diets and even cotton diets. Yes… It’s crazy. There are people that tried all kinds of diets.
Can you believe this?
It’s no wonder that the general population is overweight. Even when they want to diet, they are being misled into trying nonsense dieting methods that don’t work. So, what works?
Counting calories. Make no mistake, it’s not that you stopped eating sugar, carbs, fats or meat. It’s mostly because the changes you made, offered you a caloric deficit. In other words, you are cutting food choices from your table. The reality is that you are creating a caloric deficit.
The only reason why any diet works is because they invariably make you lower the calories you are eating. Low carbohydrate diets?
They make you cut your carbs… which means caloric deficit.
Low fat diets?
The same thing.
Just make sure you are tracking your caloric intake and maintain a deficit all the time. I wrote an extensive guide on caloric counting here.
3. You Believe Supplements Will Save You
While supplements can definitely help you progress faster, they can also slow you down if you use them improperly. How many times have you used a fat loss supplement and it didn’t worked?
How many times you saw an ad on Tv or on the Internet promoting a product that promises you it burns fat faster than any kind of diet out there and without any work involved?
Of course you saw at least one in your lifetime. And I can bet you most likely tried at least one supplement that promised increased fat loss.
Let’s be real. Most people interested in losing weight have tried at least one supplement that supposedly burns fat.
What is the reality?
Sadly, every time I’m reading articles or surfing the internet, I can see people and companies promoting every kind of fat burning supplements on the market. You can see supplements that supposedly burn fat without training. Fat burners that supposedly let you eat as much as you want and still make you lose fat. Fat burners that make you drop 6 dress sizes in 8 days. Most of them are bullshit.
Most of them don’t work. If they would work, you wouldn’t be here reading this article. I wouldn’t be here writing it for you and trying to expose the truth.
Most supplements are not even tested on research studies. And the ones that get researched, get positive results every time. I mean, that’s the number one reason why most supplement companies are conducting research studies and funding them. Believe me, the outcome of a research study done on a certain supplement and funded by the same company, can’t really have a negative result. It would mean loss in sales for them. It would mean they would waste money on research without any outcome.
That’s not how it works. Most supplement companies pay for positive results. Even if there are none.
There are only a few supplements for fat loss that work and have extensive research studies behind them. One of those supplements is the Ephedrine/Caffeine stack. Sadly, mass media got involved and mostly banished this supplement. They told everyone this stack is dangerous for their health.
In reality, any kind of side effects associated with this supplement were found in people that didn’t followed the correct dosage. Again, they tried more of it because they believed more equals better. Dumb thinking.
The last supplement I want to talk about is not really a supplement per se. The last “supplement” is your diet. Make sure your diet is in place and you are prepared for fat loss before you even think about buying a fat loss supplement. And believe me, most of the time you are better off without using any kind of fat loss supplement.
4. You Copy Someone Else’s Diet
What if I told you your body is different?
What I am saying here?
You are different. This is true when it comes to the amount of calories you burn daily. Your body burns a different amount of calories compared to any other people you know.
If you have a friend that currently gets on a diet and he eats according to a fixed meal plan, you might waste your time trying to copy what he is doing. Maybe he eats certain foods you don’t like.
What are you going to do?
Are you going to eat foods you dislike for a long period of time just because your friend eats them and he loses weight?
Alright… if your answer is yes, how much can you resist eating those foods?
A week, a month, maybe a year?
But what happens when you’ll give up and start gorging on the foods you enjoy?
You guessed. Your weight will come back. What good is to have a meal plan if you can’t follow it?
The key here is to find a diet that works for you. To find a diet you enjoy. One that would satisfy your need for certain foods. One which you can follow indefinitely. This is what I currently advocate. This is what also keeps me lean year round.
I eat foods I enjoy and I don’t even feel like I’m dieting. I’m like a normal person that goes through the day without thinking about what foods I can eat and what foods I can’t eat. In reality, I eat everything I enjoy eating.
Another important point here is to make sure the diet you are doing will maintain the weight loss. That means, you have to create one that will work for you.
5. You Don’t Lift Any Weights
I’ve met people that don’t enjoy going to a gym. I can’t blame them. I always try to empathize with people. I think about what I would do if I were in their place. In this case, I believe there are at least two possible solutions that can work in this circumstance.
The number 1 solution is to just make a small effort and go to a gym 2-3 times a week for an hour. This shouldn’t be too much for anyone. If it’s hard going alone, just try to find a friend you can take with you. Just make sure you don’t waste that hour with chatting. Chatting should be done in the rest between the sets. This makes the time pass even faster.
If the number 1 doesn’t work, just try another physical sport. Maybe you like running. Maybe you like to play tennis. I don’t really know what you like but just do it.
Even if you have two options, going to the gym always remains the most important thing you can do for your body. This is the only way you will ensure that you keep all your muscle mass.
Would you really want to lose weight despite losing muscle mass?
If you say “I don’t really care”, just think about what I will say now. The rate at which you can build muscle mass is approximately 4-10 pounds a year. And that is if you are lucky and you get your diet and training to work perfectly. Which involves much more than only a caloric deficit.
Would you want to lose 20 pounds of weight separated in 10 pounds of fat and 10 pounds of muscle mass?
That would mean 1 year of wasted muscle mass in just a few weeks. Is it worth it?
I’m not even counting the many benefits you get by maintaining your muscle mass like: having a better body composition, looking better, being stronger, healthier…
Don’t think too much about lifting weights… just lift them.
As a smart man once said:
fat loss problems quote george bernard - can't lose fat
6. You Don’t Take Sleep Seriously
Other than the fact that lack of sleep sometimes causes late night binging, ensuring you get enough sleep is very important for your general health. And even fat loss.
Now that I think about it, achieving true fat loss is like having a perfect chain. Each chain link should be strongly made and it should hold the entire chain. If just one link snaps, you can say bye bye to your fat loss diet.
Sleep is an important link to the whole chain. Missing too many nights from your bed will invariably make it harder for you to lose fat. It can potentially ruin your diet without you even knowing. How’s that?
Let’s think a bit. If you don’t sleep, you can’t train effectively. If you can’t train effectively, you can’t maintain your muscle mass. You can’t create an additional caloric burn. It will be harder for you to create a caloric deficit because now you burn less calories. You burn less calories and you are in the danger of binging because of the lack of sleep.
See how it all goes in links?
Not only that but lack of sleep has also been correlated with certain negative effects on your body like obesity, insulin resistance, and hypertension.
You don’t really want to miss those nights of sleeping. Make sure you take a good nap each night.
7. You Fear Certain Food Choices
There are people that fear carbohydrates. There are people that fear fats. I remember that at some time, I feared everything. Fats, carbohydrates, potatoes, rice, everything. Just name it and it was probably a personal fear of mine. Again, promoted by the usual fat loss gurus.
Fearing any kind of food choice for the sake of fat loss is ridiculous. Even assuming that a certain food item is the cause of obesity. I’ve written about this subject extensively in my book but to summarize it for you, a food choice can’t be a main cause of obesity. We eat more than we ate some years ago. The general caloric intake has gone up in the last decades. This is the main cause of obesity.
We can’t lose weight because we eat too damn much!
Fearing food is mainly a misconception. Yes, there are people that have all the reasons to fear certain foods. People that are lactose intolerant and can’t drink milk without having stomach problems. Or people that have Celiac Disease and can’t eat gluten.
But most of us don’t have any problems like these. I eat anything I want and I can still maintain a six pack year round. You can do the same.
Fearing nutrients or certain foods is useless. But this fear surely sells a lot of dieting books. Just sayin’…
8. You Fail At Tracking Your Calories
How many times you’ve tried to estimate the calories you were eating and you failed?
If you are like me and you dieted for years, I believe the answer is: MANY TIMES!
How can you fail at tracking your calories?
It’s very simple. This happens when you believe you are eating a certain number of calories and you actually eat more without knowing. Why is this happening?
Most of the time, these things happen mainly because you don’t accurately track your food intake. Think about it. I will give you an example. Just try tracking your calories with general unit measurements. For example, just take a tablespoon of peanut butter.
Tell me how many calories it should have. Maybe 70-85 calories?
Just take another tablespoon and measure the grams with a digital scale. Tell me how many grams are there now?
Plug them into a caloric tracking software like fitday and tell me how many calories you actually eat. I bet it’s much more than 70 calories.
This is only an example of a miscalculation. All these calculations when reported to a full day of eating, add up.
You miscalculate 20 calories here, 50 there and so on. At the end of the day, your supposed 500 calories deficit is actually none. And you wonder why you are not losing weight.
This is the answer. Track your calories accurately with the help of a digital scale and a caloric tracking software.
9. You Believe Most Fat Loss Hype
Nowadays, you can see commercials with ripped guys and girls everywhere. You can watch them at Tv promising you 30 lbs of fat loss per month. You can find them on the Internet promising you fat loss by eating anything you want.
You can stumble upon hype in most dieting books you can find in the common book stores.
A great way to fail at dieting is to believe the nonsense. I don’t really blame anyone. With all the misinformation flowing everywhere, it is hard for anyone to make a good idea of what works and what doesn’t work. Fortunately, I’m here to change that. Or at least I’m trying.
I have a perfect recommendation for you when it comes to avoiding hype. If it sounds too good to be true, question it. Question it and try to search for another opinion. Another answer. Not just one. Just take a moment and inform yourself better before you embark into following certain dieting methods or fat loss gimmicks.
10. You Subscribe To False Dogma
What I mean by false dogma?
Even to this day, I can see people talking about eating 6 meals a day to stroke their metabolic fire. Of course, we now know through research studies and evidence that this idea is false. Eating six meals a day doesn’t stroke your metabolic fire. This is just another myth.
Another similar example is doing countless abdominal exercises. You can’t reduce body fat in a certain spot as demonstrated by research.
Subscribing to these false dogmas will most likely give you suboptimal results. These things can slow you down or completely ruin your diet.
11. You Can’t Lose Weight Because You Are Too Rigid
I can relate to this. I was one of those people that tried to do everything perfect. When I started my first diet, I tried to make it perfect. I always did these things. Because I was a perfectionist.
This in turn made me rigid with my diet. It introduced rigidity in my life and it followed me everywhere I went. I just couldn’t get out with my friends anymore because I had to eat at a certain hour. I couldn’t drink a cold beer in a hot summer because I believed it will ruin my diet.
I like to be motivated. I like to see I’m being consistent with something I do. There’s nothing wrong with this. But when your life gets rigid because of the choices you make, there’s usually something wrong about that.
Rigidity in dieting means you are being too strict with your food choices, exercise routine, meal timing, and everything else. You fear the potential failure of your diet if you get out of certain boundaries you set.
What happens most of the time with rigid dieting approaches?
They fail. They fail in many ways. If you are too right with your diet for extended periods of time, there will be a time when you can run completely off your diet without even wanting to do so. You will be unable to control yourself. I say this because I also experienced binging because of rigid dieting. I saw and heard many people having binging episodes just because they didn’t allowed themselves a little room when it came to eating.
Instead of planning for a little room for additional calories, they keep trying to be perfect until they can’t take it anymore and they start a binging episode.
You can’t stay on a rigid diet forever. There will be times when you will be in other locations than your home. Maybe you will go on a vacation for a week. Maybe you will be at a party for one night. What are you going to do?
Good question…
Most people falling in this situation end up binging on everything. This simply happens because they didn’t allowed themselves a flexible way of dieting.
Life isn’t perfect. You have to learn how to deal with it and accept it the way it is.
12. You Overdo Your FREE Days
I had many clients that were unable to lose fat because of this issue. This is one of the main reasons why I always try to create a flexible diet. I like to get them to a six pack by eating the foods they like and without the need of having a cheat day.
A free day is mostly known as a day in which you can eat anything you want. This can backfire if you can’t control yourself. And most of the time, when you allow yourself this kind of a day, you will overdo it.
Would you waste 6 days of dieting just so you can enjoy 1 day of eating anything?
For what?
You can ruin months upon months if you take an approach like this. You either keep your dieting flexible or you will most likely fail. How to fix this problem?
You should definitely try to incorporate 1-2 free meals into your diet every week or do a reefed every once in a while. These strategies will ensure you won’t undo your 6 days of dieting for one day of overeating.
13. You Still Believe You Have An Ideal Bodyweight
Another reason why many people are stagnant with their fat loss efforts is because they believe they have to reach an ideal bodyweight for their height. I don’t really know from where this nonsense first appeared but just take a moment and think about it.
For someone that is sitting at 5’7, its ideal bodyweight should be 157 lbs according to the body weight chart. Those 157 lbs are mostly formed from water, muscle, and body fat.
I’ve met plenty of people that looked good with their abs showing up nicely. They just couldn’t stay lean because they wanted to reach a certain body weight relative to their height. Why would you want that?
There’s no ideal body weight for a certain height. The ideal body weight for you is that at which you look at your best. It doesn’t matter that you are 5’6 and you weight 175 lbs. You can be completely ripped at that body weight and look at your best. Why would you want to get down to 156 lbs?
14. You Are Not Eating Enough
Some might try to take this advice as it is. It seems wrong. In order to lose fat, you have to eat less than you expend. Isn’t it?
Yes. That is true but with a slight twist. While eating less than you expend will definitely help you lose fat, eating too little can potentially backfire. I can give you at least two situations in which eating too little can actually make it harder for you to lose weight fast or it can screw your diet.
The first situation is when you eat too little for long periods of time. Extending the lack of food for long periods of time will invariably get you in moments of extreme hunger. Getting too hungry on a diet is never a good thing. This is why I said that eating too little can backfire.
Let’s say you start a diet. A moderate fat loss approach would be to just eat a little less than you expend. If you take it to the next level by exaggerating the caloric deficit, you can set yourself for big problems.
First, if you eat too little, you are most likely not getting enough important vitamins and minerals. Creating vitamins and minerals deficiencies can lead to health problems. Next, you won’t be able to eat enough protein to maintain your muscle mass. You really don’t want to lose muscle mass on a diet. Keeping your muscle mass is important if you want to look good when you finish your diet. I don’t think you want to look skinny with bones showing up.
I talked about binging when I described rigid dieting. Binging is also a problem if you starve yourself by eating too little.
The fix is simple. Don’t embark in crash diets. Keep a moderate approach when dieting and you should be fine.
15. You Reward Exercise With Food
For many, burning calories at a workout is a mean of celebration. If you are currently falling into this trap, you have to try changing the general mindset about this. You have to change the way you think about exercise and rewards.
If you are rewarding yourself with food after exercise for quite a while, changing these habits will be a little hard. But if you really want to succeed, you must acknowledge the need for a change.
Just think about it. If you are running on a treadmill for 60 minutes, how many calories you think you are burning?
The numbers are somewhere around 500-600 calories. How many calories a chocolate has?
Approximately the same number of calories. So just think about it. You are trying hard to exercise for nothing?
Of course, you get the health benefits associated with the cardio you are doing but your body will look the same. This is a good reason why you can’t lose weight. You can’t really overcome food with training.
If you still want a reward after exercise, make sure you are planning it inside your caloric allotment for that day.
16. You Rely On Liquid Drinks
I can also relate to this. There was a time in my dieting history when I mostly used protein shakes. I had days when 2 out of the 3 meals I was eating, were protein shakes.
If you remain in caloric deficit, you can still lose weight even if you only drink protein shakes all day long. The bad thing that can happen is when you get too hungry and overdo your caloric intake with food. And trust me, it will happen. If you only rely on liquid calories. That’s why I only drink protein shakes as a bonus to my normal diet. That’s why you should do the same.
If you keep the hunger away while you are on a diet, you have bigger chances of succeeding.
17. You Rely On Diet Drinks
Diet coke is just an example from this category. I don’t want you to believe I am bashing diet drinks. Not true. Actually, if it were for me to choose which one to leave on the market, I would always use the diet version of a coke. Why?
Instead of gulping down useless calories in the form of normal coke, I would rather satisfy a craving without having to modify my diet. Diet coke allows you to do that. If there’s a day in the week in which you really feel like having a coke, chose the diet version. It has 0 calories, that’s why.
Nothing wrong until here. Here it comes…
Everything’s alright if you don’t create a habit out of this. Don’t get used to diet drinks because you are only fooling yourself. It’s just like smoking.
I see so many people smoking e-cigarettes in an effort to leave the normal one aside. What are they accomplishing?
Nothing really. They still don’t get away from the habit of smoking. They actually smoke more of that stuff. Nobody knows for sure if e-cigarettes are dangerous or not. They may be less harmful that the normal cigarette but no one knows the long term effects they have on your body. And some opponents have said that promoting these e-cigarettes as safe for smoking, could make non-smokers think about trying them.
I went a little far from the main subject but I wanted to make a point. If the diet coke is considered a healthy alternative to the normal coke, many dieters or normal people could start drinking diet coke and form a habit.
Don’t think that replacing the normal coke with a diet coke is healthy. The best thing you can do is to stay away from both of them. Don’t rely on diet drinks to help you stay on a diet. If you form a habit and enjoy that taste, be sure that you can definitely ruin your diet next time you crave a diet coke and you can only find a normal one around.
It’s best to stay away from them as much as you can.
18. Your Friends Are Fat
As strange as this might sound, having fat friends around can really put you on a hold when it comes to fat loss. It’s hard to believe but it’s true. I am not even diving into research. I met and discussed with plenty of people that had this problem.
I am a living example of how some friends that don’t care about dieting or weight loss, stalled my progress a few months if I were to count the weeks I wasted my dieting efforts. And it’s not their fault. It was entirely my fault. They were not the ones that were stuffing food into my mouth. I was the only responsible. And the same is true in your case. Don’t blame anyone from the mistakes you make. Don’t ask someone else why you can’t lose weight. You know why.
How they can ruin your diet?
Let’s say you successfully tracked your calories and you were in a caloric deficit for 6 days. The last day, Sunday, you’ve met with some friends in town at a restaurant. Let’s assume most of the present people are heavier than you and are not really interested in dieting. They are alright with the way they look.
A discussion about what you are eating arises. You also feel good, maybe you sip a little wine before you order. You see most of your friends are ordering those succulent sweet potatoes with pork meat and pizza for desert. Your mouth is getting watery from all that good food available. You do the same. Just this one time. You deserve it, isn’t it?
And you will try to find all sorts of motives why this won’t ruin your diet because this and that. In reality, eating that huge meal out in town might just be enough to make you waste 1 week of dieting.
Believe me, it happened to me too…
The only way you can escape this is with your will. You must have a strong will. Think about it before you go out in town. Plan for it. Eat less through the day and leave some room for those calories.
19. You Completely Eliminated Carbohydrates Or Fats
This one will be short. Completely eliminating a macronutrient from your diet (carbs or fats) won’t really solve your dieting problems. In fact, it can make dieting harder. What if you currently enjoy eating carbs in form of sweet potatoes and rice and you suddenly find yourself unable to eat them. What food choices you are left with?
Food choices high in protein and fat. What if you don’t like to eat your food without a source of carbohydrates like bread?
What if you don’t feel good on low carbohydrates?
There are many people that can’t eliminate carbohydrates without feeling crappy. This is a real issue.
The same is true with eliminating the fat from your diet. Why would you do that?
Maybe because you might believe that eating fat will make you fat. And eliminating fat from your diet will help you lose weight. Not even close…
Not only the food you will eat will taste like cardboard but you can get fat even if you don’t eat a gram of fat. If you eat surplus calories, you will get fat without even touching a gram of dietary fat.
The fix?
Eat everything in moderation. You can lose weight if you make sure you are staying in caloric deficit.
20. You Eat Too Many So Called “Superfoods”
Even if there are foods that have the notorious name of superfoods, they still add up to your daily caloric intake. What superfoods I’m talking about?
Avocados, dried fruits, nuts, etc. I don’t even know all of them. Don’t get fooled by the publicity these foods get nowadays. You can read and hear almost every day about a new super food that should be the end-all of your diet problems.
In reality, they are just another source of energy. Of course, most of these foods are richer in vitamins and minerals compared to the usual food we eat but that’s all. Make sure you don’t overdo with eating these foods.
21. You Don’t Manage Stress Too Well
You can follow the so called best diet in the world. You can be motivated. You can have a strong will. But of these can’t really fight against a stressful life. You see, life is not always easy for all of us.
You can get into all kinds of stressful events like deadlines hard to follow at work, fights with your life partner, bank rates, kids, etc.
Having a stressful life can ruin your diet. This is called emotional eating. Basically, there are people out there that can’t abstain from eating everything in sight when they are stressed. And believe me, it can happen to most of us. There are also people that can’t eat anything when they are stressed or sad. It happened to me too.
But all that is required for your diet to be ruined is an unplanned stressful event in your life. This is mostly true in the case of women. Women are more prone to the negative effects of overeating due to emotional eating. Because a woman is more emotional compared to a man.
Negative emotions can affect women more easily and drive them towards the food bucket. Because of this issue, there are many women that can’t lose weight. If you are a woman, be aware of this. It can ruin your diet.
22. You Feel The Effects Of Social Pressure
This happens a lot. I’ve heard stories regarding this subject too many times. How many times you attended to a reunion with your family members where big quantities of food were involved?
Or similar social events like this one?
I’ve had plenty of people I helped to shed excess pounds, telling me it’s hard to stay on a diet in situations like these. You can have family members insisting you serve yourself with a certain food. Try this or that. And refusing them is most of the time hard. You can hear comments like “You look fine, don’t worry, just taste this delicious cheesecake this time…just once”
Just one social event like this can ruin your diet. It can totally overcome your planned caloric deficit.
How can you avoid ruining several days of dieting, have a good time and eat some of the foods being offered to you?
Simple. Every time you know a social event is coming, plan for it. Make sure you eat less through the day until you reach that social event. If you can squeeze a workout before that event, it will be even better. You can think like this: “If I get some training, any potential excess calories will be used for a better good”. It’s a win-win situation. In case you put some weight on, some of it will be muscle mass because of that workout.
23. You Don’t Count Those Little Bites
There are times in which you can find yourself wandering in the kitchen. Maybe you have some free time. Maybe you just want to drink some water. You go ahead and enter the kitchen.
The place where everything related to food happens. You get to the fridge. You open it. You take a look around and think about taking a small bite.
Maybe you already finished eating the food you had to eat that day to stay in a caloric deficit. A small bite can’t do anything wrong, isn’t it?
This is true most of the time. But what happens if you are doing it through the day and you don’t even realize you are taking too many bites. These can add up. Let’s assume that in the morning you finish eating your planned meal. Right at the end, when you get the remaining food back to the fridge, you see a piece of cheese. You pick it up and eat it. That was the breakfast.
At launch, the same thing happens but instead of biting some cheese, you just see some leftover chicken. You eat it. You know where this goes to.
At dinner, you bite from something else. Maybe just a little bit of cheesecake or a piece of chocolate.
Through the day, this adds up. You can throw your planned caloric deficit through the window because of this. Just make sure you count those bites or better, eliminate them completely.
24. You Are Impatient
Impatience. What a weird state to be into. Getting impatient mostly happens because of the fad diets that create unrealistic promises. Most fad diets make you expect to drop weight at a rate almost impossible to any human. And this can really play with your head.
If the results are not there, you may feel discouraged and simply give up saying something like “Why I can’t lose weight?”…
And you simply throw the towel.The fix?
You just have to create realistic goals into your mind. Start with autosuggestion. Make yourself want to lose the first pound in a week. Tell yourself you can do it. The first pound is the easiest to lose. Why I am suggesting you this?
If you make small goals and achieve them, you will get more motivated to move forward. This is how most successful people do it. Take it in small steps.
25. You Exercise Too Much
When you want to lose fat, exercising is half of your efforts. The other half is your diet. Training while losing fat is necessary for a number of reasons. You will maintain muscle mass. You will feel better. You will promote easier fat loss. You will get additional caloric burn. And much more…
This is a tricky subject. When you want to lose fat, you don’t only have to take care of your diet, you also have to adjust your training. And this is where many people screw it up.
There are people believing that by training more, the results will come faster. While it is true that doing more will give you more in certain areas, it is not the same with training while dieting.
Too much training and low calories is a potential time ticking bomb. Taking training and low calorie diets too far can really sabotage your weight loss goals. How?
Your body is an interesting mechanism. He likes to be in control. He likes to maintain a constant balance. When it comes to your weight, he doesn’t really like to see you having a six pack. That would mean you won’ t have a good amount of fat stored. It’s really an evolutionary adaptation.
Back in the prehistoric times, when we had to hunt for food for survival, having fat on your body was important. There were times when you couldn’t find food and your body had to rely on something to keep you alive. That something was body fat. What has this to do with training and dieting?
If you train too much and you eat too little, your body will fight back. He will try to stop you wasting those body fat stores too much. Certain mechanisms of protection involve water retention, increased hunger, decreased energy, bad hormonal environment.
All of these makes it harder for you to see results and continue dieting. I mean, you could be really losing fat slowly each and every week and you might not be able to see it because your body holds on water. You see where this is going?
It can really play with your mind. You can be in caloric deficit for weeks, look at the scale, and the weight can be static even if you lost some. Many people give up on dieting because of this. This is a good reason why you hear people telling you diets don’t work.
So… what’s the fix here?
Moderation is the key. Don’t exaggerate with your training routine. Don’t try to do countless hours of cardio. Just make sure you are keeping your diet in check and do a regular training routine. Don’t try to train yourself into the ground.
26. You Are Trying To Shove Your Old Habits Into Your New Diet Plan
It’s very common for me to see people trying to diet but having a hard time giving up to their old habits. Junk food, desserts, chocolate, nutella, peanut butter, pizza, you name it. These demons disguised as food can easily ruin a diet plan.
I don’t say you shouldn’t have a treat now and then but if your main objective is to get those six pack abs or at least lose some fat, you are better off staying away a while from them.
Portion control is hard on these. Believe me, I screwed my diet many times because of my old habits. It was hard at first but in time I finally succeeded controlling my need for excessive junk food intake.
You just have to figure out how much of these treats you can eat and still lose fat. You just have to keep them at bay when you really have to.
Final thoughts
In reality, fat loss is simple once you master it. You can see it complex because it’s mostly overcomplicated by media and the abundance of fat loss gurus.
Most of us would be able to achieve rapid fat loss if we ignored all the nonsense and hype promoted everywhere and focus on the big picture. Focus on the things that matter.
Focus on counting calories, make sure you do resistance training, and avoid all the mistakes I listed above. You should be fine. That way, we won’t be hearing questions like “Why I can’t lose weight”, anymore.
What About You?
When you lose weight, what do you struggle with most?
If I missed or left something out, let me know in the comments bellow
Most popular diets nowadays promise you the cure for fat loss… the interminable problem we are all being faced at one moment…
If you are currently on a diet or you’ve been doing diets for a while, I believe you worked hard to achieve some results. And at least once in your lifetime, you’ve experienced some weight coming back.
Looking at research, did you know that only 17% of Americans are able to maintain 10% long term weight loss?
This means that the remaining 83% of people that diet and lose weight will regain most of it back. The numbers don’t look too good…
The reality is that losing weight and keeping it off shouldn’t be hard. It should be easy. Why I am saying this?
I am saying this because I was once the guy that couldn’t make any kind of diet work. I failed many times in my life… but all that disappointment made me stronger. Made me want to discover the real way to get lean. And I found it somewhere along those lines…
I did many mistakes that were ruining my dieting efforts. Now I see them. Now I know what I have to do to get perfectly ripped every time. I want to help you avoid the mistakes I personally learned from… and propel you forward by showing you the fixes.
There’s a saying: “You should learn from someone’s else mistakes and avoid them”… A good saying but most of the time, we have to hit our head in the wall to get the truth.
If losing weight has been hard until now, it will definitely be easier after you learn from my mistakes. Let’s look at the mistakes that can ruin your dieting efforts:
1. You Overestimate Your Caloric Expenditure
This one is interesting. Most of the time, it’s a hidden reason why you can’t lose weight. Did you know that even dietitians do this mistake?
Yes. It is true. Even people that should teach you the right way to diet and lose weight do this mistake. There are many research studies pointing this out.
Where’s the problem here?
I’m glad you asked. Let’s take an example. Let’s assume you currently require 2000 calories every day in order to maintain your current weight. Let’s say you believe you actually need 3000 calories per day in order to maintain your weight. What happens here?
You will try to hit 3000 calories or lower so you can maintain or lose weight. You won’t maintain your weight. You won’t lose weight. You know why?
Because you will eat too many calories over your maintenance caloric intake without even realizing that.
Many people overestimate their caloric intake and fail to lose any weight. Make sure you don’t fall into this trap. Again, make sure you correctly calculate the calories you expend and go for a deficit.
2. You Don’t Track Your Calories
This is the number one reason why most of us can’t lose weight. Is it that simple?
Well, the answer is… Yes… But this subject requires a more in depth explanation. Maybe you were promised that if you cut out carbs, fats or even meat, you will lose weight. Maybe somebody told you that eating sugar is the main reason why you are getting fatter. Some people are starting to take a stance against eating fruits lately.
Everything seems to be bad when it comes to weight loss. There are plenty of books on shelves that just wait for you to read them and implant a new fear on you. If you take a look on popular sites that are selling diet books, you can find all sorts of bogus diets. Let’s not even talk about reading articles on the internet. You can find cabbage soup diets, meat only diets, low fat diets, low carbohydrate diets and even cotton diets. Yes… It’s crazy. There are people that tried all kinds of diets.
Can you believe this?
It’s no wonder that the general population is overweight. Even when they want to diet, they are being misled into trying nonsense dieting methods that don’t work. So, what works?
Counting calories. Make no mistake, it’s not that you stopped eating sugar, carbs, fats or meat. It’s mostly because the changes you made, offered you a caloric deficit. In other words, you are cutting food choices from your table. The reality is that you are creating a caloric deficit.
The only reason why any diet works is because they invariably make you lower the calories you are eating. Low carbohydrate diets?
They make you cut your carbs… which means caloric deficit.
Low fat diets?
The same thing.
Just make sure you are tracking your caloric intake and maintain a deficit all the time. I wrote an extensive guide on caloric counting here.
3. You Believe Supplements Will Save You
While supplements can definitely help you progress faster, they can also slow you down if you use them improperly. How many times have you used a fat loss supplement and it didn’t worked?
How many times you saw an ad on Tv or on the Internet promoting a product that promises you it burns fat faster than any kind of diet out there and without any work involved?
Of course you saw at least one in your lifetime. And I can bet you most likely tried at least one supplement that promised increased fat loss.
Let’s be real. Most people interested in losing weight have tried at least one supplement that supposedly burns fat.
What is the reality?
Sadly, every time I’m reading articles or surfing the internet, I can see people and companies promoting every kind of fat burning supplements on the market. You can see supplements that supposedly burn fat without training. Fat burners that supposedly let you eat as much as you want and still make you lose fat. Fat burners that make you drop 6 dress sizes in 8 days. Most of them are bullshit.
Most of them don’t work. If they would work, you wouldn’t be here reading this article. I wouldn’t be here writing it for you and trying to expose the truth.
Most supplements are not even tested on research studies. And the ones that get researched, get positive results every time. I mean, that’s the number one reason why most supplement companies are conducting research studies and funding them. Believe me, the outcome of a research study done on a certain supplement and funded by the same company, can’t really have a negative result. It would mean loss in sales for them. It would mean they would waste money on research without any outcome.
That’s not how it works. Most supplement companies pay for positive results. Even if there are none.
There are only a few supplements for fat loss that work and have extensive research studies behind them. One of those supplements is the Ephedrine/Caffeine stack. Sadly, mass media got involved and mostly banished this supplement. They told everyone this stack is dangerous for their health.
In reality, any kind of side effects associated with this supplement were found in people that didn’t followed the correct dosage. Again, they tried more of it because they believed more equals better. Dumb thinking.
The last supplement I want to talk about is not really a supplement per se. The last “supplement” is your diet. Make sure your diet is in place and you are prepared for fat loss before you even think about buying a fat loss supplement. And believe me, most of the time you are better off without using any kind of fat loss supplement.
4. You Copy Someone Else’s Diet
What if I told you your body is different?
What I am saying here?
You are different. This is true when it comes to the amount of calories you burn daily. Your body burns a different amount of calories compared to any other people you know.
If you have a friend that currently gets on a diet and he eats according to a fixed meal plan, you might waste your time trying to copy what he is doing. Maybe he eats certain foods you don’t like.
What are you going to do?
Are you going to eat foods you dislike for a long period of time just because your friend eats them and he loses weight?
Alright… if your answer is yes, how much can you resist eating those foods?
A week, a month, maybe a year?
But what happens when you’ll give up and start gorging on the foods you enjoy?
You guessed. Your weight will come back. What good is to have a meal plan if you can’t follow it?
The key here is to find a diet that works for you. To find a diet you enjoy. One that would satisfy your need for certain foods. One which you can follow indefinitely. This is what I currently advocate. This is what also keeps me lean year round.
I eat foods I enjoy and I don’t even feel like I’m dieting. I’m like a normal person that goes through the day without thinking about what foods I can eat and what foods I can’t eat. In reality, I eat everything I enjoy eating.
Another important point here is to make sure the diet you are doing will maintain the weight loss. That means, you have to create one that will work for you.
5. You Don’t Lift Any Weights
I’ve met people that don’t enjoy going to a gym. I can’t blame them. I always try to empathize with people. I think about what I would do if I were in their place. In this case, I believe there are at least two possible solutions that can work in this circumstance.
The number 1 solution is to just make a small effort and go to a gym 2-3 times a week for an hour. This shouldn’t be too much for anyone. If it’s hard going alone, just try to find a friend you can take with you. Just make sure you don’t waste that hour with chatting. Chatting should be done in the rest between the sets. This makes the time pass even faster.
If the number 1 doesn’t work, just try another physical sport. Maybe you like running. Maybe you like to play tennis. I don’t really know what you like but just do it.
Even if you have two options, going to the gym always remains the most important thing you can do for your body. This is the only way you will ensure that you keep all your muscle mass.
Would you really want to lose weight despite losing muscle mass?
If you say “I don’t really care”, just think about what I will say now. The rate at which you can build muscle mass is approximately 4-10 pounds a year. And that is if you are lucky and you get your diet and training to work perfectly. Which involves much more than only a caloric deficit.
Would you want to lose 20 pounds of weight separated in 10 pounds of fat and 10 pounds of muscle mass?
That would mean 1 year of wasted muscle mass in just a few weeks. Is it worth it?
I’m not even counting the many benefits you get by maintaining your muscle mass like: having a better body composition, looking better, being stronger, healthier…
Don’t think too much about lifting weights… just lift them.
As a smart man once said:
fat loss problems quote george bernard - can't lose fat
6. You Don’t Take Sleep Seriously
Other than the fact that lack of sleep sometimes causes late night binging, ensuring you get enough sleep is very important for your general health. And even fat loss.
Now that I think about it, achieving true fat loss is like having a perfect chain. Each chain link should be strongly made and it should hold the entire chain. If just one link snaps, you can say bye bye to your fat loss diet.
Sleep is an important link to the whole chain. Missing too many nights from your bed will invariably make it harder for you to lose fat. It can potentially ruin your diet without you even knowing. How’s that?
Let’s think a bit. If you don’t sleep, you can’t train effectively. If you can’t train effectively, you can’t maintain your muscle mass. You can’t create an additional caloric burn. It will be harder for you to create a caloric deficit because now you burn less calories. You burn less calories and you are in the danger of binging because of the lack of sleep.
See how it all goes in links?
Not only that but lack of sleep has also been correlated with certain negative effects on your body like obesity, insulin resistance, and hypertension.
You don’t really want to miss those nights of sleeping. Make sure you take a good nap each night.
7. You Fear Certain Food Choices
There are people that fear carbohydrates. There are people that fear fats. I remember that at some time, I feared everything. Fats, carbohydrates, potatoes, rice, everything. Just name it and it was probably a personal fear of mine. Again, promoted by the usual fat loss gurus.
Fearing any kind of food choice for the sake of fat loss is ridiculous. Even assuming that a certain food item is the cause of obesity. I’ve written about this subject extensively in my book but to summarize it for you, a food choice can’t be a main cause of obesity. We eat more than we ate some years ago. The general caloric intake has gone up in the last decades. This is the main cause of obesity.
We can’t lose weight because we eat too damn much!
Fearing food is mainly a misconception. Yes, there are people that have all the reasons to fear certain foods. People that are lactose intolerant and can’t drink milk without having stomach problems. Or people that have Celiac Disease and can’t eat gluten.
But most of us don’t have any problems like these. I eat anything I want and I can still maintain a six pack year round. You can do the same.
Fearing nutrients or certain foods is useless. But this fear surely sells a lot of dieting books. Just sayin’…
8. You Fail At Tracking Your Calories
How many times you’ve tried to estimate the calories you were eating and you failed?
If you are like me and you dieted for years, I believe the answer is: MANY TIMES!
How can you fail at tracking your calories?
It’s very simple. This happens when you believe you are eating a certain number of calories and you actually eat more without knowing. Why is this happening?
Most of the time, these things happen mainly because you don’t accurately track your food intake. Think about it. I will give you an example. Just try tracking your calories with general unit measurements. For example, just take a tablespoon of peanut butter.
Tell me how many calories it should have. Maybe 70-85 calories?
Just take another tablespoon and measure the grams with a digital scale. Tell me how many grams are there now?
Plug them into a caloric tracking software like fitday and tell me how many calories you actually eat. I bet it’s much more than 70 calories.
This is only an example of a miscalculation. All these calculations when reported to a full day of eating, add up.
You miscalculate 20 calories here, 50 there and so on. At the end of the day, your supposed 500 calories deficit is actually none. And you wonder why you are not losing weight.
This is the answer. Track your calories accurately with the help of a digital scale and a caloric tracking software.
9. You Believe Most Fat Loss Hype
Nowadays, you can see commercials with ripped guys and girls everywhere. You can watch them at Tv promising you 30 lbs of fat loss per month. You can find them on the Internet promising you fat loss by eating anything you want.
You can stumble upon hype in most dieting books you can find in the common book stores.
A great way to fail at dieting is to believe the nonsense. I don’t really blame anyone. With all the misinformation flowing everywhere, it is hard for anyone to make a good idea of what works and what doesn’t work. Fortunately, I’m here to change that. Or at least I’m trying.
I have a perfect recommendation for you when it comes to avoiding hype. If it sounds too good to be true, question it. Question it and try to search for another opinion. Another answer. Not just one. Just take a moment and inform yourself better before you embark into following certain dieting methods or fat loss gimmicks.
10. You Subscribe To False Dogma
What I mean by false dogma?
Even to this day, I can see people talking about eating 6 meals a day to stroke their metabolic fire. Of course, we now know through research studies and evidence that this idea is false. Eating six meals a day doesn’t stroke your metabolic fire. This is just another myth.
Another similar example is doing countless abdominal exercises. You can’t reduce body fat in a certain spot as demonstrated by research.
Subscribing to these false dogmas will most likely give you suboptimal results. These things can slow you down or completely ruin your diet.
11. You Can’t Lose Weight Because You Are Too Rigid
I can relate to this. I was one of those people that tried to do everything perfect. When I started my first diet, I tried to make it perfect. I always did these things. Because I was a perfectionist.
This in turn made me rigid with my diet. It introduced rigidity in my life and it followed me everywhere I went. I just couldn’t get out with my friends anymore because I had to eat at a certain hour. I couldn’t drink a cold beer in a hot summer because I believed it will ruin my diet.
I like to be motivated. I like to see I’m being consistent with something I do. There’s nothing wrong with this. But when your life gets rigid because of the choices you make, there’s usually something wrong about that.
Rigidity in dieting means you are being too strict with your food choices, exercise routine, meal timing, and everything else. You fear the potential failure of your diet if you get out of certain boundaries you set.
What happens most of the time with rigid dieting approaches?
They fail. They fail in many ways. If you are too right with your diet for extended periods of time, there will be a time when you can run completely off your diet without even wanting to do so. You will be unable to control yourself. I say this because I also experienced binging because of rigid dieting. I saw and heard many people having binging episodes just because they didn’t allowed themselves a little room when it came to eating.
Instead of planning for a little room for additional calories, they keep trying to be perfect until they can’t take it anymore and they start a binging episode.
You can’t stay on a rigid diet forever. There will be times when you will be in other locations than your home. Maybe you will go on a vacation for a week. Maybe you will be at a party for one night. What are you going to do?
Good question…
Most people falling in this situation end up binging on everything. This simply happens because they didn’t allowed themselves a flexible way of dieting.
Life isn’t perfect. You have to learn how to deal with it and accept it the way it is.
12. You Overdo Your FREE Days
I had many clients that were unable to lose fat because of this issue. This is one of the main reasons why I always try to create a flexible diet. I like to get them to a six pack by eating the foods they like and without the need of having a cheat day.
A free day is mostly known as a day in which you can eat anything you want. This can backfire if you can’t control yourself. And most of the time, when you allow yourself this kind of a day, you will overdo it.
Would you waste 6 days of dieting just so you can enjoy 1 day of eating anything?
For what?
You can ruin months upon months if you take an approach like this. You either keep your dieting flexible or you will most likely fail. How to fix this problem?
You should definitely try to incorporate 1-2 free meals into your diet every week or do a reefed every once in a while. These strategies will ensure you won’t undo your 6 days of dieting for one day of overeating.
13. You Still Believe You Have An Ideal Bodyweight
Another reason why many people are stagnant with their fat loss efforts is because they believe they have to reach an ideal bodyweight for their height. I don’t really know from where this nonsense first appeared but just take a moment and think about it.
For someone that is sitting at 5’7, its ideal bodyweight should be 157 lbs according to the body weight chart. Those 157 lbs are mostly formed from water, muscle, and body fat.
I’ve met plenty of people that looked good with their abs showing up nicely. They just couldn’t stay lean because they wanted to reach a certain body weight relative to their height. Why would you want that?
There’s no ideal body weight for a certain height. The ideal body weight for you is that at which you look at your best. It doesn’t matter that you are 5’6 and you weight 175 lbs. You can be completely ripped at that body weight and look at your best. Why would you want to get down to 156 lbs?
14. You Are Not Eating Enough
Some might try to take this advice as it is. It seems wrong. In order to lose fat, you have to eat less than you expend. Isn’t it?
Yes. That is true but with a slight twist. While eating less than you expend will definitely help you lose fat, eating too little can potentially backfire. I can give you at least two situations in which eating too little can actually make it harder for you to lose weight fast or it can screw your diet.
The first situation is when you eat too little for long periods of time. Extending the lack of food for long periods of time will invariably get you in moments of extreme hunger. Getting too hungry on a diet is never a good thing. This is why I said that eating too little can backfire.
Let’s say you start a diet. A moderate fat loss approach would be to just eat a little less than you expend. If you take it to the next level by exaggerating the caloric deficit, you can set yourself for big problems.
First, if you eat too little, you are most likely not getting enough important vitamins and minerals. Creating vitamins and minerals deficiencies can lead to health problems. Next, you won’t be able to eat enough protein to maintain your muscle mass. You really don’t want to lose muscle mass on a diet. Keeping your muscle mass is important if you want to look good when you finish your diet. I don’t think you want to look skinny with bones showing up.
I talked about binging when I described rigid dieting. Binging is also a problem if you starve yourself by eating too little.
The fix is simple. Don’t embark in crash diets. Keep a moderate approach when dieting and you should be fine.
15. You Reward Exercise With Food
For many, burning calories at a workout is a mean of celebration. If you are currently falling into this trap, you have to try changing the general mindset about this. You have to change the way you think about exercise and rewards.
If you are rewarding yourself with food after exercise for quite a while, changing these habits will be a little hard. But if you really want to succeed, you must acknowledge the need for a change.
Just think about it. If you are running on a treadmill for 60 minutes, how many calories you think you are burning?
The numbers are somewhere around 500-600 calories. How many calories a chocolate has?
Approximately the same number of calories. So just think about it. You are trying hard to exercise for nothing?
Of course, you get the health benefits associated with the cardio you are doing but your body will look the same. This is a good reason why you can’t lose weight. You can’t really overcome food with training.
If you still want a reward after exercise, make sure you are planning it inside your caloric allotment for that day.
16. You Rely On Liquid Drinks
I can also relate to this. There was a time in my dieting history when I mostly used protein shakes. I had days when 2 out of the 3 meals I was eating, were protein shakes.
If you remain in caloric deficit, you can still lose weight even if you only drink protein shakes all day long. The bad thing that can happen is when you get too hungry and overdo your caloric intake with food. And trust me, it will happen. If you only rely on liquid calories. That’s why I only drink protein shakes as a bonus to my normal diet. That’s why you should do the same.
If you keep the hunger away while you are on a diet, you have bigger chances of succeeding.
17. You Rely On Diet Drinks
Diet coke is just an example from this category. I don’t want you to believe I am bashing diet drinks. Not true. Actually, if it were for me to choose which one to leave on the market, I would always use the diet version of a coke. Why?
Instead of gulping down useless calories in the form of normal coke, I would rather satisfy a craving without having to modify my diet. Diet coke allows you to do that. If there’s a day in the week in which you really feel like having a coke, chose the diet version. It has 0 calories, that’s why.
Nothing wrong until here. Here it comes…
Everything’s alright if you don’t create a habit out of this. Don’t get used to diet drinks because you are only fooling yourself. It’s just like smoking.
I see so many people smoking e-cigarettes in an effort to leave the normal one aside. What are they accomplishing?
Nothing really. They still don’t get away from the habit of smoking. They actually smoke more of that stuff. Nobody knows for sure if e-cigarettes are dangerous or not. They may be less harmful that the normal cigarette but no one knows the long term effects they have on your body. And some opponents have said that promoting these e-cigarettes as safe for smoking, could make non-smokers think about trying them.
I went a little far from the main subject but I wanted to make a point. If the diet coke is considered a healthy alternative to the normal coke, many dieters or normal people could start drinking diet coke and form a habit.
Don’t think that replacing the normal coke with a diet coke is healthy. The best thing you can do is to stay away from both of them. Don’t rely on diet drinks to help you stay on a diet. If you form a habit and enjoy that taste, be sure that you can definitely ruin your diet next time you crave a diet coke and you can only find a normal one around.
It’s best to stay away from them as much as you can.
18. Your Friends Are Fat
As strange as this might sound, having fat friends around can really put you on a hold when it comes to fat loss. It’s hard to believe but it’s true. I am not even diving into research. I met and discussed with plenty of people that had this problem.
I am a living example of how some friends that don’t care about dieting or weight loss, stalled my progress a few months if I were to count the weeks I wasted my dieting efforts. And it’s not their fault. It was entirely my fault. They were not the ones that were stuffing food into my mouth. I was the only responsible. And the same is true in your case. Don’t blame anyone from the mistakes you make. Don’t ask someone else why you can’t lose weight. You know why.
How they can ruin your diet?
Let’s say you successfully tracked your calories and you were in a caloric deficit for 6 days. The last day, Sunday, you’ve met with some friends in town at a restaurant. Let’s assume most of the present people are heavier than you and are not really interested in dieting. They are alright with the way they look.
A discussion about what you are eating arises. You also feel good, maybe you sip a little wine before you order. You see most of your friends are ordering those succulent sweet potatoes with pork meat and pizza for desert. Your mouth is getting watery from all that good food available. You do the same. Just this one time. You deserve it, isn’t it?
And you will try to find all sorts of motives why this won’t ruin your diet because this and that. In reality, eating that huge meal out in town might just be enough to make you waste 1 week of dieting.
Believe me, it happened to me too…
The only way you can escape this is with your will. You must have a strong will. Think about it before you go out in town. Plan for it. Eat less through the day and leave some room for those calories.
19. You Completely Eliminated Carbohydrates Or Fats
This one will be short. Completely eliminating a macronutrient from your diet (carbs or fats) won’t really solve your dieting problems. In fact, it can make dieting harder. What if you currently enjoy eating carbs in form of sweet potatoes and rice and you suddenly find yourself unable to eat them. What food choices you are left with?
Food choices high in protein and fat. What if you don’t like to eat your food without a source of carbohydrates like bread?
What if you don’t feel good on low carbohydrates?
There are many people that can’t eliminate carbohydrates without feeling crappy. This is a real issue.
The same is true with eliminating the fat from your diet. Why would you do that?
Maybe because you might believe that eating fat will make you fat. And eliminating fat from your diet will help you lose weight. Not even close…
Not only the food you will eat will taste like cardboard but you can get fat even if you don’t eat a gram of fat. If you eat surplus calories, you will get fat without even touching a gram of dietary fat.
The fix?
Eat everything in moderation. You can lose weight if you make sure you are staying in caloric deficit.
20. You Eat Too Many So Called “Superfoods”
Even if there are foods that have the notorious name of superfoods, they still add up to your daily caloric intake. What superfoods I’m talking about?
Avocados, dried fruits, nuts, etc. I don’t even know all of them. Don’t get fooled by the publicity these foods get nowadays. You can read and hear almost every day about a new super food that should be the end-all of your diet problems.
In reality, they are just another source of energy. Of course, most of these foods are richer in vitamins and minerals compared to the usual food we eat but that’s all. Make sure you don’t overdo with eating these foods.
21. You Don’t Manage Stress Too Well
You can follow the so called best diet in the world. You can be motivated. You can have a strong will. But of these can’t really fight against a stressful life. You see, life is not always easy for all of us.
You can get into all kinds of stressful events like deadlines hard to follow at work, fights with your life partner, bank rates, kids, etc.
Having a stressful life can ruin your diet. This is called emotional eating. Basically, there are people out there that can’t abstain from eating everything in sight when they are stressed. And believe me, it can happen to most of us. There are also people that can’t eat anything when they are stressed or sad. It happened to me too.
But all that is required for your diet to be ruined is an unplanned stressful event in your life. This is mostly true in the case of women. Women are more prone to the negative effects of overeating due to emotional eating. Because a woman is more emotional compared to a man.
Negative emotions can affect women more easily and drive them towards the food bucket. Because of this issue, there are many women that can’t lose weight. If you are a woman, be aware of this. It can ruin your diet.
22. You Feel The Effects Of Social Pressure
This happens a lot. I’ve heard stories regarding this subject too many times. How many times you attended to a reunion with your family members where big quantities of food were involved?
Or similar social events like this one?
I’ve had plenty of people I helped to shed excess pounds, telling me it’s hard to stay on a diet in situations like these. You can have family members insisting you serve yourself with a certain food. Try this or that. And refusing them is most of the time hard. You can hear comments like “You look fine, don’t worry, just taste this delicious cheesecake this time…just once”
Just one social event like this can ruin your diet. It can totally overcome your planned caloric deficit.
How can you avoid ruining several days of dieting, have a good time and eat some of the foods being offered to you?
Simple. Every time you know a social event is coming, plan for it. Make sure you eat less through the day until you reach that social event. If you can squeeze a workout before that event, it will be even better. You can think like this: “If I get some training, any potential excess calories will be used for a better good”. It’s a win-win situation. In case you put some weight on, some of it will be muscle mass because of that workout.
23. You Don’t Count Those Little Bites
There are times in which you can find yourself wandering in the kitchen. Maybe you have some free time. Maybe you just want to drink some water. You go ahead and enter the kitchen.
The place where everything related to food happens. You get to the fridge. You open it. You take a look around and think about taking a small bite.
Maybe you already finished eating the food you had to eat that day to stay in a caloric deficit. A small bite can’t do anything wrong, isn’t it?
This is true most of the time. But what happens if you are doing it through the day and you don’t even realize you are taking too many bites. These can add up. Let’s assume that in the morning you finish eating your planned meal. Right at the end, when you get the remaining food back to the fridge, you see a piece of cheese. You pick it up and eat it. That was the breakfast.
At launch, the same thing happens but instead of biting some cheese, you just see some leftover chicken. You eat it. You know where this goes to.
At dinner, you bite from something else. Maybe just a little bit of cheesecake or a piece of chocolate.
Through the day, this adds up. You can throw your planned caloric deficit through the window because of this. Just make sure you count those bites or better, eliminate them completely.
24. You Are Impatient
Impatience. What a weird state to be into. Getting impatient mostly happens because of the fad diets that create unrealistic promises. Most fad diets make you expect to drop weight at a rate almost impossible to any human. And this can really play with your head.
If the results are not there, you may feel discouraged and simply give up saying something like “Why I can’t lose weight?”…
And you simply throw the towel.The fix?
You just have to create realistic goals into your mind. Start with autosuggestion. Make yourself want to lose the first pound in a week. Tell yourself you can do it. The first pound is the easiest to lose. Why I am suggesting you this?
If you make small goals and achieve them, you will get more motivated to move forward. This is how most successful people do it. Take it in small steps.
25. You Exercise Too Much
When you want to lose fat, exercising is half of your efforts. The other half is your diet. Training while losing fat is necessary for a number of reasons. You will maintain muscle mass. You will feel better. You will promote easier fat loss. You will get additional caloric burn. And much more…
This is a tricky subject. When you want to lose fat, you don’t only have to take care of your diet, you also have to adjust your training. And this is where many people screw it up.
There are people believing that by training more, the results will come faster. While it is true that doing more will give you more in certain areas, it is not the same with training while dieting.
Too much training and low calories is a potential time ticking bomb. Taking training and low calorie diets too far can really sabotage your weight loss goals. How?
Your body is an interesting mechanism. He likes to be in control. He likes to maintain a constant balance. When it comes to your weight, he doesn’t really like to see you having a six pack. That would mean you won’ t have a good amount of fat stored. It’s really an evolutionary adaptation.
Back in the prehistoric times, when we had to hunt for food for survival, having fat on your body was important. There were times when you couldn’t find food and your body had to rely on something to keep you alive. That something was body fat. What has this to do with training and dieting?
If you train too much and you eat too little, your body will fight back. He will try to stop you wasting those body fat stores too much. Certain mechanisms of protection involve water retention, increased hunger, decreased energy, bad hormonal environment.
All of these makes it harder for you to see results and continue dieting. I mean, you could be really losing fat slowly each and every week and you might not be able to see it because your body holds on water. You see where this is going?
It can really play with your mind. You can be in caloric deficit for weeks, look at the scale, and the weight can be static even if you lost some. Many people give up on dieting because of this. This is a good reason why you hear people telling you diets don’t work.
So… what’s the fix here?
Moderation is the key. Don’t exaggerate with your training routine. Don’t try to do countless hours of cardio. Just make sure you are keeping your diet in check and do a regular training routine. Don’t try to train yourself into the ground.
26. You Are Trying To Shove Your Old Habits Into Your New Diet Plan
It’s very common for me to see people trying to diet but having a hard time giving up to their old habits. Junk food, desserts, chocolate, nutella, peanut butter, pizza, you name it. These demons disguised as food can easily ruin a diet plan.
I don’t say you shouldn’t have a treat now and then but if your main objective is to get those six pack abs or at least lose some fat, you are better off staying away a while from them.
Portion control is hard on these. Believe me, I screwed my diet many times because of my old habits. It was hard at first but in time I finally succeeded controlling my need for excessive junk food intake.
You just have to figure out how much of these treats you can eat and still lose fat. You just have to keep them at bay when you really have to.
Final thoughts
In reality, fat loss is simple once you master it. You can see it complex because it’s mostly overcomplicated by media and the abundance of fat loss gurus.
Most of us would be able to achieve rapid fat loss if we ignored all the nonsense and hype promoted everywhere and focus on the big picture. Focus on the things that matter.
Focus on counting calories, make sure you do resistance training, and avoid all the mistakes I listed above. You should be fine. That way, we won’t be hearing questions like “Why I can’t lose weight”, anymore.
What About You?
When you lose weight, what do you struggle with most?
If I missed or left something out, let me know in the comments bellow
