Skip to content
Top 3 common weight loss mistakes

Weight loss can be a complicated thing to maintain, especially if you make these mistakes every time you lose weight and then end up getting it all back. Today we will be discussing the Top 3 weight loss mistakes that all of us have made or still do when trying to lose weight and you can avoid them and maintain your weight loss permanently.

Going on an extreme calorie deficit

1.Going on a extreme caloric deficit

This is by far the most common weight loss mistake that everyone makes. Especially women, thinking that the lesser they eat the more weight they will lose and that’s going to be it. The truth is far from it. Yes, you will lose weight, but you will lose more than just weight and your body will make you go through extreme bouts of hunger that will make sure you gain all the weight you have lost back or even more than what you started out with.

Going on a diet of extremely low calories. Thinking that once you lose this weight, you will change your diet to be a little less restrictive and maintain the weight loss. You won’t be able to. All this time that you have been starving yourself, your stomach has been busy producing ghrelin and the more you keep denying your body the calories it needs.

The more ghrelin gets produced until you give in. If you, however, have a strong willpower and do not give in. Every time you eat, you will feel like you haven’t eaten anything when your done, you wont feel satisfied at all. Every time you even look at food you will feel hungry. Everything will look appetizing to you, food that you didn’t like before will start to taste amazing.

  • How ghrelin’s  link to dopamine induces binge eating

This is because ghrelin affects your brain more than you think. It affects your learning  and memory processes as well as your brain’s reward system. This is why when you eat anything it feels like you have deserved it and need more of it. It floods your brain with dopamine (feel good hormone) the moment you eat and it keeps on increasing the level of dopamine it releases every time you eat, as long as you keep restricting it until you give in.

The moment you give in just once, you will binge uncontrollably as the way you feel while eating will be the best thing in the world for you. After that comes the guilt once you’re done. Because we all know how dopamine works with our phones constantly in our hands and just an hour of being away from it can cause people to start having withdrawal symptoms. That is because most people are addicted to the dopamine hit that our phones give us from constant usage.

This is the same way Ghrelin works in making you binge. However, the ones more prone to the effects of dopamine are women and that’s why it’s more dangerous for women to do a starvation diet than it is for men. Still, the effects are similar for both genders. Just increased for women. The more stressful your daily routine is, the more you will crave dopamine (feel good hormone) in any form.

you can use intermittent fasting as a tool for weight-loss as well. To know more about how you can do that. Read how-to-lose-weight-with-intermittent-fasting/

Thinking cardio is the solution

2. Thinking Cardio is  a long-term solution

We all know people who start going on walks or runs the moment they see the scale go up. Thinking cardio is going to help you lose weight permanently. Yes, cardio helps, particularly LISS cardio, which is walking, jogging, biking etc. But, you need to keep doing it every day like anything else to reap its benefits. The moment you stop, the benefits instantly stop. Unlike with resistance training, which might be slow but muscles stay longer. Cardio is extremely beneficial for your heart health and should not be avoided anyway, but thinking of it as more than it is, will not help you on a weight-loss journey.

3.Thinking its okay to lose muscle or not workout

Out of the worst weight loss mistakes that you can make. Thinking its okay to lose muscle, is by far the most damaging one. Thinking that you do not need to do workouts, whether it is with free weights at home or at the gym, because you don’t want muscles at all. If you do a starvation diet and think that it’s okay if you lose your muscle doing this extreme diet, because you just want to lose weight.

You will lose muscle. Yes, but what you do not realize is, your metabolism will take a huge hit and your body will start storing more fat and where there was muscle. Now your body has an additional space to store fat. So, if you were just getting fat on your legs now, it’s your arms too. Since your metabolism is slower as well. You will burn fewer calories even from your cardio (if you were burning 300 calories, let’s say now its going to be less than 300 for the same amount of time).

So the best thing to do is workout just for up to 45 mins to an hour a day. Do some regular exercises like bicep curls, triceps dumbbells, kickback shoulder presses, squats with free weights and that’s it. You do not need to do them all on the same day as well. You can train two parts per day, like biceps and squats one day, triceps and shoulder press the next day. Rest the third day and repeat. Allowing you to effectively train the majority of your body and make it simpler for you to train with weights. That’s all you need if your not into working out for the sake of building muscle just for weight loss. If you need to have an in-dept. guide on how to build more muscle. Read top-exercises-for-building-muscle-at-the-gym-or-home/

Conclusion

  • Do not go on an extreme caloric deficit and think you can fix it later. Your body won’t allow you to and make it worse.
  • Do not underestimate the effects of ghrelin on your dopamine levels. As that is one of the biggest causes of binge eating
  • Cardio works as long as you don’t skip a single day of it. It does not have any lasting weight-loss effects.
  • Losing muscle will make you gain more fat in places you weren’t even fat before.
  • Just up to 45 mins of resistance training a day can increase strength, muscle definition and increase your metabolism.
  • To get a daily caloric estimate for yourself based on height and weight. Visit https://www.freedieting.com/calorie-calculator 
  • to know  if your losing fat or water weight. Read what-is-the-difference-between-losing-weight-vs-losing-fat/

If you have any questions,  or like what you read leave a comment.

Spread the love

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *