The weight loss myths that ruin results!
The reason I decided to become a weight loss coach, was because I believed so much of the false information flying around the fitness industry for years.
Which stopped me losing the weight I wanted.
This then lead to frustration and regularly beating myself up. At this point I’d be extremely impatient for progress and I’d resort to an aggressive fad diet.
Which always ended with a crash.
I started to believe I was destined to be overweight for the rest of my life!
But deep down I knew there had to be a way that could be sustained by a normal person with a normal life…
When I say normal I mean, people like you who also care about your career, family and social life. Whilst enhancing your health and fitness.
Here I want to help you get clear on what isn’t true, that might be holding you back!
1. You can’t or you have to eat at certain times to lose weight.
For example: You have to have “Breakfast” or you “shouldn’t eat after 7pm”.
These random rules that have been made by certain fads and diets have caused a lot of people to eat in ways that don’t come naturally to them.
There is no solid evidence to suggest that eating at a certain time equals more weight gain.
By the same token, there is no evidence that shows that breakfast is a significantly more important meal than any other.
What matters most is moving more and eating less. But doing it in a way that is sustainable and effective to your goals.
There’s more than 1 way to lose weight. Please avoid hard and fast rules that people say is the only way to lose weight.
Context is everything when it comes to what you need. (Your goal/gender/weight/lifestyle/eating preferences and much more)
2. Carbs or any food group is bad or should be banned!
Banning a food group to lose weight is a 1 way ticket to resenting dieting and ruining your relationship with food.
When someone experiences a unhealthy relationship, they tend to dislike relationships and the sex they were attracted to for a period of time. This is normal.
It comes from a place of frustration and not getting the outcomes that you want.
But eventually they come round to the idea that, it might just be that that person wasn’t right for them…
It also might be the way that you interact with men/women and the type of person you’ve been choosing could be adjusted…
Carbs, sugars, fats, alcohol, caffeine or any other food groups are the same.
It’s more important how much you have of these, the reason you resort to the foods and if you in control of when you have them!
If you do ban a food group, it will always lead to a binge and you ending up hating yourself for caving in.
Which leads to more guilt and anxiety around food.
This leads to emotional eating.
Instead, educate yourself on the benefits of different food groups and how they can play an effective part in your diet and your enjoyment of food.
No foods are bad. Balance is key. You can have the happy healthy body that you want, whilst incorporating foods that you enjoy.
Creating fear around food is a great way to sell a product, shake or solution on the back of. 🙄
3. Cardio is for weight loss and weight lifting is for bulking up.
This is a pervasive mindset that holds many people back.
I like analogies and they paint a clear picture for us to understand so we will go with one here.
Cardio is good for weight loss. But one thing it doesn’t do is change your body’s disposition and how it burns calories outside of a workout.
We could compare this to clocking into work, getting paid. But when you clock out you stop getting paid (stop burning calories).
So cardio helps with weight loss but it’s not the most effective way of doing it.
Lifting weights or resistance training is an investment that compounds over time.
Not only do you burn calories in a workout, you also burn calories after the weights workout.
On top of that, when you build muscle from these workouts you speed up your metabolism.
Which means your body uses more calories efficiently to keep the muscle there and your body functioning.
So the stronger and fitter you get with your weight training, the more calories you will burn away from the gym as well as in it.
You could see this as an investment portfolio, where your investments create more money the more you have in the portfolio.
But remember this. Nobody accidentally gets big and muscly.
Lifting weights isn’t enough on it’s own, you will also need to eat more calories than you normally do to “bulk up”.
To put on weight = You need to eat more.
So if you lift weights and eat “normally” or stay in a calorie deficit. You will lose weight and tone up.✅
Lifting weights and doing cardio should co exist together. Don’t neglect one or the other as they will both contribute to the results you want of burning fat and toning up.
4. The last myth I would like to bust is the mindset that “I need to do X” before I allow balance or fun into the process.
Starting as you mean to go on is one of the most effective elements of my coaching.
It’s a system where we reverse engineer, how you want your relationship to be with fitness in the future and we bring it into the present.
I help you with this through a series of questions and me helping you build clarity on what success looks like for you!
In terms of your habits, results, mindset, lifestyle and relationship with fitness.
Once we achieve that, we can “Start as we mean to go on”.
Which is doing things now, how you would when you are successful.
The opposite to this is like holding your breath until you get the body and results you want.
Most people do this out of fear of not getting it “right”.
But here’s the important news: there is no “right” there’s only what’s “right for you”.
And you can’t punish yourself to fat loss.
A miserable journey, will never lead to a happy destination.
Motivation and feeling inspired act as fuel that helps keep you on track to your goal.
Choosing miserable, restrictive ways of exercising, living and eating will demotivate you every single step of the way.
Which will result in no consistency.
Has this contributed to you not getting the results you want in the past?
I promise you this is one of the biggest stumbling blocks I come across with clients. It’s very normal and it can easily be changed.
It goes unnoticed by people because it’s more about “the way” you are approaching your goals, rather than if you are doing enough.
Feel free to send me an email if you would like to know more about me helping you change your relationship with weight loss.
Thanks for reading.