We all know about that stubborn belly fat that stick around no matter what you do right?
Well, I wanted to help you figure out what might be going wrong and you might just be able to find your specific problem. But let’s start with the common pitfalls.
Eat less, move more – wrong
As this approach is very popular method of pursuing weight-loss and looking at the scale most people will lose many kilos at the beginning. However, it does not take long time before they get a big backslash by becoming the big negatives. First we have the emotional experience of becoming lethargic, unhappy, hangry and unmotivated.
Second the body sets into starving mode and might shut down some essential functions in the body and if too prolonged the body will start to break down muscle tissue and that is no bueno my friend.
I have to do more cardio – good start
You know this and we all know this, that as soon as we think of losing weight we default into thinking “I need to go for a run” or “maybe if I do a bit more cardio”…Basically I don’t think it is a bad idea to get moving and if it is running or biking that is great but it is important to understand that this is endurance training and that we are lacking strength, flexibility, power and usually also speed.
But I do Yoga 4 times week – how intense?
I know Yoga can practically mean anything these days but most common what I see is people getting a lot of benefit for their mental presence, flexibility and sometime some strength. As just as with “doing cardio” I really do think it is great if you do this but it usually does not cut it. There are some really hardcore yogis out there and they certainly push it but from experience it is not the only thing they do.
Here a couple of keystones for your success
Your diet is not as healthy as you might think
The most important thing when it comes to changing your body composition (body fat to muscle ratio) is to change your diet and to be consistent. (If you want to change your diet talk to our nutritionist here) The most common thing I hear is “I already eat kind of healthy so it is not that”. Well, in 95% of the cases our clients actually don’t know so much about nutrition as they might think they do. How do I know this? Because we spend every day helping people and looking at nutrition science and by tracking what people eat we simply see what our clients put in their mouth.
Here is what we have discovered
When it comes to diet most common pitfalls is the quality, quantity and timing of their eating. Many confuse “Bio” or ecological food with healthy, but this is not a stamp or certificate of that it is healthy for your body. Eating a chocolate muesli which is “eco” is still not healthier for your body or replacing white sugar with brown sugar.
The one elephant in the room that very often gets neglected (by me too, too often) is the quality of our sleep. Having too short sleep or bad sleep is one of the things messing up with our hormones the most and makes us age more rapidly.
As you might also have guessed very common is that many don’t most people that train still don’t move enough over the day and need to have more continuous movement over the day.
In some extreme cases some people overtrain and set their bodies into chronic inflammation and this will also destroy the bodies metabolism and lead to injuries or other break downs.
Hopefully you can reflect a bit over your habits and see if there is something you can take control over and change to the better.
Cheers
Rickard
Ps.
Also too common is that we see through our biometric scan that some “skinny” people that have excess fat around their vital organs without knowing it. Due to genetics some simply cannot store fat in the same way as others do and that leaves them to store fat in places that cannot be seen from the outside. Having high visceral fats is tied to many chronic diseases and especially to insulin resistance aka. Diabetes type 2. These people walk around like ticking bombs not knowing they might be in the highest risk group for other diseases like viruses (the flu or corona) or bacterial infections.