15 Fat loss mistakes

Trying to do too much too soon
Making the life-changing decision to lose weight and live a healthier life? Bravo!
Trying to go from Sedentary Slob to Superman on a Monday morning? Not so smart. It is a surefire way to be back to the Twinkies by mid-day Wednesday. Take things one step at a time and you are much more likely to succeed - you can't expect to undo years worth of damage overnight despite what every well-written Internet ad would have you believe.


Eating only three times a day
If you are like me, you were brought up eating breakfast, lunch and dinner every day. Sometimes it was 5 hours between breakfast and lunch, and I couldn't wait to stuff myself with a big sandwich, chips and a cookie. Then another 6-7 hours between lunch and dinner, and by the time dinner came I could eat a pound of pasta and a dozen meatballs on top of the bread to start the meal and the dessert to follow it. My blood sugars had dipped so far down, I was starving! Now eating 5-6 meals a day I can control my calories at each meal.


Starving yourself
As you can see above, if you are skipping meals then you are not taking advantage of your built-in fat burning mechanism. There were days when I worked out extremely hard and barely ate, a true recipe for disaster! It is especially important to eat (or drink a protein shake) after a workout to help kick-start the rebuilding process.


Doing hours and hours of cardio
Traditional "cardio", where you do long bouts (45 minutes or more) on a treadmill or an elliptical machine at a moderate pace has always been the recommendation of doctors and most trainers. Why? Because at a moderate pace your body is using stored body fat for energy. You'll often see this referred to as the "fat burning zone." So, why is burning body fat a bad thing? Have I finally lost my mind? Doing more work in a shorter time, your body will burn primarily glycogen (sugar) for energy. However your total calories burned, total calories from FAT! burned and Post-exercise metabolic rate will all be greater.


Sweating the Small Stuff
Before I knew better, whenever I wanted to loose fat and I went to the gym to do a strength training workout, my routine contained exercises that I thought would be of benefit - bicep curls, calf raises, and countless number of crunches for example. I would also do 8-10 repetitions of an exercise, wait 2 minutes, then repeat 2-3 more times. My workouts were long, and they weren't productive. As my time became crunched, I needed to find a more effective and
efficient way to workout. That's why I created Burn More FAT!


Not drinking enough water
Dehydration inhibits fat loss - of that we can be sure. What is up for debate is how much water you need in a given day - most people don't get enough water on a daily basis, never mind for training / fat loss. When you don't have enough water, your bowels will also slow down, and nobody wants all that extra poop lying around!


Kept looking for the quick fix
There is NO quick fix. However, you can get as lean as you wish with hard work and dedication. Your program just needs to be tailored to you.


Underestimated portion sizes
When you are first starting out on your fat loss plan you absolutely must measure everything and keep a food log! Buy a small kitchen scale, and measuring spoons and cups so you can really get a sense for amounts of food. Even if you use some of the recommendations, like a 3 ounce portion of meat is about the size of your fist, you can underestimate the actual size. One time I thought a piece of chicken was about the size of my fist, then I weighed it and found it was closer to 6 ounces rather than 3 ounces - which would've been the size of both of my fists!


Did not grasp the concept that "all calories are not created equal"
I bet you've heard this one before - a calorie is a calorie. So eating 100 calories worth of Cheezy Poofs is the same as eating a half-cup of cottage cheese, because they are both roughly 100 calories, according to this logic. Well, nothing could be further from the truth.


Letting others knock you off track
My family is full of enablers - they mean well, but they were not sensitive to the fact that I was trying to stay on track with my fat loss efforts. My mom is a great cook, and my mom always has tasty treats in the house, and they never hesitated to stop me from eating them. Within 30 minutes I can eat myself stupid and undo all of the positive progress that I had spent the past week achieving - classic two steps forward, two steps back. I need to take control of the situation.


Did not get back "on the wagon" immediately after falling off
Often times I would lose my fat loss ways toward the end of any given week - be it Thursday, Friday or Saturday. Whether I had let others get me off track, or I had done it all by myself, I consumed too much food that was not "on the program". It was at that point that I rationalized that, since I was "off the wagon" I would wait until Monday to get started again! Never making any progress.


Trying to be perfect every day
Life is not perfect - and your fat loss program shouldn't be either. You can't expect yourself to follow your program to the letter every second of every day until you reach your goal. If you do, you are setting yourself up for failure. That is why you need to apply the 90/10 rule to your nutrition and exercise. Schedule a cheat meal every 10 days. Just make sure you control the food and don't let the food control you.


Not setting realistic expectations
So it took you your entire life to get to this point, the point where you are fed up with your size and want to blast the fat off for good, and you expect to reverse all of the damage in 3 weeks? That is what a lot of diet products would like you to believe. You can't undo a life's worth of damage in such a short time.


Not giving your body proper rest between exercise sessions
You don't exercise to see the results that happen to your body during exercise - all of the magic actually happens after, not during, exercise. I thought
the more exercise, the better - sometimes I would be at the gym 3 times a day! Take plenty of rest, more is not better.


Not eating enough fiber
I have not include any fiber-rich foods in my diet (for example beans, peas, apples, grapefruit) and I paid the price for it. Let's just say that the old "golf ball through a garden hose" analogy.


So how do you avoid making these mistakes?
You need the advice of a REAL fat loss expert – someone who has actually done what it is you are trying to do, someone who has who has helped others lust like you! Anyone can tell you what should happen based on what they read in a textbook, but not everyone can tell you what works based on experience.