Sydney Boot Camp Instructor's 5 Biggest Weight Loss Mistakes
I often look over our boot camp and personal training clients nutrition logs and I see the same mistakes made time and time again.
Here are the 5 biggest diet mistakes I see for weight loss…
1. Not eating breakfast.
Eating first thing in the morning helps to kick start your metabolism and put your body into fat burning mode. Also if your doing training first thing in the morning it’s important to eat some carbs before you train. Your blood sugar levels get very low during the night and it’s important to put fuel into your system to get the most from your workout.
2. Drinking sugary drinks.
I don’t think the majority of people realize how much sugar goes into soft drinks. Most of these drinks have between 13-18 teaspoons of sugar (I believe fanta is the highest). Your body can’t handle that amount of energy at one time so it stores it away as fat for later use.
Also if your trying to lose weight – stop drinking fruit juices, although drinking natural juice is healthy… it’s really bad for weight loss because of the amount of sugar they contain. Eating the whole fruit is good because your eating the fibre which makes it a low GI food, once you extract the sugar it’s now high GI and will effect your body exactly the same as soft drinks.
3. Not eating frequent enough.
Eating 5-6 meals per day increases your metabolism and will stop your body from going into starvation mode, if you only eat 1-2 times a day your body will think it’s starving and will actually try to store fat. Eat frequently through the day to ramp up your metabolism.
4. Not eating enough fruit and veg. 
Most people don’t eat enough fruit and veg, the recommended daily amount is 2 servings of fruit and 5 servings of veg a day (a serving is the size of your fist). Looking at most people’s nutrition logs they’re lucky if they get 1-2 servings a day.
I don’t think the majority of people realize how much damage their doing to their bodies by not eating enough fruit and veg. Most deaths in the western world are caused through diet related diseases i.e heart disease, many forms of cancer, diabetes, stroke are to name a few.
Fruit and veg contain powerful antioxidants which neutralize free radicals in the body which will do your body untold amounts of damage. I’d actually go far as to say you need to eat 9-10 servings of fruit and veg a day, I also take a whole food based supplement which contains 17 fruit and veg a day.
5. Not enough protein in the diet.
Not only does protein provide your body with the nutrients it needs for building muscle (which is important because muscle is the only tissue that burns calories) it also burns calories to digest, so by eating protein you’re actually burning calories – this is know as the thermic effect.
6. Eating too many carbs.
O.K I know this is number 6 but 5 sounds better and this one’s worth a mention…
Try to limit the amount of carbs you eat - foods such as bread, rice pasta, noodles – are loaded with calories. Instead try to get most of your carbs eating fruit and veg which provide the body with lot’s more nutrients and will keep your blood sugar levels stable.
In summary …
You can't out train a poor diet, it's like trying to bail out a sinking canoe with a teaspoon. If you're putting too many calories into your body and the wrong type off foods it doesn't matter how hard you train - it's not gonna work.
If you have any questions feel free to comment below.
Thanks!
Dan
Dangerously Fit
Posted by Dan Clay | in Fitness Tips |
