Obesity is an invitation for many health conditions. That’s the reason why people like to get rid of it. Hence, people try to lose weight by following different advice on the internet and other sources, and end up doing weight loss mistakes.
In the lack of expert advisors or incomplete knowledge, although people think they are making the right decision, they tend to mess up and make one or more mistakes during the weight loss mentioned in this article.
If you want to avoid these common mistakes, read this article.
Table of Contents
Weight loss mistakes
1. Starving is the best way to lose weight.
“The calorie deficit can lead to weight loss” is misinterpreted, and many think not eating enough can lead to weight loss. People literally starve themselves, but by doing this, they are not creating a calorie deficit; instead, they are becoming deficient in many nutrients essential for the proper functioning of the human body.
The calorie deficit should be created by burning more calories than consumed through different meals of the day. This can be achieved by incorporating a variety of low in calories foods but rich in nutrition.
The other care necessary while creating a calorie deficit is maintaining the optimum levels of all the vitamins and minerals. The deficiency of vitamins and minerals is quite common since people exclude many essential food items containing a unique nutritional profile to decrease the number of calories.
2. Not eating enough protein or fiber.
There is evidence that foods rich in fiber and protein increase satiety, reduce calorie intake, and play a crucial role in weight loss [18].
Other benefits of protein and fiber intake are the reductions in appetite, maintenance & increase in metabolic rate, cleaning the toxins from the gut, reducing sugar hike in the blood, and especially protein protects the muscle mass during weight loss [19, 20, 21].
However, due to a lack of tracking or some other reasons, people tend to take less fiber and protein, which may hurt their weight loss efforts and overall health.
In fact, lower protein and fiber may also increase the craving for food, which may lead to binge eating [22].
3. Higher intake of fat in a low-carb diet
There are multiple low-carb diets, for example, the ketogenic diet, Atkins diet, keto vegan diet, etc., which claim faster weight loss due to the induction of ketosis [23].
But another side of this low-carb diet is that it allows the consumption of a higher amount of fat compared to protein and carbs, but this may have a negative effect since the observation reveals that passive overconsumption of fat can cause weight gain [24].
The lack of awareness about the difference between unsaturated and saturated fat, and thus consumption of a higher amount of unhealthy saturated fat through red meat, palm, and coconut oil, and fast food, can also be problematic for weight loss goals.
4. Doing too little or too much exercise and overestimating the calories burn.
Too little or too much of anything is not good. The same is true for exercise; whether you are doing too little or too much, both can’t give you a healthy, fit body.
When you try to lose weight by any means, you lose both muscles as well as fat. But surely you would not like to lose muscle mass as more muscle means a high chance that you will maintain the weight loss and be able to define the cuts you were looking for [14].
The only way to preserve lean muscle is to exercise; exercise lowers muscle mass loss, increases fat loss, and boosts metabolism.
The above phenomenon is possible with a legitimate amount of exercise, but on the contrary, people get overexcited and do unnecessarily excessive exercise that harms the body. According to studies, the excess amount of exercise can also be a reason for a stressed life and an appropriate endocrine hormone response in the long run [15, 16].
Another problem with people is that they will overestimate the calories lost during exercise and meals, which is problematic and mainly noticed in overweight adults who are unwilling to attempt weight loss [17].
5. Not tracking the food intake.
Eating nutritious food may define your good health, but it doesn’t mean you can lose weight. Even healthy foods can be high in calories. In a lifestyle management program, tracking calories through journals, logs, or calorie trackers was able to achieve long-term weight loss success [11].
By tracking your dietary intake, you will have a clear picture of the protein, fiber, carbs, minerals, and vitamins you are taking in and where you are lacking. Maintaining the right balance and eating low-calorie, nutrition-dense food can only help you accelerate your goal of achieving that healthy body of your choice [12, 13].
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6. Drinking sugary beverages
Having this category in this list might be surprising for many people as they will say who drinks sugary beverages like soft drinks. Yes, people do leave that, but many prefer fruit juice over whole fruit.
Although you take 100% fruit juice has added sugars in it. Even fruits have fructose, fiber, and other nutrients, but when we extract fruit juice, we lose fruit fiber which gives satiety [6].
The 12 ounces of cola contains 23.1 g of sugar, but more than that, unsweetened apple juice contains 35.76 g of sugar [7, 8].
7. The corset allows you to lose weight.
The corset is a garment commonly worn by ladies to support and define the waist in a particular shape, giving the illusion of a smaller waist and large bottom.
Wearing a corset can give you the illusion of a thin waist, but it can’t help you permanently shade the extra fat you have in and around your belly. In contrast, the fashionable corset may have health hazards since wearing it compresses the ribs and other internal organs [9]. Another study also noticed that the middle age ladies wearing a waist training corset were suffering from Acute limb ischemia (ALI) [10].
Hence be careful before choosing corsets next time as they may give happiness for a fraction of time, but in the long run, it could be the reason for regrating and hospital visits.
8. The more I sweat, the thinner I get
Sweating is a mechanism through which the body excretes the waste and toxins dissolved in the water we sweat out. Moreover, unlike renal glands, the sweat gland does not conserve water while sweating. Hence prolonged sweating may lead to dehydration, and those with a high NaCl concentration are at higher risk of salt imbalance [5].
Moreover, sweating can only lose the body’s water weight, and there is no evidence that sweating can reduce weight loss.
Therefore, trying to lose too much sweat by wearing sweat suits or other clothing may cause dehydration instead of fat loss.
9. Doing abs to lose belly:
The most common area where fat accumulates is the belly area, and hence the most common mistake people make is they try to lose belly fat by doing abs. But the catch is that you cannot target a particular area. Weight loss is not localized; it is a holistic approach, and overall body fat will get reduced.
Moreover, studies of trials to see the effect of abdominal exercise on belly fat showed minimal impact on body fat percentage, body weight, abdominal circumference, and suprailiac skinfold measurements. In contrast, the effect of Abs was on the improvement of muscular endurance compared to the control group [2].
10. Focusing only on the scale and having unrealistic expectations
As we start the weight loss journey, the weighing balance becomes our best friend. But the problem is that the routine daily weight check might be the reason for anxiousness and moral down. Eventually, some people give up within a few days of beginning due to their unrealistic expectations of conspicuous weight change every day.
The small ups and downs of 2 to 4 pounds are considered normal and may depend on the kind of food and beverages you have consumed [3]. Furthermore, in females, the hormonal change could be responsible for water retention and hence the fluctuation with hormonal change [4].
We eat millions of calories over a year, but we see a slight difference in weight because of the balance in the mechanism of intake and expenditure. However, in overweight/obese people, this mechanism is affected by some or the other reasons over time. Hence, patiently we need to work on controlling energy balance and preventing the regain of weight after it is lost [1]. This cannot happen if you start your journey with an unrealistic expectation of an exponential drop in weight after each exercise, diet, and fasting regimen.
