The Worst Ways to Lose Weight
In this video, we’re going to talk about some of the worst ways to lose weight. Unfortunately, these are also the most common tactics we see people attempting. If you take a few minutes to watch this video, you’ll walk out with a completely new mindset on how to tackle your weight loss journey. As always, the FITHAUS team will be there for you every step of the way to make sure that you’re set up for success.
The first mistake we’re going to talk about today is severe calorie restriction – we’ve seen tonnes of people, men and women alike, cutting down their calorie intake to as low as 600-700 calories per day. This is NOT sustainable, and can cause longer-term metabolic damage. You may see rapid weight loss if you do this, at least initially, but remember the difference between weight loss and fat loss? Fat loss should be your real target. If you’re restricting your calories severely and you see the scale working in your favour, it’s likely that the majority of the weight you’ve lost is water weight, and can be gained back very quickly, even within a couple days of overeating. You also lose a lot of muscle, which in turn slows down your metabolism and can increase your risk of disease. These are pretty bad, but what I think is the worst one is just the day-to-day feel of being on a low calorie diet and its impact on your mood. Your energy levels plummet and you’ll be battling intense food cravings. You’ll be in bad moods and feel pretty depressed. This isn’t something we want to implement. It’ll also negatively impact your energy levels for your workouts which is something we want to avoid as this can have a negative cyclical effect.
While you need to be in a calorie deficit to lose weight and fat, we recommend a more sustainable 20% calorie deficit – which means you should be eating about 80% of the energy your body burns. This will get you more sustainable results while preserving your metabolism, energy and mood. This can also help you fuel your workouts with your personal trainer which should help you improve on your key lifts over time.
The second mistake people often make is going on long-term caloric deficits. Even if you’re cutting sustainably, with a 15-20% caloric deficit, it’s better to go through cycles of cutting and maintenance at least. When you’re consistently in a state of deficit, you’re going to slow your metabolism down over the long-term and be in that frustrating plateau situation. I’d recommend dieting for 12 weeks at a time, and then go on 3-4 weeks where you are in a maintenance level, consuming 100% of the energy your body burns. From there, you can get into another 12-week deficit cycle, but by doing this, you’ll be speeding the metabolism back up and resetting your body from the caloric restriction. You should definitely discuss this with your personal trainer as they’ll help guide your diet to make sure your training and your nutrition are in sync. This is extremely critical to any personal training routine.
The other mistakes to quickly go over, and if you’ve watched some of our other videos, you’ll probably be pretty familiar with these already, so I won’t go into too much detail. Mistake #3 – not eating enough protein. If you’re looking to lose weight, eat as much protein as possible. You can consume up to 40 or even 50% of your calories as proteins and see great results. Protein is the most important macronutrient when it comes to preserving lean mass and reducing body fat. There are plenty of amazing protein sources out there including egg whites, chicken breast, etc. You should not skip out on your proteins as this is a vital mistake if you’re looking to lose weight!
Mistake #4 is skipping the resistance training. Remember, in a cutting phase, you want to MINIMIZE the amount of muscle loss that occurs. If you’re keeping calories low, and skipping your strength training, then you’re definitely not going to retain maximum muscle while cutting. Even when cutting, stick to strength training to retain as much muscle mass as possible, which in turn will keep your metabolism running well. Our personal trainers can definitely assist with keeping you accountable to fit in your workouts each week. We can also provide you with training and exercises to do on your off days so that you can continue to progress without your personal trainer being present. Cutting out resistance training is not a good idea. If you’re sticking to your main, compound lifts, it will definitely set you up for success and help you continue along your weight loss journey.
Mistake #5, and the final one we’ll discuss in this video, is doing a lot of low intensity, steady state cardio. With the strain on your body of already being in a caloric deficit, long stretches of low-intensity cardio makes you more likely to experience metabolic slowdowns, slowdowns which can persist long after your cutting phase has ended. What we recommend instead is HIIT training, which is way more effective for fat loss and muscle preservation. Depending on your fitness level, your personal trainer will integrate HIIT training into your program design. If you’re not already aware, HIIT training stands for high-intensity interval training. It’s a form of interval training where you alternate between short periods of intense anaerbobic exercise with less intensive recovery periods. The length of the intervals between exercise and rest will depend on your current fitness level.
As always, if you have any questions or concerns about any of our personal training programs, you can email us at contact@fithaus.io, call us at 1-888-682-0724 or check out our homepage.
