Woman, You’re Sabotaging Your Weight Loss Efforts If You’re Doing These
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It can be discouraging to try diet after diet with little results. It is easy to pass the blame around and decide that the diet you tried did not fit your lifestyle. For many, the reason for failure lies with a few common mistakes that almost every woman makes a few times. By avoiding these pitfalls, you can increase your chances of success.
5 Weight Loss Mistakes That Many Women Make
1. Weigh Yourself Daily
After your first day of eating healthy and working out, it is tempting to want to jump on the scale and see if you lost a pound or two. This is no recommended. During the first week of your diet or workout routine, you may notice a few pounds of weight loss at most. This will likely dip to one pound every week or two.
Weighing yourself on a regular basis can deter you from your goal. It is easy to become discouraged when you are not losing weight as fast as you would like. You need to realize that weight loss is a long-term project and it may take time to reach your ideal weight. Instead of weighing daily, limit yourself to one weigh-in every one to two weeks.
2. Spending Too Much Time Planning
You can plan on losing weight all you want, but you will not achieve your goals unless you actually put them into action. The same is true of falling off the wagon and thinking that you have to wait until Monday to start over. Stop putting off your weight loss efforts and begin making healthy choices tomorrow.
3. Not Getting Enough Sleep
When you are busy paying attention to what you eat and how much exercise you get, it is easy to overlook sleep. Sleep is just as important as your nutrition and exercise. A lack of sleep can lower your defenses. You spend the day feeling groggy, unmotivated, and your first instinct may be to reach for a snack to boost your energy.
Try to get at least seven hours of sleep each night. If you have trouble sleeping, cut back on caffeine and avoid eating a heavy meal several hours before you go to bed.
4. Eating Too Much Or Too Little
If you order a salad, you may assume that you can eat as much as you would like as it is a nutritious meal, but you should also pay attention to portion sizes. This applies to any meal or snack that you eat—whether it is healthy or not. If you need help cutting down on portion sizes, use smaller plates or bowls.
On the other hand, eating too little will open up yourself to hunger and you are more likely to binge on junk foods. My rule of thumb is to never eat too full, nor go hungry. Eating about 70-80% full always work the best.
5. Skipping The Cardio And Weight Training
While you may feel more comfortable performing some squats and crunches or a stretching routine, you need to include some cardio exercise and weight training into your exercise routine.
Cardio exercise can include walking, swimming, cycling, and jogging. Try to include at least 30 minutes of cardio exercise in your daily routine. For weight training, begin incorporating weights into your regular exercises, such as using hand weights in conjunction with your squats or crunches.
Weight training builds muscle, which increases your body’s demand for glucose. Your muscles need fuel, which increases the calories that you can burn during your workouts.
If you truly want to lose weight, then you need to be honest with yourself. Look at the choices that you make and hold yourself accountable. If you have made any of the mistakes mentioned above in the past, now you know what to look out for the next time you try to lose weight.
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