3 Mistaken Ideas That We Have About Losing Weight

1.The wrong idea about quick and slow weight loss

I work with so many women and every time I receive their first e-mail for the week, the message starts like this: “I feel great and I really like the food in the nutrition plan, but could we remove some of the food so I can progress faster?”

Then, I open the table with the measurements and I see that they have lost -2cm. on every measurement and between 2-4kg. Of course, you should be aware that the initial weight loss is not just fat. When you make the transition between unhealthy and healthy eating, it is just the change itself that helps you lose a lot of retained water and part of the weight loss is due to this. That is why measurements matter and not just the number on the scale.

Losing -2cm. everywhere on your body, just for one week is not slow progress.

In this case, I always ask people to ask the question how long did it take them to gain this weight. Probably a year, five years or their whole life? Then, how could you expect to lose them in a week?

We live in a  society, where we are always in a rush and the more we rush, the harder we get to our final goal. From my journeys, I have learned that the longest journey starts with the words: “I know a shorter road!”

This is true for diets. All “quick diets”, which promise you quick weight loss, are just the next step to another enchanted circle of restrictive diets and yo-yo effect.

Ask the question which one is better:

1.A restrictive diet, which you feel like deprivation; something that you consider a short term fix; quick results and then the yo-yo effect and another discouraging moment?

2.A diet that consists of delicious food; nutrition that is a lifestyle; a diet that helps you lose weight gradually but in the long term and every week you feel more and more satisfaction?

I choose the second option. Life is too short in order to obsess with the thoughts about food, diets and weight. My goal is to show people that they can be in the best shape of their life, without depriving themselves; without it having to do with deprivation and tortures for the body.

The only thing we can stick to for a lifetime is the one that gives us pleasure.

Progress is progress and it is not important for it to be quick, but durable and consistent. If you are stuck in a similar situation, just think how much better it would be to focus on changing your habits; to learn to listen and understand your body and it needs and to use food as an instrument and not as a punishment.

The successful diet doesn’t have pace – it has consistency. I choose the durable and long term diet.

2.The less, the quicker

This is another wrong notion. You start a diet and you see results. You eat “X” calories and you decide that if you have results when you eat like that, if from “X” you extract a couple hundred calories, you will speed up the process.

When we talk about the body, math is a little different. When it comes to the math of the body, 2+2 is not equal 4.

What you can achieve with this subtraction of calories is that it is a matter of time for it to influence your fierce appetite for sweets and carbs and you will once again spin in the enchanted circle of “starving and overeating”.

Some time ago, a woman contacted me and she was telling me how she doesn’t eat certain foods, and then she told me: “It is a paradox that I say how I do not eat this or that, but every time I overeat or eat emotionally, I do it exactly with the foods that I “do not eat”.

Is it familiar? As I love saying, biology always takes toll on will.

And trust me – it doesn’t matter how strong is your willpower. Ask me! They say that the glute is the strongest muscle in the human body, but when it comes to my body, the strongest muscle is my will. I have a really strong will, yet I have been a character in a story as the one shared above and I can tell you that when your body wants what we deprive it from, the will is powerless.

Decreasing calorie intake is not forbidden, but it should be done thoughtfully and you should take out the right foods – i.e. a little from every macronutrient, and not draw the line on one macronutrient, in favor of others.

3.Less but often

This is the motto of most women. And I am not talking you about distribution of main meals. I am talking you about the distribution of chocolate, figs and nuts in different meals. Oh, yes! And cheese. How come I forgot about it!

I constantly see it with the women I work with – 30 grams cheese in the breakfast, 30 grams cheese in the lunch and 40 grams in the dinner.

It is the same with nuts – 30 grams for breakfast, a handful of nuts after lunch, 10 cashew nuts in the afternoon and a handful after dinner. And fats and calories are already over the board.

It is amazing how the mind works and how we can fool ourselves that if we eat something small, it doesn’t interfere with our progress – and this is true, but we shouldn’t look on thing in an isolated manner, but globally – for the whole day. At the end of the day, everything adds up and it doesn’t matter that 30 grams doesn’t sound like much, 3-4 times of 30 grams is more than enough.

Think about your favorite food, which is not recommended to eat in big quantities and which creeps in your meals in some smaller portions, but at the end of the day it turns out to be the tripping stone to your progress.