I have been working in the fitness industry for around five years now and 80% out of the people I have seen and helped almost all want to lose body fat and look lean. Although everyone has their different reasons for wanting to achieve this, the three reasons why people fail are genuinely the same, and I am going to cover these three in this blog. Before I cover them you need to understand that we are all different and our bodies respond differently and you need to follow a programme specifically to you, for instance I personally don’t struggle when it comes to burning body fat. Lucky me right? But I do struggle when it comes to gaining weight, which is a huge part of my main goal, not so lucky. You need to find what training suits you and your body type, whilst avoiding these mistakes people make.
Inconsistency – This is one of the biggest reason people don’t see results and fail to achieve their goals. Whether it’s your diet or training if you are inconsistent with one you will not get the results you are seeking. Burning body fat is not a quick and easy process, you need to work hard and eat healthily consistently otherwise you are taking one step forward and two steps back. Make sure you are eating healthily at least 80% of the time, meaning if you are eating healthy all week and then you are binge eating and drinking on the weekend this will be a serious hindrance on your results, I’d suggest two meals max per week (one for optimal results) where you treat yourself once in the middle of the week once on the weekend whilst training a minimum of three times a week.
Not training intensely enough – working in the gym environment for many years I have seen people change tremendously, but a lot of people have not made any progression in fitness or weight loss, this is because they do the exact same routine as when they started and are reluctant to change. A quick myth breaker sweating is not a good sign that you are burning a lot of calories you can be stood perfectly still on a warm day and be sweating. Our bodies are amazing, they can endure and adapt to very intense conditions and are able to be pushed through intense exercise and will grow to endure these conditions. This means it no longer must work as hard as it once did, you need to constantly change your routine and make the intensity harder, imagine trying to become more intelligent by just reading the exact same book every year, you become smarter than you were at first but ever since then you haven’t got any closer to your goal it just doesn’t work. Regularly change your intensity and always push for more.
Focusing on weights not cardio – one reason I find it easier to burn fat is because I have more muscle than fat. The more lean muscle you have the more calories you burn every day. Before I dive in deeper to this point there’s another myth to clear up, women who lift weights will NOT get bulky or man like you do not have the testosterone. Cardio may burn more calories per minute compared to weights but as soon as you step off that treadmill your calorie burning almost instantly stops, whereas training with weights you continue to burn calories up to thirty-six hours later. Cardio also does not change your body shape or your strength. Training with weight changes both and has numerous other health benefits but that’s for another blog, so start focusing on weight training and putting cardio second to rev your bodies fat burning. When I say weights training I don’t mean standing in the gym performing a bicep curl, this exercise has its place but fat burning isn’t it. You need to stick to compound movements such as deadlifts, squats and any exercise involving a pushing or pulling motion.
So, in summary, to overcome the common mistakes when it comes to losing body fat remember to be consistent, makes sure you train intensely and try to introduce more weight training into your programme over cardio training. I hope this has been useful and good luck!
Thanks for reading and train smart 😊