If you’ve made a promise to yourself to make healthier choices in 2019 it’s likely that you’ve done so with certain goals in mind. Maybe you want to reach a target weight or perhaps you want to look incredible in a very special white dress this year. Whatever your goals, it’s common to assume that you can achieve them through sheer willpower alone. Yet, while you should absolutely be commended for your enthusiasm, excitement and force of will, sometimes even the most disciplined of us can make mistakes that derail our fitness goals.
Despite your zeal without the right help and guidance you can find yourself doing more harm than good. Indeed, in some cases the drive that propels you forward can actually also be what trips you up. Here we’ll take a look at some common diet and exercise mistakes that see even the most disciplined of us stray from the path towards the path to health, fitness and happiness…
Looking to the internet for guidance
Don’t get me wrong, the internet is a fantastic resource with a wealth of free and useful information. However, the sheer volume of information out there can be daunting and a lot of it is utterly contradictory, especially when it comes to diet and nutrition. One decorated nutritionist will tell you that carbs are anathema if you’re trying to get into shape, while others will tell you to steer clear of fats. Some will swear up and down that a vegan diet is the best diet for weight loss while others will try to convince you that you should be eating more meat and less of everything else.
If you rely solely on online guidance you could well find yourself bamboozled. There’s really no substitute for entrusting your journey to a personal trainer. They will take the time to get to know your body and determine which exercises and meal plan will be the best for you. Moreover, they’ll be able to give you the ongoing support and guidance to keep you motivated when you start to flag.
Not having fun
If your exercise routine bores you… Change it! There’s nothing more counterproductive than slogging through an exercise routine that’s neither fun nor enjoyable. Whatever your goals, you should be able to find an exercise regimen that allows you to meet them without dreading heading to the gym. If the thought of working out fills you with dread, you’re far more likely to fall off the wagon. On the other hand if you have a varied and enjoyable exercise regimen that feels challenging while you’re doing it and rewarding when completed, you’re so much less reliant on willpower alone.
Find yourself a gym like www.clubfitness.us that has a varied selection of classes and activities. Not only will your regimen benefit from the variety, committing yourself to classes and taking part in shared exercises will help to ensure that you hit your targets.
Neglecting the weight room
If you’re trying to burn fat, it’s a common fallacy to assume that all of your time is best spent on the treadmill or the elliptical machine. Yet, while cardiovascular exercise is an undoubtedly important part of fat loss, it should also be supplemented with rigorous strength training. Strength training will help you to build lean muscle mass and tone to give your body more shape and sculpting. What’s more, strength training will increase bone density and boost your metabolism meaning that you burn more calories even when sedentary.
Many eschew strength training because they are worried about how they will look if their muscles get too big, but rarely is this something they need to seriously worry about. It is unusual for women in particular to gain heavy muscle mass because their low testosterone levels mean that they produce less Human Growth Hormone. No matter what your gender, weight, body type or personal goals, it’s highly unlikely that you will be able to achieve them if you abandon the weight room.
Assuming you can out-exercise a bad diet
It’s not uncommon, especially when we’re young and inexperienced, to assume that so long as we exercise regularly that we can afford to be lenient with our diet. The truth, however, is that you simply can’t out-exercise a bad diet. If you hit the gym 4 or 5 times a week yet subsist on fast food, ready meals and heavily processed convenience foods you will find it much, much harder to meet your goals. Yes, your body will get fitter and stronger, but because it isn’t getting the nutrients it needs it won’t get fitter and stronger at the rate that it should. Moreover, whatever gains you make will be hidden behind a veneer of fat because your body is taking in a high proportion of empty calories which it cannot put to good use and so it stores them as fat.
Starving your body of calories
That said, while you can’t achieve your fitness goals on a bad diet, you’re just as unlikely to achieve them by starving your body either. It seems as though with the coming of every new year the market becomes awash with dubious detoxes and spurious cleanses that make bold claims yet what results they are able to achieve are rarely sustainable. These “cleanses” invariably expect those who undertake them to massively reduce their caloric intake for a period of several days or even weeks.
Naturally, because the body finds itself with less energy than it needs to survive it cannibalizes the energy stored in your body as fat. Thus, these cleanses tend to produce quite dramatic results but they come as much too high a cost. Inevitably those who undertake these detoxes aren’t getting the calories they need so they find themselves feeling faint and lacking energy. They often also experience headaches and brain fog. They may become emotionally erratic and irritable. This is because the human body was simply not designed to function on the paltry 1000-1200 calories these “cleanses” insist on.
When you have so little energy that getting through day-to-day life seems impossible, you’re unlikely to have the energy to smash your workout goals.
Steer clear of these commonly made mistakes and you’ll find that you see in the next new year in the body you’ve always dreamed of!
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