Trainer Jack

2 of My Biggest Weight Loss Mistakes

What you Need to Know: There are better and worse ways to lose weight. Unfortunately, I picked two of the worst ways on my first and only go-around with weight loss. I’m going to give you a couple of simple strategies for how to avoid the stupid mistakes that I did.   Your Biggest Mistakes When Losing Weight I made a huge mistake when I first started losing weight. After I hit rock bottom at 50…

What you Need to Know: There are better and worse ways to lose weight. Unfortunately, I picked two of the worst ways on my first and only go-around with weight loss. I’m going to give you a couple of simple strategies for how to avoid the stupid mistakes that I did.

  Your Biggest Mistakes When Losing Weight

I made a huge mistake when I first started losing weight. After I hit rock bottom at 50 pounds overweight and technically speaking, obese, I chose the wrong way to start doing it.

I had no idea what I was doing, so I figured I would just follow along with what I saw on the news and heard in health class. I didn’t actually find out until years later that I went about losing weight the wrong way.

PLEASE, read this and you can avoid making the same mistakes I did.

  Making the Wrong Sacrifices

To lose weight, I knew that I was going to have to make some changes and some compromises to my current lifestyle. I wanted to get results, but I was a little at a loss for what to do.

Then I remembered that in health class on and the news everyone was advocating for calorie restricted diets for weight loss. Saying that you just have to eat less of the things that you like to lose weight.

I thought, “Really? I can still eat the pizza, burgers, fries, desserts, chips, and pastries that I love and still lose weight? Count me in!

  My Weight Loss Results

This method of weight loss totally worked, but I don’t recommend it for several reasons which we will get to in a minute. I ended up losing the 50 pounds in about 18 months. The only problem was that I became what was later coined by pop culture as “skinny fat.”

I was at the lower end of my average healthy weight, according to my height, but I still had a spare tire sitting around my stomach.

As my interest grew in the fields of nutrition and exercise over the course of the next couple of years, I found out exactly what I did wrong.

    Mistake #1: Quantity Cuts without Quality Implements

You may have already spotted this one, but if you didn’t this may be a valuable piece of information for you. I kept all of the same starchy, sugar, low nutrient quality foods in my diet, but by cutting ⅓-½ off of my previous portion sizes I was able to lose weight.

What I didn’t know is that by keeping those poor quality foods in my diet, my body clung to fat. All that glucose, sugar, fast food, and the low quality starches that I was eating just ended up sitting on my body in all of the wrong places.

What I couldn’t figure out is how the fat managed to stay on me when I was playing basketball for 8-12 plus hours every week? Shouldn’t I have been burning that off?!

  Mistake #2: Too Much Cardio

That brings in my second mistake: I was doing a ton of cardio but ZERO strength training. I didn’t begin to understand the value of functional strength training until one to two years later when I took my first strength and conditioning class.

Here’s why cardio was my enemy. I was burning a ton of calories, but I was building a little to no muscle in the process.

I wasn’t creating a place for all those crappy calories to go. Since they weren’t going toward building muscle, they were filling up my fat stores for energy for the next basketball game.

So what’s the best way to correct those mistakes?

  Correcting My Mistakes

As wild as it sounds, I would venture to say that 80-85% of my clients are under-eaters. I actually find very few of the people that I train in person to be over-eaters.

There’s a couple of things that under-eating does to your body…

– It slows down your metabolism: Your body is an intelligent machine. If you are giving it significantly less calories than it needs to function, it is going to slow your motor down to preserve fuel. It will slow down your metabolism and try to stretch those calories as far as it can.

– It can cause you to store fat: If your body doesn’t expect you to eat enough and it doesn’t know when you are going to eat next, it’s going to cling onto fat and store it for future energy use.

  The bottom line is that when you undereat, your body adapts by conserving as much energy as possible. It’s a survival mechanism that our body uses to keep us alive, via preserving our calories and keeping our fat stores full.

  Correction #1: Eat Right. Eat More.

What I found out is that you can slow your metabolism and store fat while eating clean OR while eating poor quality foods.

One of the best dietary choices that you can make when losing weight is to

Eat better calories, and eat more of those calories.

Quality calories from real foods like vegetables, fruits, healthy fats, and proteins are high in nutrients but naturally low in calories. You have to eat more of them to sustain the body and keeping your metabolism burning on high.

Think of it like a fire. If you only throw some sticks on your fire, some crappy paper and kindling, and occasionally some lighter fluid, it’s not going to burn that big or for that long.

If you throw sizable, quality, dry wood on their regularly, you can keep that fire burning strong for hours. Focus on eating more real food, and the fat will fall off of you.

  Correction #2: Train Your Muscles

By doing a ton of cardio (which I loved) I felt great all of the time but I wasn’t doing my body any favors. I burnt a thousands of calories every week, but wasn’t building any real muscle in the process.

I actually discovered later that all of those hours of cardio was burning through some of the previous muscle tissue that I had!

  Why It is Important to Build Muscle

Think of muscle as your preferred calorie and nutrient storage system. When you train and fatigue your muscles, they get desperate for energy so that they can repair, rebuild, and grow stronger.

  *Lifting an atlas stone for fun, during my workout

Would you rather have the calories that you eat go to muscle tissue or fat tissue?

Exactly! When you train your muscles they’ll use all of the calories that they can to enhance your muscles and help them recover.

Building muscle helps raise your resting metabolism, and is one of the best solutions for getting leaner and preventing fat gain/weight gain in the future.

Go lift some weights, do some body-weight exercises, or swing a kettlebell around to start building some muscle. You can do them in a circuit so that you get all that good cardiovascular exercise in at the same time!

  Moving Forward

There you have it! A couple of critical and easily correctable weight loss mistakes that I made, so that you don’t have to. 

If you need some more guidance and direction on your weight loss journey and are want to lose some stubborn body fat, make sure to get my free e-book The Ultimate Fat Loss Checklist. 

What You Should Know: Most people agonise over the number on the scale. When it drops a quarter of a pound, we jump for joy, and when it blips up a pound, we tend to have a terrible day.

So why do we put so much of our self-worth in that number on the scale?

Is your weight really that important?

Your Scale: Best Friend or Worst Enemy?

Let me ask you this first: how often do you weigh yourself? Be honest, and don’t be embarrassed about your answer. 

You can obsess over anything, and the scale is easy to obsess over. You use it to get what you believe is instantaneous feedback about our body.

You imagine how we will look after you lose 5, 10, 15, or 50 pounds. Should we really give that much power to the scale though? I’ve seen my clients have the best or worst days of their lives based on what the scale says the morning before they come into their sessions with me. That doesn’t seem healthy, and I know that because I’ve been there.

My Experience with the Scale

I remember when I had hit my ultimate goal and finally lost the 50 pounds I needed to, in order to get back to a healthy weight. Checking the scale had become such a habit and losing weight had become such a game for me, I would start to check my weight throughout the day.

Just out of sheer curiosity, I was weighing myself three times per day.

Once in the morning

Once after my workout to see the change

And once before bed

I was MASSIVELY into video games, board games, and RPG’s when I was younger, and this was just one way that I would gamify health and fitness in real life. Now, in retrospect, three times per day was way too much. Especially because I was just in my maintenance phase that came after I lost weight. I should have scaled back to checking my weight 1-3 times per week for maintenance, but the scale was like a scoreboard for me. At that point, maintaining my weight was winning the game.

I wouldn’t say that I had an unhealthy image of my body based on what the scale was, but I think that I was way too attached to a number that relatively speaking, means very little in terms of body composition or overall health.

Why? You may be asking. Here are three reasons why weight is a poor indicator of leanness, body composition, and overall health.

1) Weight Doesn’t take Measurements into Account

The first reason that the scale drives me crazy as a misnomered indicator of body composition and overall health is because it doesn’t take any of your measurements into account.

I can’t even begin to count how many male and female clients that I have had (and still have today) that have lost 2-4 inches off of their waists, but are pissed because the scale hasn’t budged in months. What the heck?!

Just to show you how ludicrous this is, let’s flip this example on its head for a second.

Let’s say that you are my client. Over the course of three months of training with me, you lose 10 pounds, but your waist stays the same size. 

Would that make you feel like you are making progress? Probably not. But getting a skinnier waist should make you feel accomplished!

Does that help you see why the number on the scale is ridiculous? If not, take this into account:

Multiple studies have shown that there is a direct correlation between waist size and your risk of

Heart disease

Diabetes

Obesity

Premature death

Even if you don’t care about your longevity and your risk of heart disease, (which you should) 99% of people believe that a slimmer waist looks more attractive than a larger one.

What most people really want when they say “I want to lose weight” actually means they want less body fat, more muscle definition, and a smaller waist. 

Which brings me to my next reason why the scale sucks…

2) Your Scale Doesn’t Measure Body Composition

Your scale does not take body composition into account. Unless you have a fancy scale with a bioelectrical impedance analysis feature, you aren’t going to be able to get an idea of what your lean mass to fat mass ratio is. Even with those nicer impedance scales, there is a fair amount of discrepancy in either direction so that you may not get the truest readings. Plus, those readings may vary drastically from day to day.

I’m not saying that you need to go to your doctor, buy a set of calipers, or find a company with a water displacement dunk tank to get the most accurate reading of your body composition, although those would be far-and-away better indicators of your body image and health than the scale.

The other great news is that you don’t need to buy a set of calipers to get an idea of what your body fat percentage or body composition is. Check out this chart and this article from Steve Kamb at Nerd Fitness to see how you can get an idea of what your body fat percentage range is.

Just to give you an idea of how little the scale matters when comparing it to body composition. Here are some pictures using examples of real people who have better body composition at a higher weight.

Check out the results of @ParrFittness. Weighing in at one kilogram MORE in her after photo, she transformed herself from mom-bod in training, to competitive beach body builder.

  Check out how @ActivelyRees went through a similar transformation. At the exact same weight, you can see the

Noticeable definition she gained in her midsection

The muscle tone in her arm’s, in her after picture

That her face even looks skinnier

She went from having love handles to a slim waist

Hopefully, these two gals give you a better idea of how you can be at a similar weight or the exact same weight, and still radically change your body composition to get…

Better abs

A slimmer waist

More muscle definition and tone

*Want to stop worrying about the scale and lose body fat NOW? Get my Ultimate Fat Loss Checklist for free. 

3) Your Scale is Not a Performance Indicator

Another reason that I don’t like the scale is that it is virtually no indicator of your performance.

The scale isn’t going to tell you if you’re getting stronger, faster, more flexible, more stable, or more powerful. Your numbers and your performance in the gym will.

I’ve seen a lot of skinny guys throw up after trying to run a mile for time.

I’ve also seen guys who are 20-30 pounds overweight who continue to run 5k’s, 10k’s, and half marathons year after year.

Neither one of those are exaggerations. That kind of crap happens every day. I used to think that “skinny” meant “fit” or “healthy.” I was wrong, and if you still think that, so are you.

Just as waist size is an indicator for your risk or resilience against heart disease and diabetes, so is physical strength and cardiovascular health.

People who are stronger, live longer and can retain more physical independence in older age.

People who have better heart health don’t get winded or pass out after walking up a short flight of stairs.

So let me ask you some questions:

Are you squatting more than you were yesterday?

Has your mile time gotten faster?

Can you swing a heavier kettlebell than you did last month?

Do you move safer and more efficiently than you did last week?

Good. What you’re doing is working, and the scale isn’t going to tell you that. Just the numbers and the raw data that you get from the gym.

RELATED: 3 Weight Lifting Programs that Build Muscle and Torch Fat

4) Your Weight Can Make Significant Daily Fluctuations

The last and certainly not least reason that the scale is a sucky indicator for overall health and body composition is that it fluctuates, all the time. I know this from watching the scale change significantly throughout the day depending on what I ate and what kind of activity I was doing.

Weight fluctuations are natural and are happening all the time. Here are just a few things that can cause your weight to temporarily fluctuate.

Stress

Lack of sleep

Hydration

Dehydration

Time of day

Supplements you are taking

Salty foods

Alcohol and soda (even if it is diet)

A big cheat meal or cheat day

Changes in hormones and PMS

Pre or post workout (especially cardiovascular)

Pre or post bowel movement (gross I now, but totally true)

Which is exactly why you shouldn’t freak out or celebrate every little movement or budge in the scale. Weight fluctuations happen, and they are okay.

Use the scale as a long term indicator and not a short one. I would say that you should keep your weigh-ins to 1-2 times per week, and record your weight over the long term.

Separating Yourself From the Scale

Now that you know all of the reasons why the scale is a poor indicator of body composition, performance, and how you want to look in your bathing suit, what are some ways that you can separate yourself from the scale?

Only weigh yourself 1-2 times per week. Track the progress long term in either a journal, notepad, or fitness application.

Monitor your waist size and how your pants, shorts, shirts, and clothes are fitting. This is one of the best and simplest ways to track changes in your body composition.

Buy some cheap measuring tape off of Amazon. Here’s how to take measurements.  Take measurements of around your

Hips, at the largest point

Waist, around your belly button

Arm, around the biggest part of your bicep, standing, while your arm is totally relaxed by your side

Thighs, measure around the thickest part of the thigh while you are standing

Optional: Get a cheap set of calipers off of Amazon with instructions on how to measure your exact body fat percentage.

Changing Your Body Composition and Losing fat

At the end of the day, losing body fat and getting stronger are the best ways to make your body look slimmer, more athletic, and more aesthetic. If you need more help with doing that, You can download my free ebook, The Ultimate Fat Loss Checklist here. 

Resources

https://www.nerdfitness.com/blog/body-fat-percentage/

http://www.news-sentinel.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20140428/LIVING/304289996

Body Composition: 4 Reasons to Trash Your Scale

What You Should Know: Most people agonise over the number on the scale. When it drops a quarter of a pound, we jump for joy, and when it blips up a pound, we tend to have a terrible day. So why do we put so much of our self-worth in that number on the scale? Is your weight really that important? Your Scale: Best Friend or Worst Enemy? Let me ask you this first: how often do you weigh yourself? Be…