1) This one shouldn’t be a surprise—poor nutrition. The biggest mistake I see with inadequate nutrition isn’t that the person is slacking, but rather that they have a misinformed sense of what is healthy.
The quickest way to correct this is to pick up a good fitness and nutrition book or magazine, or search the internet for reputable health sites….teach yourself as much as possible and avoid the gimmicks and unrealistic promises because there are a lot out there.
Try keeping a strict food log for a week (don’t change anything about the way you’d normally eat) and take this to a professional to assess and offer recommendations.
One last thing—if you see the word “diet,” RUN! There are no magical “diets” that will produce results in every individual. Some will work in the short term, but most all will fail in the long term. Rather, I recommend making healthy nutrition choices. This is a much better option that will allow you to achieve weight loss without depriving your body of certain foods, vitamins and minerals, or adequate calories in general.
Nutrition is an extremely broad and difficult subject….being that this is probably the single most important factor in successfully losing weight, please do not make the mistake of assuming your thoughts on nutrition are absolutely correct…this is a surefire way to prevent weight loss before it even starts!
2) You are making poor lifestyle choices. Lack of activity outside of workouts, regular consumption of alcohol, smoking, eating large and infrequent meals, drinking too little water, and downright laziness are just a few examples.
It seems like the more successful our country becomes, the worse it is for our health. We have too many options and too many conveniences! Although it is usually the culmination of all the aforementioned poor lifestyle choices, probably the most abused and detrimental to achieving fat loss is that of eating out.
The best example of this is the over-abundance of restaurants and fast food joints. I do not care how many restaurants are claiming to offer healthy options—if you want (and need) to lose weight, stay home!
This concept shouldn’t be hard to understand….recovering alcoholics don’t go to bars and hope to order a Sprite while everyone else knocks back Red Bull Vodkas; and gambling addicts wouldn’t visit a casino hoping to go the “healthier route” and spend just $20 on a slot machine…
If you consistently place yourself in situations where you are tempted to over-indulge in delicious (and very fattening) foods, your chances for success are minimal.
Please note that in my mind, this is different than poor nutrition—this is the belief that you can still go out to eat whenever the opportunity arises and that you had no choice in the matter. Believe it or not….you may have to give up Happy Hour or eating out for lunch because you and a friend are bored during the middle of the week. This is about making healthy lifestyle decisions to accompany your nutrition plan.
3) You are expecting too much. With all of the fitness gimmicks being marketed today, the cheesy infomercials jam-packed with unrealistic promises, and reality TV programs (i.e. The Biggest Loser) showing extreme weight loss, it’s not surprising you are expecting immediate and drastic weight loss from the smallest of lifestyle changes.
Don’t believe the hype! Real world weight loss will be much slower and most people will be lucky to average 2 lbs lost each week. Yes, I said “average,” meaning some weeks you may gain, some weeks you may stay the same, and others might be exceptional.
If you are consistently doing the right things, however, weight loss will indeed happen….just be sure to give it time and reassess your plan when you hit plateaus.
4) You aren’t working hard enough. There aren’t too many things in life that provide us with great satisfaction that are easily attainable. Dream jobs generally take difficult degrees, years worth of hard work to climb the corporate ladder, or major financial risk and the ability to take chances others wouldn’t. Material possessions require the hard-earned cash you worked your butt off to save up. And the examples can go on and on.
A great body is no different….and if having a great body was easy, everyone would have one and you wouldn’t be reading this.
If you think a 20 minute walk several times a week with your best friend or spouse is enough to lose weight, think again! Light walking is actually an extremely inefficient way of burning calories.
Weight loss requires hard work….the type of work that raises your heart rate, causes you to sweat, and makes you feel like you want to stop. If you are not getting to this level (most people don’t), it is time to switch things up a little.
As I have talked about in previous blogs, high intensity intervals offer a more efficient alternative to longer, slower-paced cardio workouts such as walking or jogging.
5) You aren’t lifting heavy enough weights. This goes hand-in-hand with reason #4…weight training, along with cardio work, needs to be strenuous! Women especially, are prone to unintentionally slacking in this department.
The common misconception is that women should lift lighter weights for higher reps. The truth, however, is this: women need to work even harder at lifting to ensure they are creating a metabolic disturbance that will appropriately reap the fat-burning benefits of weight training.
This is, after all, the reason you are lifting in the first place. Most sets should be taken to failure, meaning another rep or two would be literally impossible to complete.
The same thing goes for the type of exercises as well—single joint exercises like bicep curls are important for symmetry, but will not stimulate the metabolism like squats or chest presses…the multi-joint movements recruit more muscle fibers and force the body to work harder.
Once again, start slow and work with a professional Chandler, AZ Personal Trainer before taking your weight or cardiovascular workouts to greater intensities.
Before claiming to be one of the “unlucky” victims of obesity, who simply must have a slow metabolism, try addressing these common roadblocks to weight loss.
