Common Mistakes People Make When Trying To Lose Weight

Maybe you’ve heard of the Atkins diet. “Give the Atkins diet a try. I’m sure that’ll help you lose weight!” Maybe you’ve heard of some other diets: South Beach, Vegan, Keto, Paleo. You know what we call these? These are known as fad diets, meaning “short-lived”, or a “craze”.

Although nothing inherently wrong with these fleeting trends, I feel they tend to overcomplicate the science behind nutrition and dieting for weight loss. For example, the Atkins diet restricts carbohydrates. The Ketogenic diet is also low in carbohydrates, but high in fats.

In this article, I’m going to provide some science behind all this and shed my experience with cutting weight in various ways. I’m also going to include common mistakes that many people make when attempting to lose weight, and why these don’t work.

You’re eating too many calories

This is, of course, the most common reason for weight gain. This works simply: if you caloric intake is greater than your caloric expense, you will gain weight. Seems logical, right? It is.

Each of us has a Basal Metabolic Rate (BMR), which is defined as the number of calories required for your body to operate at rest. If you just laid in bed all day watching TV with no physical activity, the number of calories your body would require would be significantly less than if you were to do some sort of physical activity.

To determine how many calories you should aim for when trying to lose weight, we first must determine your BMR, then make adjustments based off the amount of physical activity you may be performing.

The following BMR formula is widely used:

BMR = (bodyweight in lbs) x (10)

So let’s say you weigh 180lbs. The amount of calories your body would require if you were laying around all day would be 1,800 (180*10). What this means is that if you consume less than this amount, you will lose weight. More? You will gain.

Of course, most of us are more active than this. As such, the formula must be adjusted to take into consideration physical activity. The below outlines adjustments:

Following the example above, let’s say you fall under the “moderate exercise” category—you would take 1,800 x 1.55. This equates to 2,790 calories per day for you to maintain your current weight. This means, for weight loss, you want to be consuming around 200 calories less than this number.

There are several apps available which allow you to track your calories day-to-day, such as Fitbit, HealthyOut, and MyFitnessPal. Inputting the foods you eat into an app like this allows you to see the bigger picture, and take action depending on your goals.

You’re eating too infrequently

This is another common reason people gain weight; an imperative aspect of nutrition is timing. How you time your meals can play a large role in weight gain.

The following example is common, yet practical. Most of us work day jobs (9:00AM-5:00PM), where we eat our breakfast before work, lunch during, and dinner after. Many people, surprisingly, don’t eat breakfast at all. A study conducted by Kant AK, Graubard BI found that nearly 25% of all Americans skip breakfast!

“Nearly one-quarter of individuals in the United States skip breakfast daily, with an average energy contribution of ∼16% of total caloric intake. This is quite small in comparison to other meal times, such as evening (dinner) food consumption, during which ∼44% of daily calories are consumed.”

Buckner, Samuel L, et al. “Why Don’t More People Eat Breakfast? A Biological Perspective.” The American Journal of Clinical Nutrition, American Society for Nutrition, June 2016, www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4881002/#b1.

When large amounts of calories are consumed in one sitting, this makes it more difficult for your body to digest and break down the foods. As you can see from the study above, an alarming 44% of daily calories are consumed during dinner time for a majority of Americans! By skipping breakfast, having a light lunch, and eating a heavy dinner, you could easily fall into the trap of consuming too many calories in one sitting—which as you could see, is common.

The following are the easiest ways to combat this, and ensure you on your journey for proper nutrition and weight loss:

1. Eat breakfast!
2. Eat healthy snacks throughout the day
3. Avoid having a heavy lunch and/or heavy dinner
4. Don’t drink sodas at lunch time! Have water, unsweetened tea, coffee, or vegetable juice instead
5. Don’t consume unnecessary calories (i.e. potato chips, sweeteners, added sugars, cookies, etc.), as this will only hamper your progress

By following the above, this will allow you to avoid overconsumption of your daily caloric needs, and aid in weight loss. For future posts, I will be covering alternatives and what you should specifically be eating, so please be sure to watch for this.

You may not be lifting weights as often as you should

Muscle is more dense than fat, and having higher muscle density allows you to have lower levels of bodyfat. These two are inversely related: as muscle density climbs, bodyfat generally drops, and having more muscle helps keep the fat off!

Adding muscle to your physique allows your body to burn more calories at rest, ultimately leading to lower levels of bodyfat. Another excellent by-product of weight training is something known as EPOC, or excessive post-exercise oxygen consumption. This is your body’s increased rate of oxygen intake following a strenuous workout (i.e. weight training with short rest periods), which leads to additional calories burned.

If you went jogging for 30 minutes, you would burn more calories as opposed to weight lifting during the activity—but not after. Generally speaking, when you jog, you exercise within 50%-70% of your max heart rate. When you weight train (and if you push yourself), you exercise between 70%-85% of your max heart rate. Although done in short bouts, the EPOC effect is greater here as opposed to jogging.

The strenuous workout you just completed most likely took a larger toll on your body than a jog would have. As a result of this, your body has to work harder to return to homeostasis, which leads to additional caloric burn!

Although cardio is excellent for weight loss, individuals who train all cardio with limited weights may hit plateaus at some point, and a great way to break past these plateaus is by hitting the weights for all the reasons outlined above.

Summary

There are lots of different diets individuals follow for weight loss. Whether a fad diet, a reduction in carbohydrates/calories, or an increase in physical activity—all play a key role in achieving your fitness goals.

For the case of eating too many calories, the easiest way around this is to simply track. Use an app like MyFitnessPal, HealthyOut, or Fitbit. This way, you can accurately measure where you may be overconsuming calories, and make adjustments from there.

If you eat too infrequently as mentioned above, this could also lead to weight gain. In this case, using a calorie tracking app can also show you which meals are higher in calories than the others. With this information, you could limit calories in, let’s say—dinner, and compliment some of those with a healthy snack or your lunch.

Finally, not lifting weights often can put a stop to your weight loss journey. Try starting out lifting moderately 2-3x per week, ideally in addition with your cardio routine (if you have one). Combining both cardio and weight training can yield excellent results in your weight loss journey, and get you on the right track for that physique you’ve always wanted.

Thank you again for taking the time to read this post. In the future, I will be covering nutrition more in-depth, and outline what specifically you should be eating for optimal health depending on your goals—whether building muscle or losing weight.

If you haven’t already, check out my article on why you should get started here!

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Erik

With expansive expertise in many realms of fitness, Erik is here to help you achieve your goals! Whether training to build muscle, improve strength & conditioning, or increase athleticism, Erik is here to push you in the right direction!

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