If you are trying to lose weight you will definitely want to make sure you’re not wasting your time. In this video, I’m going to show you the 5 worst ways to attempt to lose weight and keep it off. The irony is that many of these are the most popular methods that people use when trying to lose fat and change the way their body looks.
We start by addressing the obsession people have with training their abs as their sole method of losing belly fat. This drives me crazy. There is no ab workout in the world that is going to allow you to lose fat simply by performing it. I don’t care how great the ab exercises are that you choose, you just cannot do enough of them to make a meaningful impact on your weight loss.
That said, many people opt for a few quick ab workouts a week as a low commitment option for losing weight. They think, if I can just get rid of this belly a little bit at least I’ll be happy about that. I can always opt for a more rigorous and complete workout program when I feel like I’ve started to see results from the ab workouts alone. It doesn’t work that way. Unless you have a way to get rid of the fat that is covering up your ab muscles and employ other methods of losing weight, you will never see the results of your work.
So that brings us to cardio. Many have heard and maybe even tried using cardio before as a way to lose weight. They will jump on an elliptical machine, treadmill, or bike at the gym and glide, run and pedal away for hours hoping to amass enough calories burned to make a giant dent in their fat loss efforts. The problem is, none of these methods are effective if you don’t get your nutrition in check as well.
So many times people play for the tie when it comes to exercise. They burn some calories by spending an hour on the treadmill and then proceed to screw it all up by not watching the food they put in their mouths over the remaining 23 hours in the day. When it is all said and done, most forms of cardio produce around 500 calories burned (depending on the condition of the person doing it, age, bodyweight and intensity) in a given workout. This can all be undone with a single slice of pepperoni pizza and it just underscores the fact that you won’t be able to outrun a bad diet.
Speaking of diet, don’t even get me started. Resorting to the newest diet fad as a way for you to lose weight is a recipe for failure. Even if you are able to deprive your body of something you enjoy for long enough to result in a few pounds lost, you likely won’t be able to sustain it long term. And that’s the thing, the only form of weight loss that I believe is meaningful is the one you can make and sustain for the rest of your life.
This is where it becomes vital that you find a method of eating that works for you forever. If it is keto, or some other form of diet, so be it. As long as you can maintain the discipline and that the method is conducive to a long term permanent approach, then it will work. Just be careful of using any nutritional strategy that promises short term impact without the promise of long term adherence.
So you probably can figure out by now that I prefer using weights as my method of building lean muscle tissue that is more metabolically active and calorie consuming at rest (which will help you to lose weight and keep it off more permanently). The problem is, not all forms of weightlifting exercises are the same. For example, take a clean, thruster and concentration curl. The clean, while functional and athletic, is not necessarily the best place for a beginner to start since the highly technical aspect of this Olympic lift is not one that is easy to master without sufficient practice.
The thruster on the other hand is a great total body compound movement that is ground based, easy to load and athletic. You will get much more out of doing this exercise than you ever would by doing a seated concentration curl that works just your biceps. So just simply lifting weights is not enough as you can see. Using the right exercises is key to losing weight and having success long term with your exercise program.
Finally, the mindset you have with any approach trumps everything. If you bring the same mindset to a new approach as you did in your previous failed attempts at losing weight then you are bound to fail again. You must approach your new endeavor with a new attitude. You have to learn from your mistakes in the past and realize what made you not follow through and vow to not let that happen again.
If you are looking for a program that helps you to build muscle and burn fat all while following a simple and easy nutrition plan, be sure to click on the link below. The ATHLEAN-X programs help you to build ripped athletic muscle, and keep it year after year.
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Jeff Cavaliere M.S.P.T, CSCS
Jeff Cavaliere is a Physical Therapist, Strength Coach and creator of the ATHLEAN-X Training Programs and ATHLEAN-Rx Supplements. He has a Masters in Physical Therapy (MSPT) and has worked as Head Physical Therapist for the New York Mets, as well as training many elite professional athletes in Major League Baseball, NFL, MMA and professional wrestling. His programs produce “next level” achievements in muscle size, strength and performance for professional athletes and anyone looking to build a muscular athletic physique.
