The 5 Biggest Mistakes Women Make When Trying To Lose Weight
I counsel a lot of women on weight loss and nothing frustrates me more than when I see a highly motivated woman going down the wrong path when it comes to her fitness goals! Despite what you hear in the media, fitness does not happen fast...and if it does, it’s unsustainable. Here are the 5 biggest mistakes that I see when it comes to weight loss and how to fix them.
1. Exercising more will not get you to the body you desire
If you have less than 30-40lbs to lose, exercise will help (in tons of great ways!), but will not be the answer to your dream body. For most women, exercise will account for about an 8lb weight loss, and that is not “the final 8lbs”. Changing your nutrition habits will do most of the work in this department. Keeping your exercise routine short and intense (and using those weights!!) will help you burn the most fat while maintaining the lean body mass that you already have. If you’ve already been exercising fairly regularly, start by swapping out 1-3 days of steady state cardio (fairly constant speed cardio, that is longer than 20 min) with high-intensity workouts that last less than 20 min. Add a warm-up and cool-down and you should be out the door in 35 min or less.
2. Changing everything at once
I can not stress this one enough! When people come to see me they want or expect to do this total overhaul on their fitness and nutrition - this is not the answer. I know you want to quit sugar, alcohol, and carbs and start a weight and yoga routine today, but you will fail! It’s too much! Instead, pick one thing and work on that until it’s easy. For example, start with eating protein at EVERY meal. When you’ve got that nailed for a week or two, then add vegetables to every meal. If at any point, you can’t maintain both of those habits, scale back. If you can’t handle veggies at every meal, make it one meal, until you can work your way to all meals. DO NOT add one more thing to the mix until you can do the first two habits consistently. And by consistent, I mean 80% of the time.
3. Worrying about the little things instead of the big things
Until you are eating a majority of whole foods, protein and veggies at every meal, and you are doing it consistently, I don’t care what your post-workout nutrition is, how many meals you eat per day, or if you eat breakfast. Those things don’t matter until you have the basics nailed. All those worries have a place, but those are fine-tuning elements that, unless you are a competitor, won’t matter for you. Do the basics first.
4. Focusing on the negative instead of the positive
We often talk about what we won’t do instead of what we will do. “I’m going to stop eating cookies after lunch” Instead try, “when it’s late afternoon and I feel the urge for cookies, I will do___instead.” Ideas can be to go for a walk, talk to a coworker, eat an apple etc. The important thing is to find the one that works for you. Oreos typically beat willpower over time, so it’s much easier to have a plan in place! :-)
5. Not planning
Life is busy, there will ALWAYS be something….a company dinner, a wedding, a birthday party. The answer to being successful will be to plan for these things. Telling yourself before an event that you will get extra veggies instead of the cheddar potatoes makes it much more likely that this will occur. If you want to cut down on take-out, you need to plan to go to the grocery. If you don’t want to eat chips when you’re hungry, you need to make time on the weekend and prepare cut veggies and hummus as a snack. When you’re tired, you are much more likely to make the “easy” choice or revert to choices that are already habits. So set yourself up for success. Pick a day and write out a dinner menu for M-F. Then go to the store to make sure you have those items to cook. What you need to change will be specific to you. So take some time and think about an area that hinders your fitness success and develop a plan to tackle it!
I hope this helped! If you are having trouble with ideas or need help coming up with solutions, please reach out to me! I will be happy to get on the phone/skype/email with you.