8 Common Weight Loss Mistakes You Should Avoid

8 Common Weight Loss Mistakes You Should Avoid
Written by Tony Schober · 4 Comments

weight loss mistakesSo, you’re about to embark on a new weight loss journey, or maybe you’re already into one. Before you get ahead of yourself, here are 8 common weight loss mistakes people tend to make that keep them from reaching their goals. Be prepared so that you know how to navigate through these typical problems.
Over-Exercising

I know you’re excited. Your motivation has probably never been higher. Why don’t we keep it that way by not burning yourself out in the first couple of weeks. Exercise is great, and you should be doing a combination of strength training and cardiovascular training, but that doesn’t mean that more is always better.

Make small changes to your exercise program just like you do with your diet. You don’t have to go from nothing to everything overnight. Build yourself up to 1, 2, and then 3 days of strength training a week. Do something you enjoy. Two hours every single day of high-intensity exercise for someone who hasn’t built up to that work load is either asking for injury, or will be burnt out in weeks.

Read more about whether your exercise routine is sustainable long term.
Cutting Calories Too Low

Of course you need to eat less than you burn if you want to lose weight, but cutting calories too low will not get you to your goal any faster. In fact, it’s likely to slow down your progress.

Prolonged calorie restriction causes a down-regulation of important fat-burning hormones like thyroid, and appetite-controlling hormones like leptin and ghrelin. Lower your calories, but the smaller the deficit the better. Go too low and you’ll be wondering why you’re not losing any weight.

Read more about why you might not be eating enough calories to lose weight.

Here’s a nifty little piece of equipment I use to accurately set my calorie intake.
Becoming Obsessed With Your Weight and the Scale

Gotta lose weight. Gotta lose weight. Wrong! Gotta lose FAT. How often do you weigh yourself? Is it weekly? Daily? More than once a day? It’s a great feeling when you see that number on the scale go down, but how do you react when it goes up? I’m going to guess that reaction isn’t good, and that’s unfortunate because you’re probably doing everything right (eating whole foods and getting active).

The scale is not your friend. It is not going to tell you what you need to know about your progress. It’s only going to tell you how heavy you are. It won’t tell you how much muscle you’ve put on, or how much fat you’ve lost. Obsessing over your weight can lead to frustrations, which can lead to you giving up on your lifestyle change. Do yourself a favor and only weight yourself when it’s necessary – when you’re taking body fat readings.

Here’s a cheap pair of body fat calipers you can use to measure your body fat percentage instead.
Changing Up Your Routine Too Often

I’ve been guilty of this so many times I’ve lost track. I try out this eating style for a week or so and then I read somewhere else about another eating style that might be better. I start questioning whether I’m doing everything I can to reach my goals. So I end up changing up my routine, and in the process, I never give the original eating style a chance to work.

I know it’s a hard thing to do, but once you decide on a way to eat and exercise, stick with it. If it hasn’t even been a month, there’s no reason to even consider changing anything. If after a month your body fat measurements haven’t changed, you can start looking into making small changes to your current routine. That doesn’t mean change every single thing. It means change 1 or 2 things and see if that gets the progress moving forward again.
Overdoing Your Cheat Meals

Cheat meals are a double-edged sword. On the one hand they can keep you sane and possibly even improve your fat loss progress. On the other hand, they can keep you in a never-ending food addiction cycle where one cheat meal makes it hard to get back onto your healthy eating plan.

Cheat meals should not be binge fests. They should still be controlled. Eat what you want, but remain mindful of portion sizes. A bad day of binge eating can knock out a week’s worth of progress, or worse, can make you revert back to your old unhealthy lifestyle.

Read more about cheat meals and guidelines you should follow.

Find out if you should even have a cheat meal and if they’re holding you back.
Having Unrealistic Expectations

Let’s see, you want to lose 50 pounds, so at 2 pounds per week, that would mean you will hit your weight loss goal in 25 weeks. Wrong. I’m not going to go so far as to say it can’t be done, but realistically, it’s not going to happen, and you’re going to get discouraged when you start falling behind that pace. So much so, that when your expectations aren’t met, you end up giving up because it just takes too long.

Set a goal of .5-1% body fat loss per week, with the lower number being the most realistic. Take a bigger view of your timeline and remember that this is a lifestyle change and not a 2lb/week weight loss plan. The weight will come off, but you have to get out of the day to day weight loss mentality.

Read more about why losing 2 pounds per week isn’t realistic for everybody.
Obsessing Over Calories and Macronutrient Ratios

How many calories should you eat? How much protein, fat, and carbohydrates are optimal for weight loss? Don’t worry about it! At least don’t worry about it yet. For now, focus on improving the quality of your diet and getting active. Once your diet is 90% whole foods and you’re exercising consistently, you can start playing around with meal timing, carb cycling, or various macronutrient ratios.

In the beginning, it’s quality over quantity. At least that should be your main focus. Cutting calories to an already bad diet will get you nowhere. Block out all that noise and focus your attention on one thing only – eating healthier food.

Read more about why you should change the quality of your food before changing the quantity.
Only Focusing on External Appearance

It’s been a month of eating healthy food and being active, but you haven’t lost any weight, so you haven’t made any progress – or so you think. It’s hard to think about all the positive changes you’re making to the inside of your body and to your health because you can’t directly see them. However, all that hard work is changing your body from the inside out.

Even if your weight hasn’t moved in weeks, take solace in the fact that you are a healthier person than you were just weeks ago. It’s only a matter of time before those internal changes start reflecting on the outside. Be patient, smile, and love the new person you are becoming.