Wait ! If you haven’t read part 1 yet, click here
Hidden Mistake #2: Not properly weigh yourself
The next hidden a mistake you’re making is you’re not properly weighing yourself . Well most people do is they weigh themselves sporadically every week or so and the problem with this is well let’s use myself as an example the following image is my daily weigh in history for the last four weeks as I’ve been cutting as you can see my weight fluctuates quite a bit which is completely normal but the overall trend is downwards
and my weekly average weight has decreased every week which is a good thing. However if i myslef instead weighed myself randomly once a week using the first two weeks as an example I could have ended up with this data which would leave me confused and frustrated
because I’d be under the impression that I haven’t made in your progress and actually gained weight despite all my hard work which you don’t know isn’t true and leads you to quit altogether but this is just because you haven’t taken the time to properly track your data.
With only one weigh per week you become severely misled about the general direction of your weight change so what you need to do instead is weigh yourself every single morning right when you wake up after you’ve used the washroom but before you eat or drink anything as this is going to help minimize any weight fluctuations
you’ll then want to write down this number every day and take a weekly average of it and then every week you want to compare that average weight to the prior weeks average as this will more accurately represent what’s actually happening with your weight
and then if after three or four weeks or so, you don’t see any change in your weekly average weight then you’ll be much more informed that something may need to be changed your plan and you can address it accordingly
Hidden mistake #3: overestimating and eating back the calories you burned
The next hidden mistake you’re making is overestimating and eating back the calories you burned. A lot of people find that after doing an intense workout they’re hungrier and feel as though they should eat more to compensate for the calories that they burn
but what multiple papers have found is that especially after a cardio session people end up eating back in significant portion or even exceeding the calories that they burned from their workout which can slow down and/or prevent fat loss altogether
and to make matters worse research indicates that people tend to overestimate the calories they’ve burned in a workout by up to 70% and devices or machines that track the calories that you’ve burned in your workout have been shown to overestimate the actual calories that you’ve burned by up to 24 percent
so if you’re using either of those methods to track your calories burned and then you’re eating back your calories based on that that’s likely what’s hindering your fat loss.
A much better method is the stick to a set daily calorie intake and a set weekly workout routine then you simply keep track of your weekly average weight and if you’re not losing weight then you adjust your plan accordingly by either slightly decreasing your calorie intake and/or bumping up your weekly cardio as needed
Hidden mistake #4: Body recomposition
The last mistake is you’re not realizing that you’re going through a body recomposition and when most people think of fat loss they immediately think of numbers on the scale. They assume that if their weight isn’t going down then they’re not losing any fat but this isn’t always the case because if you’re relatively new to training or you’re coming back from some time off or you’ve just started taking your training and your nutrition much more seriously then you’re more likely to experience something called a body recomposition
This is where your body both builds muscle and lose fat at the same time which is a good thing but it will result in your weight actually remaining the same which can throw people off and this right here is exactly why it’s so vital that you’ve measured your progress in other ways rather than just relying on the scale
so in addition to tracking your weight it’s also a good idea to keep track of your strength in the gym , take weekly progress pictures and take weekly bodily measurements because if for example in the past six weeks your weight has stayed the same but your strength has increased your arm measurements have increased and your waist measurements have decreased then these are all signs that you’re going through a body recomposition
meaning that you can rest assured that you are indeed making progress and doing everything correctly.
All-in-all I’ll admit fat loss can be confusing at times and nothing is more demotivating than not seeing the results that you’re after despite actually putting in the work. if you take a step back review the various points I went through in this post and properly apply them then you will see the change that you’re after.
Mark Lynch
I’ll break it down and make it simple, eat ice cubes and drink air
Mo Shaheen
“There is no exercise routine that will make up for a bad diet.” Best statement about food loss and exercise.
terminaldeity
“I’m eating salads for half my meals and still not losing weight” Proceeds to pour 2 cups of dressing on the salad
