Suddenly it’s Monday again and you’ve found yourself on the weight loss / weight gain round-a-bout. You’re SURE when you weighed in on Friday just gone, you were 3kg lighter, how on earth have you managed to stack on all this fat across the weekend? If you were to have an honestly moment with yourself, it might not seem that surprising as you went from salad + tuna to a plentiful weekend of brunches, lunches, coffee n cake, champagne, beers in the sun….. yeah, it’s really not that surprising at all is it?!
Well you know what – what’s done is done and the best thing about a Monday is that you get to start fresh all over again. Put the weekend behind you and focus on the week ahead. 7 days of healthy, clean eating coupled with some hard training will be enough to shift the excess, as long as you don’t do anything crazy. This week’s blog is about what NOT to do – listed below are 3 classic mistakes that people make when they’re trying to lose weight – make sure you DON’T fall into the trap of 1, 2 or 3, as you will slow your progress and make your weight loss journey even harder.
#1 – Quick Fix Detoxes and Juice Cleanses
Warning warning – these are a trap, they are crap and ultimately they will do you more damage than good. Living off juice for a few days might make you feel slimmer, but it’s unsustainable and will leave you lacking in energy, hungry and wreak havoc with your metabolism. I’m not against juicing at all but substituting real meals for low-calorie liquid options is not the way forward. What happens at the end of the 5 days of juicing? You guessed it, you’ll most likely binge eat and find yourself back to where you started
#2 – Cutting food groups out excessively
Don’t cut your carbs, cut your diary, cut your meat, cut your anything! Removing food groups again, leaves you feeling lighter and leaner, but ultimately it’s not a sustainable way of eating. You can’t just drop 2/3 of your regular eating plan and expect to be able to keep that up – you’ll get bored, you’ll get hungry and again, like the juice cleanse, ultimately you’ll binge come the weekend. If you are planning on cutting out a food group for whatever reason, just make sure you research alternative options to get the essential vitamins, minerals and macros into your diet via another angle. The absolute worst is when people decide to suddenly become vegetarian and haven’t bothered to research plant-based proteins to replace meat. Know your stuff, know why you are doing it and be smart about it
#3 – Training like a possessed human without proper build up
Guess what, you can’t go from 1 session per week to 9 without a negative impact on your body. If you’re de-conditioned (outta shape, unfit, injured, overweight) it’s going to take some time for you to build up to training daily, or for the super fit, training more than once per day. One of the worst things you can do it jump in balls to the wall and get injured. Your recovery is as important as your training, and it’s better for you to put in 3 solid sessions, training PROPERLY, at 100% intensity and effort, than it its to put in 8 half arsed ones. Train hard, train properly and your results will come quicker.
We all know that losing weight and keeping it off is one of the toughest things out there. It comes on so easily and can prove a real nightmare to get off. There are no magic pills, diets, workouts that will do it for you. It’s all about consistency and effort – day in day out until you get to your goal. Avoid the above 3 mistakes (aka short cuts that you think you’re taking) and it will come off quicker – promise