I lost about 40lbs in 3 months a few years back.
Before I figured out what worked for me, I spent a whole bunch of time feeling frustrated and bad about myself.
Until I finally started seeing results, I spent years “trying” to figure out what worked.
Hindsight is always 20/20, but I’m hoping I can save at least 1 person from the mistakes that I made.
For reference, here’s my transformation:
andddd the mistakes I made……..
1. Not Having a Plan
When you’re just starting out, the most helpful thing you can do is to have a plan.
I wasted so much time when I first started out because I didn’t have one.
I would wander around not knowing what to do.
Even today, when I start a workout with an exact plan for that day, my workout is sooo much better.
2. Stressing Too Much Over “The Right Plan”
When I first started out, I spent so much time looking for the perfect workout and diet plan.
You see other girls doing different workouts and wonder if what you’re doing is right.
Pick a solid plan with proven results and stick with it.
You’ve probably heard it a million times, but consistency is everything.
If you don’t know which plan to pick, obviously I’m biased towards my own.
I have an 8 week total body plan that includes everything you need and I would l-l-l-love to have you join!
If you don’t want to get mine, that’s okay too, but it is important you pick one, start, and stick with it!
2. Wasting Time On Quick Fixes
I am a lot of things.
Patient isn’t one of them.
This isn’t new, so when I first decided I wanted to lose weight, I wanted to lose it NOW.
There are all kinds of weight loss..uhh, we’ll call them “tools” for now..that promise FAST results.
Wraps, diet pills, waist trainers…
You name it, I tried it.
The only thing they did was delay my results and waste my money.
If it sounds too good to be true, it is.
Trust me, save your time and money.
Proper diet and exercise will get you results fast enough.
Losing weight can be discouraging because it feels like this overwhelming challenge that’s going to take for-evvv-er.
I promise if you have the right plan and stick to it, the weight comes off much faster than you expect.
3. Stressing Over Things That Didn’t Matter
I think everyone overthinks the details when they start out.
I definitely did.
You worry about if you should eat after a certain time, should you eat breakfast or no breakfast, should you lift weights or only do cardio, the list goes on.
Losing weight is hard mentally..
Resisting the cookies, actually getting up to work out.. That’s what’s hard.
Knowing what to do is pretty simple.
I have another post where I break down weight loss into 7 simple steps here if you’re interested.
Most of the details you are obsessing over generally won’t make much of a difference.
Not to sound like a broken record, but just pick your plan and stick with it.
Widget not in any sidebars
4. Trying Unrealistic Diets
You know what’s really discouraging?
Failing.
All too often I see people trying these crazy diets in hopes of losing weight.
The diet is so restrictive there’s no way anyone could ever stick with it.
*only eat eggs for a week!*
*just don’t eat any carbs!! (cough, looking at you keto!)*
So what happens?
They try it for a week or a month, end up binging, then feeling like they failed.
I’ve been there.
I wanted to lose weight as fast as possible when I started.
I was only following calories and I was eating farrr too few calories for my size.
I was always starving, so when I couldn’t take it anymore, I would PIG out.
Then I would feel terrible about myself after.
You didn’t fail.
You just chose an overly difficult diet.
The diet I see the best long term results with is by far flexible dieting.
5. Lying to Myself
I have this nasty habit I’m trying to break.
I lie to myself.
I think more people do than they want to admit.
Because we disguise the lies as excuses.
What do I mean by that?
When I’m having a hard time losing weight, I like to tell myself I did all I could.
This makes me feel better because it takes away that awful guilty feeling.
No one likes feeling guilty, so we come up with an excuse while we’re not meeting our goals.
“I don’t have enough time”
“I’m doing all I can, it’s just not working”
If you take a minute and really look deep.
Are you being honest with yourself?
Could you have gotten up earlier.
Slept a little less?
Ran an extra 5 minutes?
Lifted a little more weight?
If you’re not seeing results, then the answer is probably.
It’s hard to face that truth, trust me, I still struggle with it.
But the thing is, your results will skyrocket once you do.
6. Not Tracking My Food
I mentioned that when I first started, all I knew was to eat less calories.
Besides my caloric goal being way too low, I had another problem.
I wasn’t actually tracking my food.
I would look at labels, guess at how much I was actually eating, and roughly keep track in my head.
Above and beyond, I have found that the number one cause of people struggling to lose weight that is that they UNDERestimate how many calories they’re eating and OVERestimating how many calories they’re burning.
Tracking your food sounds like a pain in the butt.
I know.
Once you get the hang of it, I promise it is so easy.
I spend no more than 5 minutes a day tracking my food.
It also forces you to be honest with yourself which will also help your results.
Here’s an example of what a day in my food tracker looks like (I use the MyFitnessPal app):
7. Trying Spot reduce fat
Once I got down to my goal weight, I was prettyyy happy.
BUT..
I still had a little extra fluff on my stomach.
And I definitely didn’t want to be any thinner in my legs or bottom.
I wasted a bunch of time on this illusion that I could somehow only lose more fat from my stomach.
To be fair, that myth is all over the place.
If you’ve ever seen ads telling you that you can burn beely fat, or just leg fat, face fat, or any {insert body part here} fat..
Unfortunately, it’s not true.
Trust me, I wish it was just as much as you probably do, but I promise you it’s not.
When you burn calories, and ultimately fat, your body decides where to burn it from.
The good news is, eventually it will come off of whatever it is your target is.
8. Wanting to Shrink My Waist & Grow My Butt
I mean…..
Can you blame me?
Who doesn’t want to shrink their waist and grow their hips and butt at the same time?
This one goes hand and hand with the point above.
The problem, aside from not being able to spot reduce fat..
Is that these goals are completely conflicting.
To shrink your waist, you have to be in a caloric deficit in order to burn fat.
To grow your hips and butt, you need to be in a surplus (eating more than you burn).
You can’t do these at the same time.
You’ll need to decide which one you want more first.
Once you’ve achieved that, you can switch gears and tackle the other one.
9. Believing Other People’s Lies
This one kind of goes hand in hand with #4 above, about the unrealistic diets.
I used to get so discouraged because I would see all these articles about losing 10lbs in a week or 20lbs or whatever it was.
Because I wasn’t getting those same results, I felt like I was failing.
If you’ve come across this, do not feel bad!!
There are sooo many lies in the weight loss community it’s sickening.
These crazy “results” sell better and get more clicks, so that’s what people promote.
Always take what you read with a grain of salt.
even this…*puts on tin foil hat*
Just kidding.
One of my goals is to be at least one place you know you can come and trust for the facts and real results..
Because I know what it feels like to believe those lies and get down on yourself about it.
I never, ever want to do that to anyone else.
10. Being Too Strict
This one again plays off of the unrealistic diet.
Consistency. Is. Everything.
Being overly strict will eventually lead to binging.
I know because I’ve been there.
Ya girl needs a damn donut and some pizza once in a while.
That’s why I like flexible dieting (aka macro counting).
It lets me have donuts and pizza.
Not a truckload, but if I want A donut or A piece of pizza..
I just do it, it’s not a big deal.
Having a little bit here and there keeps the cravings manageable.
Final Note
If you’ve been struggling to lose weight, I would love to have you join my 8 week weight loss and toning challenge!
Everything you need is included – nutrition and workout!
If you have any questions at all, feel free to leave a comment or shoot me a message on Instagram!