Stop Doing These 5 Things If You’re Trying To Lose Weight

Weight loss can be a serious pain in the you know what. I mean, we can be doing everything right, from practically eating a vegetarian diet to exercising six days a week, and still see little to no results. It just doesn’t make any sense and some of us are about one fat-free Chick-O-Stick away from losing our motivation and being done with the entire idea.

READ: Where The Fat Really Goes When You Lose Weight

If you’ve gotten to a point in your weight loss journey where you’re starting to question whether or not you can meet your goal, take a second to see if you’re doing one (or more) of these five things. Here are five things that can help you get past your plateau and get the scale moving in your favor again.

1. Being impatient

Weight loss takes time. Instead of stressing about why the scale went up two pounds after weeks of progress, focus on your spiritual journey and mental weight loss. Getting your mind right is just as important as whipping your body back into shape.

A lot of people lose a significant amount of weight and gain it back because they still hold onto the mental baggage that lead them to unhealthy eating habits. Your temporary setback can be as simple as eliminating stress, a common factor of weight gain.

Getting yourself prepared mentally will help ease the expectation of fast results and remind you that you are on a journey of change, something that takes time.

“Achieving and more importantly maintaining weight loss requires patience. When it comes to your overall health it’s important to play the long game… Think about what’s sustainable for you as an individual. Attempting to lose 10 pounds in a week is not healthy or realistic, it’s just not the way the body works. Plus it can lead to bad habits, like yo-yo dieting,” said Tangia Estrada, the creator of Hello Gorgeous Fitness.

2. Weekend binging

An entire week of clean eating can make weekend temptations a little harder to resist. But, falling off of your normal routine not only discredits all of your hard work during the week, it shows a lack of commitment to your decision to adopt a healthier lifestyle.

“The body keeps an accurate record of everything you put into it and it responds accordingly. Just because you stuck to a healthy meal plan for five days in a row, doesn’t mean that you can spend Saturday and Sunday eating everything in sight and drinking like a new prohibition era is about to start,” said Estrada.

According to Estrada, that weekend binge behavior is undoing all the hard work you put in during the week. That behavior not only has a negative impact on your body, it’s also emotionally demoralizing.

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