#9- Poor hydration: You should be drinking around ½ ounce of water for every pound of body weight. If you’re not getting close to this amount or more you’re probably dehydrated. This is going to have a negative impact on not just your weight loss but also your energy levels and health. For more info on how and why to hydrate check my article on hydration.
#8- Not enough food: This typically tends to happen more with female clients then male clients. People get so concerned with counting calories and wanting to get those results fast they decrease their calorie consumption WAY too much. I had one client who would not take my advice of increasing her calorie intake; she ate 900-1100 calories/day. And guess what after losing 4 pounds in the first month she didn’t budge one single pound for the next 8 months because she just wasn’t eating enough food so her body was shutting down her metabolism. Don’t get into calories counting or slashing calories out. Focus more on good food choices (non processed food) and reasonable serving sizes.
#7- Too many carbs- In North America we’re carb overloaded. Almost everybody over consumes on carbs, this is in large part due to the typical American Food Pyramid or Canadian Food Guide and their unbelievably high serving sizes for grains. Even if you’re eating whole grains if you’re having 6-12 servings of grains per day you’re not going to be progressing towards your goal of weight loss. Now I’m not suggesting a low carb diet, carbs are a great thing you need them to live. However, try to get your carbs mainly from fruits and vegetables. Remember carbs are in almost every single food, outside of meat or fish.
#6- Avoiding fat- This is one of the biggest problems I see is people avoiding fats like the plague. Unless you’re eating a lot of deep fried food, fast food or potatoes chips you’re probably not over weight because of too much fat intake. I have to increase the fat consumption of most of my clients that come to me. I want to be clear when I say it is important to be increasing fats I’m talking from natural unprocessed sources, ie. Nuts, oils, avocados, meat, fish, etc. These are all good fats and they are going to help you towards your weight loss. If you’re consuming dairy products do NOT get low or no fat products. Get diary that has fat in it, don’t get the skim milk or the 1%, get some that has higher fat contents in them. Dairy is supposed to have fat in it, that’s what Mother Nature intended. If it is fat free or low fat it means it’s been very processed and nutrients have been taken out of the food.
#5-Too much aerobic exercise in the “fat burning” zone: Most people do endless amounts of cardio to lose weight, thank you mass media. Unfortunately this is far from the most efficient way to lose weight. For those of you who hate doing an hour of cardio every day I’ve got some good news for you. Slow long bouts of cardio is one of the least efficient ways for people to lose weight.
#7- Too many carbs- In North America we’re carb overloaded. Almost everybody over consumes on carbs, this is in large part due to the typical American Food Pyramid or Canadian Food Guide and their unbelievably high serving sizes for grains. Even if you’re eating whole grains if you’re having 6-12 servings of grains per day you’re not going to be progressing towards your goal of weight loss. Now I’m not suggesting a low carb diet, carbs are a great thing you need them to live. However, try to get your carbs mainly from fruits and vegetables. Remember carbs are in almost every single food, outside of meat or fish.
#6- Avoiding fat- This is one of the biggest problems I see is people avoiding fats like the plague. Unless you’re eating a lot of deep fried food, fast food or potatoes chips you’re probably not over weight because of too much fat intake. I have to increase the fat consumption of most of my clients that come to me. I want to be clear when I say it is important to be increasing fats I’m talking from natural unprocessed sources, ie. Nuts, oils, avocados, meat, fish, etc. These are all good fats and they are going to help you towards your weight loss. If you’re consuming dairy products do NOT get low or no fat products. Get diary that has fat in it, don’t get the skim milk or the 1%, get some that has higher fat contents in them. Dairy is supposed to have fat in it, that’s what Mother Nature intended. If it is fat free or low fat it means it’s been very processed and nutrients have been taken out of the food.
#5-Too much aerobic exercise in the “fat burning” zone: Most people do endless amounts of cardio to lose weight, thank you mass media. Unfortunately this is far from the most efficient way to lose weight. For those of you who hate doing an hour of cardio every day I’ve got some good news for you. Slow long bouts of cardio is one of the least efficient ways for people to lose weight.
If someone has been completely sedentary and inactive they do need to start by doing some basic cardio (just get moving, go for walks or bike rides outside), however if you are in pretty decent shape you need to switch things up and start doing something different because as you develop more cardiovascular fitness your body becomes very efficient at storing fat. Go take a look at your local gyms aerobic classes. Pick out one or two regulars in the class who need to lose some weight, then come back in two months there is a good chance they will be the exact same size or bigger. Their body becomes so efficient at burning fat they begin to burn less calories with every workout. For more information on this check out this article on interval training.
#4- Not enough anaerobic exercise- Most of you are going to be saying to yourself what the hell is anaerobic exercise?? I’ll skip over the nerdy science stuff and give a simple explanation. With aerobic exercise your body uses oxygen as the main source of energy, with anaerobic work your body is working so hard that it doesn’t have enough time to use oxygen for energy so it uses glycogen (stored carbs) and a couple other chemical reactions to give you energy. Any easy rule of thumb to know if the exercise you’re doing is anerobic; if you can’t do the exercise for more than 30 seconds to a minute and half without taking some sort of rest or recovery then you’re training anaerobically.
#4- Not enough anaerobic exercise- Most of you are going to be saying to yourself what the hell is anaerobic exercise?? I’ll skip over the nerdy science stuff and give a simple explanation. With aerobic exercise your body uses oxygen as the main source of energy, with anaerobic work your body is working so hard that it doesn’t have enough time to use oxygen for energy so it uses glycogen (stored carbs) and a couple other chemical reactions to give you energy. Any easy rule of thumb to know if the exercise you’re doing is anerobic; if you can’t do the exercise for more than 30 seconds to a minute and half without taking some sort of rest or recovery then you’re training anaerobically.
For example, if you are in the weight room and you do a 8 reps on bench press and can’t get that 9th rep out. You would need a break to continue working out (this would be anaerobic). Picture a football player who sprints as fast as he can from one end of the field to the other, he wouldn’t be able to continue sprinting he would need to take a walk to recover (this is anaerobic). The reason it is important is when your body works anaerobically it elevates your metabolism and according to research it stays elevated anywhere from 4-48 hours afterwards. You do not get the same elevation in metabolism from aerobic work.
#3- Too little intensity when working out- When it comes down to it most people just don’t work hard enough when they are working out. As a personal trainer I see this with almost all new clients. They think they are working really hard and killing themselves, but they are far from really pushing the envelope. When you look at most people looking to lose weight and they are in the weight room they go through their little circuit of 8 exercises taking breaks long breaks, chatting in between. What they should be doing is getting some good quality work done in the gym. I would take 20 really hard minutes in the gym weather it’s weight room or cardio over 60 minutes of moderate intensity work for most people.
#3- Too little intensity when working out- When it comes down to it most people just don’t work hard enough when they are working out. As a personal trainer I see this with almost all new clients. They think they are working really hard and killing themselves, but they are far from really pushing the envelope. When you look at most people looking to lose weight and they are in the weight room they go through their little circuit of 8 exercises taking breaks long breaks, chatting in between. What they should be doing is getting some good quality work done in the gym. I would take 20 really hard minutes in the gym weather it’s weight room or cardio over 60 minutes of moderate intensity work for most people.
#2- Poor Sleep Habits- This is a big one where people go wrong. Most people are getting a terrible night of sleep these days. Over the years I have heard hundreds of different peoples lifestyles and sleep is one of the biggest problems. Most people get a broken night of sleep where they wake up several times and have problems getting to sleep or they can’t fall asleep in the first place, or they simply don’t leave themselves enough time to sleep. Step number one make sure you’re getting 8 hours of sleep every night. Step 2 make sure you’re getting to bed between 10:00 and 10:30 every night. Most people I talk to wine about having to go to bed that early and say I’m a night hawk I like to stay up late, I’m not tired at that time of night. The reason they’re not tired is because that is what you’ve conditioned your body to do. But all you’re doing is fighting Mother Nature again.
Humans are designed to function based on the cycle of the sun. Our hormone release is in large part triggered by the sun rising and the sun setting. If you’re getting to bed around midnight and getting up at 8:00 the next morning you’ll be throwing your hormones out of whack. I’ve seen a person who could not lose any weight once they switched their bed time to 10:30 without making any other changes he began to lose weight immediately. Not only will it help with your weight loss you’ll no longer need as much caffeine because you’ll have far more energy.
#1- The Wrong Attitude: This is probably one of the areas that most people need a lot of work on. Most people spend too much time being negative with their thoughts. Don’t look at exercise as being tough and a lot of work. Look at it as a way of challenging yourself, if you can get into the gym and get through a hard work out it can help you to build confidence in handling the other challenges life hands you.
#1- The Wrong Attitude: This is probably one of the areas that most people need a lot of work on. Most people spend too much time being negative with their thoughts. Don’t look at exercise as being tough and a lot of work. Look at it as a way of challenging yourself, if you can get into the gym and get through a hard work out it can help you to build confidence in handling the other challenges life hands you.
Don’t look at eating healthy as a form of depriving yourself, thinking about how much better you’re going to feel not only with better energy and health , but also the increased confidence when you start to shed inches off your waste and hips. If you go into your weight loss challenge thinking that it’s going to be impossible, no fun and it’s going to suck that’s exactly what your experience is going to be and you won’t be getting to your goal. If you take a different perspective and look at it as a challenging journey that has a light at the end of the tunnel and you keep your positive perspective going you’ll get to that light at the end of the tunnel.
Most people when they ask me what they should do to lose some weight don’t like the answer I give them because it’s not a quick fix; it’s not some miracle pill. It’s going to take hard work, commitment and it will be a long journey. But once you get to your weight loss goal I guarantee you it will all be worth the hard work and effort.
Most people when they ask me what they should do to lose some weight don’t like the answer I give them because it’s not a quick fix; it’s not some miracle pill. It’s going to take hard work, commitment and it will be a long journey. But once you get to your weight loss goal I guarantee you it will all be worth the hard work and effort.
For more free information check out our free resource section of our website at http://www.peak-personaltraining.com/resources.html.
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