Top worst ways to lose weight

Today, we are consumed with quick results. However, it is important to not neglect our health and well-being while trying to lose weight. Anyone who’s successfully lost weight will tell you that it is not something that happened overnight. It takes hard work and diligence to meet your goals. With any goal there is a right way and a wrong way to do things. So here are some of the wrong ways to lose weight:

 

1. Setting unrealistic goals

“I want to lose 25kgs in 10 training sessions!” By setting a bar too high too soon for yourself, you would be increasing the difficulty of the task, making it almost impossible to ever succeed. Naturally, some of us might get demotivated and drop out from the weight-loss program itself. Instead, the golden rule is to reduce a total of 500kcal a day through both exercising and a proper diet plan to achieve half a kilogram weight loss per week. Anything higher, you could be burning your muscles or a portion of it is just water loss. Anything lower, you could probably work harder. Of course, it is subjected to the principle of individuality, where the results may vary from one to another. The Biggest Loser losing half their body weight in 12 weeks doesn’t help realistic goal setting either. Just saying!

 

2. Exercising OR dieting by itself

Exercising or dieting by itself can help facilitate weight loss, abeit not optimally. By exercising alone, you would definitely expend calories. However, if you were to grab a soft drink or pizza after that, you’re just putting the calories back on. After all, as I would say, “You cannot outrun/out-train a bad diet. Your diet constitutes 80% while training is 20% of your fitness goals.” That being said, it is unwise to stick only to a diet plan without exercise because it doesn’t improve your fitness levels and to achieve the negative energy balance of 500kcal, that means you have to eat even lesser to compensate for the lack of exercise.

3. Fad diets

While some people do lose weight when following a fad diet, it is important to remember that the weight loss is usually temporary and most of these eating plans can be harmful to your body. In most cases, fad diets only allow you to eat certain foods. In addition, many of the diets do not provide enough vitamins and minerals. Not getting enough vitamins and minerals in the foods you eat can lead to problems such as anemia (low iron in your blood) and osteoporosis (a condition that causes your bones to break easily). Some of the fad diets would include Atkins Diet, Cabbage Soup Diet, Cambridge Diet and Maple Syrup Diet.

Most of these fad diets are hard to stay on. This means that you can’t stick with them for long and once you stop following the diet, you will probably gain back the weight you lost. For example, most people who lose weight on the low-carbohydrate diet gain all their weight back within one year. Some people even end up weighing more than what they did before starting the diet.

 

4. Not drinking water

“I think I should drink less water because it makes my weight higher.” Drinking more water does several things. First, it keeps you from retaining water. Much like skipping meals makes your body retain fat, not drinking water makes your body retain the water that it does get. Drinking water also helps you feel full. If you drink a glass of water before eating, you will fill fuller faster. Water is also necessary for your kidneys perform properly. Good kidney function is important to weight loss because if the kidneys can’t perform efficiently, the liver has to help them out. If the liver is busy helping the kidneys, it can’t perform its task of converting stored fat into energy. If you haven’t been drinking enough water for a while, it will take your body a few days to adjust. You may find yourself heading for the restroom a lot. As your body adjusts, you will not have to go as often. Any fat loss eating plan should include lots of water, as much as a gallon a day for men, and three quarts a day for women.

 

5. Taking weight loss supplements

While these drugs have shown some results, most are in fact, quite dangerous. Several have already been pulled off the market do to their side effects. Most, if not all, are unregulated by the FDA, meaning that they do not undergo the same quality checking that real products do. Also, while they may help some to lose weight, they do nothing towards increasing your health and well being. Chances are, once you stop taking these supplements, you’re likely to gain the weight lost back on because it doesn’t teaches you how to exercise or eat properly. Supplements are, after all to supplement.

6. Fasting or skipping meals

It only stands to reason: If the key to losing weight is cutting calories then why not cut a bunch at once by skipping a meal? If you skip meals when you’re trying to lose weight, you’re doing yourself more harm than good. Meal-skipping can cause your metabolism to nosedive because your body goes into what we call stavation mode. Stress hormones are released to conserve and turn most food you have into stored fat. That will set you up for sluggish calorie-burning all day long and ravenous hunger and overeating at night. The worst meal to skip is breakfast because you have been fasting for about 8 hours. Solution: Never skip breakfast and have smaller meals more frequently.

 

7. Not having enough sleep

Lack of sleep can contribute to weight gain, though experts aren’t exactly sure why. In her article, Sleep More to Lose Weight, Mary Shomon discusses a recent study that found that women who slept 5 hours a night were more likely to gain weight than women who slept 7 hours a night.

The reasons? Some studies have shown that losing sleep could affect metabolism by making you feel hungry, even if you’re not. Therefore staying up later just gives you more opportunities to reach into the fridge for a late night snack. And don’t forget, you wont be burning it off because you’ll be heading to bed.

 

8. Relying on slimming centres

“Lose 2kg a week while eating anything you like!” Sounds too good to be true? It probably is. The weight loss industry is generating a revenue of a whopping US$60 billion a year. And you would be contributing to this figure by forking out a few thousands on 10-20 sessions. That could have gotten you many personal training sessions! They do measurements before and after the session, using steaming and thermal blanket “treatments” for you and voila! You have lost 400g in that session alone! That would all be water weight lost which you are going to put back on after a cup of water.

Additionally, they would require you to purchase their meal replacement powders, thermal cream and they tell clients that they must exercise too. Chances are, that the fat loss comes from exercise while water weight loss comes from their treatments. Perhaps I should consider venturing into lipolysis (breakdown of fat) hypnosis package with personal fitness training sessions and dietary guidance included and charge an exhorbitant rate.

 

9. Staying 100% away from treats.

Even on a diet and exercise programme, we’re still humans and we would need to reward ourselves at times for our good work done. By staying away from food you love, you would be making dieting seem like a torture rather than something to help you and might give it up. It also increases your cravings significantly and might cause you to binge to fulfil them. Therefore, the occasional treat is good to have to keep you from feeling disillusionised. Have a cheat day or guilt-free day once a week to reward yourself! Trust me, your chapati, laksa, nasi lemak or fish n’ chips would have never tasted more heavenly on your well-deserved cheat day.