Visit www.mcnewsletters.com for More FREE Articles, Q and A, and “How To” Videos 7 Sure-Fire Strategies To Guarantee Failure in Your Fat Loss Program By Eugene Thong .................................................................................... The longer I'm in this business, the more apparent it is that successful fat loss is less about the "doing" and more about the "not doing." In other words, you should seek to eliminate mistakes and modify old behaviors instead of trying to generate completely new patterns for yourself. Here, in no particular order, are the most common mistakes I see people making when embarking on fat loss program. 1) Trying to be perfect. A great way to drive yourself crazy is to never touch, look at, smell, or think about a "bad food" ever again. Realistically, it's not going to happen. The surest way to put the kibosh on your diet efforts is to immediately forbid yourself from ever cheating – your cravings will come to consume your every waking moment until you give in, then curse yourself in an orgy of self-flagellation and guilt. This doesn’t have to be you! The simple solution is to schedule in specific cheat meals so that they are planned into your diet. That way, you can have a taste of the foods you love (right now) while consuming the fuel your body needs to fire up its fat-burning furnace. 2) Immediately cutting out all fat. Fat adds two majorly important accents to your daily food intake: flavor and satiety. Satiety is the feeling of being full. Fat in foods aids satiety by keeping you feeling fuller for a longer period of time, decreasing your overall food intake. Removing the fat in foods (as in fat-free or low-fat foods) not only robs your body of the nutritional value and beneficial effects of the fat in the food, but decreases the level of satiety you feel after eating that food, causing you to eat more. In fact, most low-fat foods are only slightly lower in calories than their full-fat counterparts, but you’ll likely end up eating much more of the low-fat fare. Why? Low-fat = low satiety If you don’t know what flavor is, then it really won’t matter what
changes you make to your diet since you won’t be able to tell anyway (you’re also probably eating processed diet foods, like rice cakes, which you need to stop doing right now). Fat is not the enemy. This doesn’t give you license to gobble down pints of ice cream, but at least you don’t have to feel bad when that person over there eating the Snackwells sneers at you. 3) Skipping meals. Skipping meals is as smart as being out in the woods and forgetting to put a fresh log on the fire before tucking into bed at night. Smokey the Bear says: “Please don’t put out your fat-burning furnace. Only you can prevent yourself from skipping meals and bringing your metabolism to a grinding halt.” Thanks, Smokey. 4) Over exercising. Do you know what happens when you do 2 hours of cardio a day? Your body begins cannibalizing muscle tissue for fuel – which is terrible since muscle is the greatest single contributor to your metabolic rate. In other words, by burning a few calories doing cardio, you’re handicapping your body’s ability to burn calories in the long run. If you’re eating correctly, you won’t need to spend hours on the hamster wheel anyway. Remember – you can’t out-run a crappy diet! 5) Not lifting weights. Mike’s already written pretty extensively about the importance of lifting weights to maintain or increase muscle mass when on a fat loss diet, but let me summarize it here: When in caloric deficit, lift weights to avoid losing muscle. Add muscle to increase your metabolic rate and maximize daily caloric burn. 6) Not setting or reviewing goals. Setting concrete, specific goals and putting them in writing is the most important step you can take towards the actual achievement of your fat loss goals. As Mike says, Once you have an outcome written down, it serves as more than just a "goals" sheet. It's a road map with specific directions. This is important because sometimes during the journey, we get off track. Binging on the diet or missing workouts can lead to frustration. That frustrated state will cloud your decision making process, and may cause you to make some decisions that will take you away from your goals. The reason for having the goals and how to get there in writing, before you start your journey is to compare where you're currently going with where you should be going. From there, you can adjust. If you don’t know where you’re heading to, how do you intend to get there? Moreover, how can you tell if you’re still on the right path towards your goals? Easy – Put your goals down in writing, and periodically review your progress to ensure you’re moving in the right direction. 7) Trying to reinvent the wheel. Also known as “playing it by
ear”, or “going with the flow.” The exact opposite of trying to be perfect is not following a plan. You see this all the time in several different incarnations:
“I’m just going to eat healthily.” (Translation: I’m going to impetuously give in to temptation every time I encounter it.)
“I was trying South Beach but now I’m trying The Fat Smash Diet.” (How about actually “following” the diet plan instead of “trying” it? It’s not a bikini, you know.)
“I went on Atkins but it didn’t work for me. Maybe it was that pasta I ate.” (Maybe. Just maybe.) Whether your particular brand of poison is to not follow diet recommendations, to chase the latest fads, or to have absolutely no plan whatsoever, it all adds up to the same outcome – zero fat loss (and likely, surplus fat gain). This is not the place to be. If you find a plan that has a track record of working, then by all means follow the plan. Don’t make substitutions. Don’t try to “take what you like” and substitute this and that from another plan. Don’t follow it every other day or some other random frequency. If you don’t give the plan the chance to work, then the plan hasn’t failed you – you failed you. We’ve put together a special report of the 21 biggest mistakes people make when trying to lose fat, and it’s available free to MCNewsletters subscribers. All you have to do is enter your name and email address and confirm your (FREE) subscription to our weekly newsletter – it’s chock full of articles, Q and A, and tips on fat loss. Fresh off the presses every Friday morning!
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If you're truly looking to lose weight fast, I suggest you head over to read our page on black book of secrets. It includes 61 fat loss tips, tricks and techniques. It is a very good investment.
About the Author: Eugene Thong, CSCS, was born a weak, skinny, bespectacled child. Now, thanks to a steady diet of martial arts, scientific inquiry, and heavy compound movements, he's no longer weak. His scientific bent, Zen-like demeanor, and efficient but intense methods have made him one of New York's most sought-after personal trainers. When not helping clients cultivate their own inner 6-packs, Eugene can be found arm barring opponents at Renzo Gracie's Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu Academy or sailing through the air on his snowboard. Read Eugene's semi-weekly musings on exercise, fitness, and fat loss at his blog
Eugene is Mike's co-author of The Black Book of Secrets. You can purchase it by clicking here.
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