-By Mark Woodgate

   1) All Cardio & NO Resistance Training

If your goal is to lose bodyfat and change your shape, cardio by itself is not enough.

To shape and sculpt your body you'll need to focus your efforts toward preserving lean muscle tissue. This can be accomplished with as little as 2-3 strength training workouts per week.

Without resistance training it’s highly likely you’ll face an uphill battle trying to lose weight. Why is it so important to maintain lean muscle? Because the more lean muscle you have, the faster your fat burning metabolism operates.   

   2)    Too Much Cardio  

Are you spending hours every week jogging, biking, swimming etc in order to burn more calories? Baffled as to why you’re not losing weight, and in some cases actually gaining weight? The reason is simple. Cardio performed to excess results in a loss of muscle tissue.  

When you lose muscle your metabolism slows down and you end up burning less calories. Unfortunately many exercise enthusiasts who fail to lose weight continue to increase their cardio quota and believe that "more must be better." However, not only is this approach unsustainable, it exacerbates the problem even further.    

Despite what you might have been led to believe, conventional "go slow" cardio is NOT the best way to burn body fat.

Try substituting a long duration cardio workout (40 minutes or more) for 20 minutes of interval training. (Interval training simply involves alternating periods of high and low intensity within the same workout.)

Not only will you continue to burn calories for up to 48 hours after your workout, you’ll markedly improve your cardiovascular fitness. This is something that traditional low intensity cardio does not achieve.

For more information about interval training, click here

3) All Carbs & NO Protein

One of the secrets to a faster metabolism is eating small amounts of protein throughout the day. Protein creates a thermic effect. This means that the body has to expend more calories to digest protein that it does to digest carbohydrate or fat.

Plus, eating protein every few hours makes you feel fuller and stabilises blood sugar levels. Protein is an essential ingredient for weight loss!  

    4) Infrequent Eating

If you routinely skip breakfast, eat on the run and/ or eat infrequently, it can be very difficult to lose body fat on a consistent basis. Whenever the body perceives a famine it will slow your metabolism and store excess calories.

To turn your body into a fat burning machine, eat 5 times per day and space your meals and snacks 2-3 hours apart.  

    5)  Stress

Stress per se is not the problem, it’s the way we deal with it!     

Unresolved chronic stress releases a hormone called cortisol which slows the metabolism and is associated with weight gain. (Cortisol is also known as the fat storage hormone.)

Prolonged stress can also interfere with blood sugar levels, cause mood swings, hyperglycaemia and fatigue. 

     When stress is left unchecked we tend to crave more fat, salt and sugar which in turn can lead to unconscious or emotional eating.

Deal with stress as soon as it arises, and in constructive ways that won't sabotage your weight loss efforts.

6) Lack of intensity

Many people sell themselves short by staying within their comfort zone. In doing so, they never give their bodies a reason to change. To lose weight on a regular basis you’ll need to challenge yourself by attempting to:

a) Cover greater distance within the same timeframe

b) Add more repetitions

c) Increase weights

d) Reduce recovery times

    7) Alcohol

As alcohol can’t be stored its energy is metabolized until all the alcohol is cleared from the body. This means that less energy from body fat stores is used while alcohol is in the bloodstream. In other words, people who drink frequently may have increased potential for weight gain because a higher percentage of the energy from food eaten during the day is converted and stored as fat.

Alcohol is also very calorie dense. Compare the amount of energy in alcohol compared to other nutrients:

1 gram of carbohydrate  =   4 calories

1 gram of protein           =   4 calories

1 gram of alcohol           =   7 calories

1 gram of fat                 =   9 calories

Alcohol contains almost twice as many calories as a gram of carbohydrate or protein and almost as much as fat! No wonder alcohol is so fattening.  

8) Shift work 

This one might come as a surprise.

Shift work, especially working through the night, interferes with our natural circadian rhythms (your internal body clock) and disrupts our hormone balance.

According to sleep researcher, Simon Smith, “biologically we’re designed to be awake and running around during the day and asleep at night.” Graveyard shift workers tend to gain weight more easily than their daytime counterparts. This is because we digest food more efficiently during daylight hours and our metabolism slows at night.

    9) Fad Diets  

Low calorie, fad diets slow your metabolism making it progressively more difficult to lose weight and keep it off. This condition is often referred to as Metabolic Syndrome or Syndrome X.

If you can’t sustain a nutrition plan week after week, month after month, year after year, then by definition it’s a DIET!

   Avoid fad diets like the plague and stick with a long term healthy eating plan instead.

   10) The Wrong Mental Attitude

As Henry Ford said, “Whether you think you can or can’t, you’re right."

Believe in yourself, be willing to try a new approach to weight loss, and be consistent and persistent with your weight loss efforts.

With the right mental attitude you simply can’t fail. 

You may also like:

The Body Blueprint 12 Week Challenge - Why it Works!

The REAL Secret to Permanent Fat Loss!

How Cheating on Your Diet Can SPEED UP Fat Loss!

The Shocking Truth About Cardio!