THE 5 BIGGEST FAT LOSS MISTAKES

I have written this Blog to help you continue on your journey to becoming a transformed you. I am very happy to be sharing my knowledge, experience and expertise with you and the main purpose for writing this is to make you aware of the ‘5 Biggest Mistakes’ you might be making when exercising and trying to lose unwanted Body Fat.

After years of seeing people do all the wrong things I have decided to put it on paper so that I can let as many people as possible know what they should be doing to guarantee optimum fat loss so that they can get the body and mind that they want. I have got almost two decades of experience in the health and fitness industry and I still, to this day, meet people who make these mistakes. I have had people contact me for all over the world asking me for fat loss advice and tips and I the first thing I always do is run through these ‘5 Fat Loss Golden Rules’.

There are many more mistakes that you might be making, believe me! But I am only going to focus on the top 5 things that, in my opinion, cannot be overlooked, so here they are.

THE 5 BIGGEST WEIGHT LOSS MISTAKES

1. Not Doing Functional Training
2. Not Doing Interval Training
3. Not Paying Enough Attention To Your Diet
4. Not Sleeping Enough
5. Not Supplementing Your Nutrition with Essential Vitamins and Minerals

"Functional Training, Interval Training, maintaining a balanced diet, getting a good nights sleep and taking supplements (The correct supplements) are true, tried and tested ways to optimise fat loss and improve your health."

As you read this I want you to ask yourself, “Do I really include this into my training and into my lifestyle?”

MISTAKE NO.1 – NOT DOING FUNCTIONAL TRAINING

Do you know what Functional Training is?

Functional Training = Training the body in the same way that it is designed to work in life.

Functional Training is training based around using the whole body as one unit (eg: press ups, lunges, squats) and involves training the body for the activities performed in your daily life.

E.g. An office worker sits at a desk all day so probably has weak abs and core and therefore should be doing exercises that will strengthen those areas. He/she is also likely to develop bad posture and “slouched” shoulders, so upper body exercise is necessary to prevent this. However, for a factory worker this will be very different, having to lift and move heavy objects all day.

Let me ask you a question. What would you say if I told you that a professional sports person and a lady, aged 80, should be doing the same exercises? You’d probably say that I’m mad, but it is true, they should be. Of course there will be exercises that are specific, but the movements are the same. The difference is the load of the exercise.

E.g. An Olympic Power Lifter is competing and needs to lift 100kg over his head. What is the main exercise that he needs to be able to do to perform this? Of course, he needs to be able to squat!! Now if an old lady gets to her front door and drops her keys on the floor, what exercise does she need to be able to do to safely pick up her keys without injuring herself ? Yes! A squat!

So, as you can see, it’s the same exercise, just a different load. Some doctors have said that squatting is not healthy if you’re past a certain age. What is healthy? For babies, squatting is the most natural position to sit in. If a baby that’s only just learnt how to walk needs to pick something up, it won’t reach down or bend over, it will do a deep squat and pick it up. It’s only through bad habit that we don’t do it when we grow up.

Another example of Functional Training and training the body for activities performed in your daily life: I’m sure you’ve used fixed resistance machines in the gym before. Imagine you’re using the Seated Shoulder Press. You would sit in the seat/chair while lifting a load over your head to work your shoulders. But if I were to have you sit on a chair in your kitchen and I gave you a heavy box to put away in the top cupboard, would you sit in the chair and try to do it? Probably not, you’d get out of the chair to stand up and put it away. Therefore, doing a shoulder press exercise while standing is more of a functional exercise. Don’t get me wrong, fixed resistance machines have their place, but in a lot of cases they don’t allow natural movement and only focus on a single muscle.

Functional training involves moving in multiple plains and activities targeting the core muscles, abdomen and lower back which leads to better balance, stability and decreases the risk of injury in sport and in life.

Ways to workout using functional training.

1. Cable Machines: Exercises on the cable machines allow you to recruit more than one muscle group at a time.
2. Free Weights (Dumbbells)
3. Medicine Balls: What a great way to strengthen your back by lifting medicine balls so that you don’t injure yourself when you’re lifting your son or daughter at home!
4. Kettlebells: (looks like a cannonball with a handle) Most Kettlebell Workouts engage the whole body at once.
5. Body Weight training: Using your own body to workout at the gym or even at home is brilliant and uses the whole body as one unit.
6. Boxing and Martial Arts: This is probably the most fun you’ll ever have while training.

I am a Thai boxer and I spend many hours in the boxing ring every day. I do a lot of my functional training out of the ring, and it makes me stronger when I’m in the ring, because I do exercises that mimic the movements I perform when I’m boxing.

If you’re an active person and you go to the gym regularly, but you’ve gone home before and lent over to pick something up and hurt your back, maybe it’s time to ask yourself: “Am I doing the correct exercise?”

Strength comes from within the core. I always tell my clients, “When you become strong on the inside, you’ll be become strong on the outside”.

E.g. If I gave you an apple, what would you say is the most important part of the apple? The strongest and most important part of the apple is the Core, because that’s where it grows from. If a part of the outside of an apple were rotten you would simply cut it off and eat the remainder of the apple, but if the apple core were rotten would you eat the apple? You probably wouldn’t, because you’d know that the apple is bad.

So, instead of doing isolated exercises when you workout, start doing functional training, and if you’re already training in this way then ‘Well Done!’

MISTAKE NO.2 – NOT DOING INTERVAL TRAINING

Interval Training is doing short burst of high intensity exercise followed by rest periods of low/ medium intensity exercise.

Doing interval training is the best way to lose unwanted fat!! Here’s a hard fact for you. Long, Slow Cardio alone DOES NOT WORK for fat loss. This type of training is only good if you’re training for an endurance event like a marathon, cycling race or triathlon.

We were NOT designed to run for long periods of time. We were designed to be hunters.

Were we built to run for miles after an animal just so that we can eat??? The answer is No. We were built to attack our food and gather the rest. Attack! – Then Rest. We were designed to work in short, quick and intense bursts of action and then, follow our work by periods of rest. Therefore, using Functional Training to do Interval Training is much more effective for fat loss than long slow exercises like running.

E.g. If you look at marathon runners, many of them don’t have sculpted bodies. They run for hours every day and run many miles, but majority of them don’t have a lot of muscle tone. On the other hand, if you look at sprinters, they don’t have a single bit of fat on their bodies. This is because their way of training is by doing short and explosive exercises followed by rest.

1-10 Scale: (1 = rest, and 10 = 100% effort/intensity).

When doing interval training you want to make sure that your short burst of high intensity exercise is at least 9/10. When resting, you want to be resting at around 5-6/10.

Work/Rest ratio: You want to rest about 1.5 times the time of the high intensity exercise. Therefore, if you sprint for 30sec, you want to be resting for about 45sec.

For Beginners: If you’ve never done interval training before then maybe start a little lower and exercise at 7/10 (high intensity) and 4-5/10 (rest period).

E.g. 20-Minute Workout

Warm Up for 4 Minutes
Sprint for 40 Seconds (x8)
Rest for 1 Minute between sprints.
Cool down for 4 Minutes

Training this way will not only boost your metabolism and burn off extra fat, but it will also supercharge your fitness, health, speed and stamina.

Wouldn’t you like to lose more fat by doing less exercise??? Interval Training is proven to be the best method for losing fat.

The secret is not about calories burnt during your workout. It’s about calories burnt after your workout. You can burn extra calories for up to 8 hours later.

Heart Rate Interval Training: (using your heart rate to workout)

Using your heart rate to train is a fantastic way to push yourself, know how hard your working and to measure your rest periods.

How to workout your estimated heart rate zones:

E.g.: How to work out your 90% maximum heart rate:

The equation: (220) – (your age) – (your resting heart rate) Then multiply the answer by 90% (x 0.9)

Then add your resting heart rate to that answer.

You can measure your resting heart rate when you wake up in the morning – before you get out of bed. For this example I’m going to use an average resting heart rate of 60bpm.

Eg: If your age is 33

220 – 33 (age) – 60 (resting heart rate) = 127bpm

127 x 90% = 114

114 + 60 (resting heart rate) = 174bmp

Therefore, 90% of your maximum heart rate is 174 bpm.

As I mentioned before, when looking at the 1-10 Scale you want to be reaching 9/10 in your intervals and coming down to 5-6/10 during your rest periods.

This also applies to Heart Rate Intervals.

Eg: 90% of your MHR (Maximum Heart Rate) is equivalent to 9/10 60% of your MHR is equivalent to 6/10.

When first starting out with interval training, if you find that your heart rate doesn’t go down to 60% don’t worry! This is a great way to measure how fit you are and the fitter you get the quicker it will go down. I always monitor this with my own clients, especially when they’ve been away on holiday or business for a long time and they tell me that they’ve been keeping fit and healthy while they were gone.

MISTAKE No.3 – NOT PAYING ENOUGH ATTENTION TO YOUR DIET

To achieve long term weight loss goals it takes at least 90% effort. This is actually broken down into 20% Exercise and 70% Nutrition!

You can exercise all you want but if you don’t stick to a healthy balanced diet then you won’t reach the goals that you’ve set yourself. There has to be a balance – Yin and Yang.

The biggest mistake that people make is cutting their calories. If you only consume a few hundred calories and don’t eat enough food during the day then you are telling your body that there is a change in your circumstance. Our bodies are designed to adapt. Therefore, if you under-eat, you are basically telling your body that there is a ‘drought’ and to cope with this your body will slow down your metabolism in order for you to survive and not starve to death. You will still lose weight but your metabolism will slow down at the same time. Then, when you’re ‘happy’ with your weight and you start eating ‘normally’ again your metabolism will still be slower than it was before, so guess what happens... You gain more weight. This is the reason why so many people try to lose weight on a crash diet and then end up putting on more weight than they had in the first place. Think of your body as a car. In order for a car to drive and run smoothly it needs fuel. Just like a car, your body needs fuel in order to keep running.

The second mistake people make with regards to nutrition is not eating good quality food.

I use this analogy with my clients all the time. If you’ve bought an expensive car, you’ve probably saved up for it for quite a while, you absolutely love it and it is like a trophy to you. It’s your baby, so to speak! Now if you’re driving this beautiful car around, feeling like you don’t have a care in the world and loving the sound of the engine as you feel the grip of the car on the road, and you suddenly realise that you need to stop for petrol. You get to the petrol pump and there are three pumps that you’re able to use. The first pump says Low Quality Fuel, the second pump says Average Quality Fuel and the third pump High Quality Fuel. Which pump are you going to use? The High Quality Fuel! Of course you would, it’s a no brainer, right? Because you would never want to put anything less than the best in this car ( or your body) that you love so much. This is exactly how we should be thinking when looking after our own bodies.

It’s really not that tough to stay on top of things when trying to stay healthy through nutrition. Sure, people will tell you how they’ve tried and how they’ve failed, but why have they failed? Is it because the food tastes bad? Is it the foods fault? We always find excuses like, I’ve been too busy, there wasn’t any food at home, take out food is easier, and preparing food takes too much time! Does it really? I’m no master chef and I can cook a curry with red, green and yellow peppers, onions and rice in 20min! (From fridge to plate). I can guarantee you that you can’t order take away and have it arrive quicker than that. The best part about it is that it is healthy, made by me (so I know what’s in it) and it tastes delicious! If you don’t have 20min, preparing some veggie snacks takes 5-10min!! How easy is that?

If you really want to lose unwanted fat, then here’s what to do!

Keep a Food Diary - Keeping a food diary means writing down everything you eat and what time you eat it. This is really simple. You can use a piece of paper, your diary, your phone or computer. You will be massively surprised to see what happens to you and the way you eat when you start writing it down.

Cut Out Sugar – I had a client who signed up to my training program in 2010 because he wanted to lose 10kg and get in shape for the summer. Before we even started training I did an initial consultation and found out a lot about what he had been eating for the past year. He told me that he ate at least 1 chocolate a day and that he had sugar in his tea and coffee. Well, I told him that we couldn’t start training for another week and that in the meantime, I wanted him to completely cut out sugar from his diet. He came back to see me just over a week later, smiling from ear to ear (no surprise to me) to tell me how happy he was and that since he had last seen me, he had completely stopped eating sugar and was feeling fantastic, and more importantly, that he had lost almost 2kg!

So, before he even started training with me we were already 1/5th of the way to his goal. This just goes to show what an impact a healthy diet makes.

A balanced diet should consist of protein, good fats (such as avocado, virgin olive oil), vegetables, fruit, nuts and seeds.

Eating natural food in its natural form. Some nutrition tips for weight loss:

Eat every 2-3hrs (Don’t allow yourself to get hungry)

Eat until you are full. Not more. (Don’t eat more than you need. Don’t have massive portions) Drink plenty of water (2-3 litres a day)

Try to eat good quality protein with every meal, especially breakfast, lunch and dinner.

MISTAKE NO.4 – NOT SLEEPING ENOUGH

If you want to lose weight, then you need to sleep enough. Most people try to get away with 5-6 hours of sleep a night, but to get the most weight loss benefits you should be aiming for 8 hours and sleeping at least 7 hours a night.

You need the rest, especially if you are working out in the gym regularly and not sleeping enough. This can have an effect on your metabolic rate and the rate at which you burn fat when you’re sleeping.

Lack of sleep can also have an effect on your hormones, which can affect your appetite.

Ideally, you should be aiming for 8 hours sleep a night and the better the quality of the sleep, the better.

If you struggle to fall asleep at night try to spend your last few hours before bed time doing something relaxing, maybe read a book or watch some television. Just make sure that it’s something relaxing. This will put you in a relaxed state so that when you go to bed you fall into a deep sleep and get a good night’s rest.

MISTAKE NO.5 – NOT SUPPLEMENTING YOUR NUTRITION WITH ESSENTIAL VITAMINS & MINERALS

Because of our modern diets and lifestyles, most people are deficient in vitamins and minerals and are missing the essential vitamins and minerals that will optimise their mental and physical health.

One of the most important deficiencies to address before you start training is HCL (Hydrochloric Acid), which is the stomach acid we use to digest our food.

Majority of people are deficient in HCL and what this means is that even if you are trying your very best to eat the right foods and stick to a healthy diet, you might not even be absorbing the vitamins and minerals that you need because your stomach isn’t able to digest it. If you find that you have to go to the toilet 4 or more times a day then it probably means that you have low HCL and that you’re not taking in enough of the food that you’re eating. Another contributing factor to Low HCL Production is STRESS!

I put my clients through an HCL Test even before I start training them. If they are HCL deficient, I give them a supplement that increases their HCL levels and after a while restores it back to normal. In most cases, clients will lose weight even before they start their training, simply because they are now actually taking in the food that they are eating and are for the first time seeing and feeling the benefits of the protein, fats and the vegetables.

Here are more supplements I recommend.

1. Vitamin D3 – Reduces Cardiovascular risk, conditions such as cancer, bacterial and viral infections
2. Omega 3’s (The best supplements!) – Responsible for brain function, reduces inflammation from training, increases focus and serotonin levels, helps you fight stress
3. Glutamine – Best form of Amino Acids
4. Taurine – Is a cell communicator
5. Magnesium – Is the mineral of Insulin Sensitivity. If you are deficient, you risk getting diabetes.

Ok, I’ve given you 5 tips that will definitely help you lose that unwanted fat, be healthier and live longer. Please take these tools and apply them into your training and into your life, and please let me know how you get on! I love it when people share their success stories with me.

If you’d like to book a clarity call with one of the JPDV Master Coaches, reach out and hit the button below.

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Written by:

JEAN–PIERRE DE VILLIERS

CEO & Founder. JPDV – Mental Performance Coaching