Daily Habits Harming your Weight Loss Journey
Some daily habits do more harm than good to your weight loss journey. That is why sometimes, after numerous attempts to lose weight, you still don’t get the expected results. The implication of these processes is that as you take a few steps forward, unfortunately, you take some other steps backward.
For instance, not sleeping well or complete lack of sleep can increase your daily calorie intake by up to 385 calories. Below are some essential things to do if and when you want to effectively lose weight without sabotage.
Harmful Habits to your Weight Loss Journey
1. Changing diet without changing lifestyle
When people hear that a particular diet can help them shed some weight, they just move into it right away. But the proven truth is that what contributes to your weight loss is the diet and eating lifestyle. In other words, the dietary changes are supposed to be temporary measures.
The real deal is to change your eating habits that may be harming your body. In changing your lifestyle, you begin to see your responsibility beyond a single significant action to little actions here and there. That is the practicality of how things really work, not the diet starvation.
By research studies showed that a sudden reduction in your calorie intake automatically slows down your metabolism. As a result, your body assumes you are serving and attempts to conserve energy. Moreover, any weight loss you experience through diets only may return within one to five years, mostly if it doesn’t change your habit.
2. Sticking to food sauces and dressings
As you journey towards effective weight loss, don’t leave out the need to cut down your calories through creamy dressings and food sauces. For instance, you may have cut down the calories from your primary food choices, but oils and mayonnaise also contain some energy calories.
For instance, hummus as a brand contains 177 calories in every 100 g of the substance. Besides, I’ve seen people say what they are adding is just a piece of vegetable. But, dipping a few veggies in your food is also a plus and not a minus. What about spices, flavors, and margarine?
One helpful habit of countering that tendency is to keep a calorie diary. This record shows the total calorie intake from all consumed foods per day. You can calculate the amount of calories taken through sauce and dressings and do something about it from the record.
3. Staying off all snacks at home and in the office
At the beginning of your weight loss journey, you might have heard that the way to lay off calories is to stay off snacks. But before you launch out on starving yourself, take time to understand how your body works with these things.
Keeping some safe snacks handy may be what you need for your body not to shut down due to insufficient energy. Mere starving sends a wrong signal to your brain and may not do much to you losing weight after all. On the other hand, a particular study showed that people who keep unhealthy food at home find it much more difficult to effectively lose weight.
Healthy snacks at home and office need a lot of discipline, though, such that each person can meet the nutritional needs and avoid unnecessary sugar. Some healthy snack options include fruits, low-fat yogurts, pre-chopped vegetables, dried seaweed, and nuts with no extra sugar or salt.
4. Fats are not the enemy
Consuming fats is not as bad as you think, because there are different kinds of fats that you need to know. For instance, fats can be saturated, unsaturated, and Trans fats with their various food types in each category. Saturated fats are found mainly in animal products and coconut.
Unsaturated fats are present in olive oil, fish, avocados, nuts, and seeds, while Trans fats are present in snacks, margarine, and fried fast food. Of all the fat types above, the needed category is the unsaturated fats because they remove the bad cholesterol from the body.
These unsaturated fats also boost your energy level, increase your vigor and enhance fat conversion to replace the consumption of extra carbs. Your body loves the right kind of fats because they make your food tastier for more pleasure.
5. Relying on exercises only
Hands up exercises are suitable for the body, not only in weight loss but also in staying fit and safe. However, exercises alone may not give you all the results you want to see. Instead, you should endeavor to effectively burn calories from physical activities and not replace them.
Note that exercises don’t have to be formal in terms of standard workout styles. Dancing, walking, and running can also be useful. Generally, physical activities can burn between 10 to 30% of the body’s amount of energy. Therefore, in addition to diet, you may need some exercise.
6. Striving for perfection
Weight loss is not achieved by perfection, no. Starting and sustaining the journey is an essential step to take to achieve better results. Remember that no one is perfect, but each person is on a progressive journey to achieve their goals. And many times, the journey is not a 100m dash.
With a professional weight loss plan, you can follow a daily schedule that helps you adjust bit by bit and draw nearer to the goal. Following that, if you are losing weight slower than you expected, there is no need to be depressed. More so, if you find yourself yielding to some urge to take candy, don’t feel bad about it.
Better still, simply rise up and proceed from that point on. Statistically, an 80 to 90% efficiency or success rate is not that bad, don’t be a perfectionist! Instead, make efforts to focus more on consistency and when it fails, try again.
Conclusion
You have tried several means of hitting your weight loss target, to no avail. Perhaps, the reason for failure is that you have refused to break off some other habits that sabotage your weight loss plans. Also, you need to note that weight loss is a relatively long journey and not a short dash.
Therefore, cut yourself some slack but don’t break your consistency rate. Build on the strengths and abilities, and don’t feel disappointed if you cannot hit the 100% mark. In all, we hope you can achieve a healthy living. Stay fit and safe!
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