Throughout my weight-loss journey, I have made some roadblocks and mistakes that I recommend every individual trying to lose weight also face. These adversities are essential for building character and helping you self-regulate your strategies to achieve consistent weight loss.
For example, I recommend that every individual struggle with hunger at some point in their journey to help build discipline and the strength to say no to their cravings. I recommend every individual undergoes a weight-loss plateau (struggles to lose body fat for a continuous period of time even though they are actively trying to be in a calorie deficit and exercise properly) as this type of mistake will help someone analyze their lifestyle and tweak their diet and exercise regime to enable changes. I was in these same scenarios, and looking back, I would not change my journey to intentionally avoid these mistakes.
However, I have also made some key mistakes in my journey in given instances that I wish I handled differently. That is the purpose of this post—to help individuals initiating or early on their weight-loss journey to be aware of these key mistakes I made. in my journey that slowed me down. I want to share these mistakes to help you guys do things differently to help make your journey more effective.
When I reflected on some of the critical mistakes I have made in the past, I quickly realized how many I actually made. Therefore, I will be turning this post into a series sharing a bunch of my mistakes.
Here are some of the top mistakes I have made when losing 80 pounds that I recommend everyone learns from:
Mistake #1: Prioritizing Aerobic Exercise over Resistance Training and Not Eating Enough Protein
This mistake was by far the biggest one I made throughout my journey., and to this day, I am trying to dig myself out of the ditch I created—being skinny fat from months of no resistance training and minimal protein consumption.
Adequate protein consumption and resistance training go hand in hand—if you're going to properly resistance train, you need enough protein. Unfortunately, I was not doing either for an extended period of time during my weight loss journey.
I was doing hours of cardio and trying to eat as few calorically dense foods as possible, as my diet mainly consisted of salads. While I was elated to see the scale weight keep dropping every week when doing this, I didn't realize I was also probably losing a considerable amount of muscle and, most importantly, not building any muscle in order to decrease my body fat levels. I ended up becoming "Skinny-fat," where although I dropped a considerable amount of weight, my body fat percentage was still high, and muscle mass was low. I lost a significant amount of muscle, and to this day, I still have excessive loose skin on my legs from not properly building up muscles.
Here is an image of me down roughly 70 pounds, right before college move-in. While I lost a noticeable amount of weight and was much skinnier, as you can see in the picture, I am skinny and fat, with minimal muscle on my legs and arms. This could have been avoided with adequate resistance training and protein intake.
So, for everyone out there early on in their journey, I strongly recommend you implement a resistance training regime and eat adequate protein to build muscle and lose body fat. This way, you can avoid the whole skinny-fat phase that I went through.
Remember, the goal of this so-called "weight-loss journey" isn't to lose weight; instead, it is body recomposition. In other words, you want to decrease your body fat levels considerably and increase your lean muscle mass tissue. You do this by a calorie deficit, sufficient protein, and resistance training!
Resistance Training: For beginners, perform any regime that promotes muscle contraction against a given external resistance with the expectation of increasing strength or muscle hypertrophy. This can be calisthenics or lifting weights.
Protein consumption: Aim for roughly 1g/day (see previous post on 1:10 protein to calorie ratio)
Mistake #2: Lack of Fiber
As I mentioned in a previous post on hunger, it is inevitable—you will be hungry at some point, every day, along your journey. However, in my journey, I have found that my excessive hunger can be significantly diminished by eating enough fiber.
Oftentimes, early on in my journey, when I was excessively restricting carbohydrates, I found myself having tremendously intense cravings at night—cupcakes, cookies, ice cream, chocolate—you name it. However, I never realized that it was my body craving more fiber!
I have found that consuming upwards of 40g of fiber from foods, not supplements, has significantly impacted my satiety. My cravings diminished significantly, and when pairing a fiber source with my foods (like the carb balance tortilla wraps I mentioned in my 1:1 calorie swaps post), I felt full for several hours longer.
Additionally, I have learned the importance of the gut microbiome in terms of hunger signaling. Fiber is not mainly digested by your body's cells or small intestine but by gut bacteria in your intestinal systems. These bacteria use fiber to produce short-chain fatty acids, which have an array of health benefits such as increased appetite and satiety.
Consuming enough fiber has helped me curb cravings, feel less hungry, and make calorie restriction a little easier.
Mistake #3: Restricting Calories Too Much
This mistake ties into another reason of why I ended up skinny fat during my weight-loss journey. When I understood the basics of weight loss, I thought: fewer calories consumed=more weight loss. I would cut my daily calories in half (ex, if my Total Daily Energy Expenditure was 3000 calories, I was eating 1500 calories a day), which led to me being consistently fatigued, irritable, unproductive with work, and having unbearable cravings and hunger every night. I gritted my teeth through this obscene calorie deficit with the mindset of "no pain, no gain." However, I was doing more damage than good, losing a lot of valuable muscle.
Reflecting on these mistakes, I have realized that it is essential to think of weight loss like the story "The Tortoise & the Hare." The actual winner in terms of weight loss is the one who is slow and steady, like the tortoise.
So, if I were to go back and change things, I would be like the tortoise. I would have a slight calorie deficit of around 750 calories but no more than 1000 calories daily. This will ensure I still have enough calories to work with to consume enough micronutrient-dense foods and protein to help support my body's function while at the same time feeling great and targeting fat loss. As I am still constantly trying to decrease my body fat levels, I am always in a relatively small calorie deficit. Remember to listen to your body on this journey—if you really feel like you need to eat, then eat! But make sure it consists of healthy and nutritious foods that actually support your body.
Mistake#4: Not Investing Time into Cooking/Meal Prep, and Paying the Price Later:
Early on in my journey, I wanted to find ways to implement my weight-loss goals with no extra work. As a full-time student on a pre-med track, I didn't feel I had the time to sit there for hours cooking and prepping food to eat throughout the day or week. Instead, I preferred to just eat whatever my mom had cooked (often times calorically dense foods with minimal protein) in small portions and just not eat anything else throughout the day. Or, I would opt for pre-made grab-and-go foods that didn't require me to commit hours to cooking. For example, I didn't want to spend 30 minutes cooking eggs for breakfast, so I would just eat a protein bar instead. Overall, I ate a very small amount of food (i.e., over-restricting) and would opt for convenience over real nutrient-dense food.
When hungry, I would often drive to the nearest 7-Eleven to pick up some protein bars, like the ones in the image, opting for convenience over investing time into cooking
I found that eating these synthetic protein bars and not eating high-protein foods made me bloated and unsatiated, prevented me from adequately concentrating on my work, and caused me to constantly search for these snacks or foods in my pantry. All in all, I wasted a lot more time than I would have had I devoted an hour a day (maximum) to prepping my food and planning my meals throughout the day. I was unconcentrated for 2-4 hours, when cooking a meal would have only taken 1 hour throughout the day!
When on this journey, from a diet perspective, if you fail to plan, then you plan to fail. Take one hour a day to invest in your nutrition and cook/prep healthy meals. Eat natural foods, not some synthetic crap that has "protein" slapped on it, like protein chips or protein cookies. That way, you can have nutritious micronutrient-dense foods, feel satiated, and maximize the rest of your life.
While I am not entirely against these convenient synthetic protein bars or snacks, I believe they should be used only as a last alternative backup for when you cannot access your meals or hit your protein goals. Overall, your priority should be obtaining protein and nutrients from real foods.
These are just some of the mistakes I have made throughout my journey that I want you guys to avoid. I will be posting another part of this series with more mistakes. Have you made any mistakes as well during your weight-loss journey? Feel free to comment below. Thanks for reading.
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