4 Surprising Nutrition Mistakes
THE FOLLOWING IS A GUEST POST FROM LIVESTRONG.COM NUTRITION ADVISOR BRAD PILON, AUTHOR OF EAT STOP EAT. FOR MORE EXPERT ADVICE FROM BRAD, VISIT BRADPILON.COM.
What if I told you that the most common approach to weight loss was misguided? That the debate about good foods versus bad foods had flaws, meal timing didn't matter as much as you think, and the process of losing fat could be simplified. And that by making four simple changes you could unlock fat loss unlike ever before.
Would you be interested?
You might think it sounds too simple, but losing weight isn’t supposed to be complex. Yes, calories are still important. And certain foods might make you more likely to gain weight. But there are many common nutrition mistakes that that have nothing to do with food.
That's why it's time to take a new approach to eating. Avoid these four common mistakes, and you might finally solve the fat loss equation.
MISTAKE #1: YOU IGNORE YOUR HEIGHT
Do you have a friend who can eat "whatever they want" and still stay thin? Chances are your friend is taller than you, and this isn’t a coincidence.
Your metabolic rate is highly influenced by the amount of lean body mass you have. That is, the amount of muscle on your body relative to your total body weight. And the taller you are the more likely it is that you’ll have more lean mass. You see, your internal organs—the real metabolic power plants of your body—are also dependent on your height. So the taller you are, the bigger your heart, lungs, liver, and every other organ that requires energy to function. And in order to keep those organs functioning, you need calories. That means those with bigger organs burn more—and can eat more without gaining weight.
In fact, your height can make a significant difference in how much you can eat every day. Consider a person who is 6 feet 4 inches tall. Compared to someone who is 5 foot 8 inches, the taller person could be burning as much as 400 calories more per day, and that’s just when you’re inactive. And the impact is only increased during activity simply because of the size of their body.
It may not seem fair, but it’s true: The taller you are the more you can eat. What’s more, this phenomenon is further heightened between sexes. Men’s bodies burn more calories than women.
YOUR FIX
Eat for your Height. Don’t follow a template that works for someone else. The “It works for them, it must work for me” is the exact reason why so many people fail in their attempts to lose weight. And the stubborn approach to stick with a program that isn’t making changes only enhances doubts about your ability to make the number on the scale shrink. Be mindful of your height when planning your eating approach.
MISTAKE #2: YOU TRY TO LOSE WEIGHT SLOWLY
Tell me if this story sounds familiar: You start a new diet and instantly start losing weight. Maybe it’s 4 pounds the first week. And then a few more pounds the next week. But after that initial surge the weight loss slows down, and by the second month your progress has come to halt, and in some instances you might have put weight back on.
Naturally you go searching for answers and determine that your body has gone into “starvation mode” and your metabolism has slowed down. Both options seem reasonable, and you become convinced that you need a diet that’s even more extreme, or you tell yourself that fat loss pills are necessary for an extra boost. But when nothing works, you become convinced that the problem is you.
The reality? Nothing is wrong with your body. Slowed fat loss is natural and something that happens to everyone. You see, body fat is just stored energy. When you diet you create a deficit between the amount of calories you eat and the amount you burn in a day. That deficit is ‘made up’ by the calories stored in your body fat. I call this the theory of fat availability. As you get leaner there is less fat available as an energy source – meaning you can lose lots of fat at the beginning of a diet, but less and less fat as you get leaner.
The result is that you’re body simply has a hard time keeping up with your calorie deficit as you continue to lose bodyfat. You end up feeling grumpy, tired, lethargic, and even risk losing your hard earned muscle.
You need to adjust your expectations as you diet. Unfortunately, most people approach weight loss the wrong way. They start with a small calorie deficit, and as time progresses they become more extreme in their efforts and increase the strain on their body. This is the opposite of what you should be doing.
YOUR FIX
Based on the theory of fat availability, you should start off pushing your body hard, trying to drop as much weight as safely as possible in the first few weeks and then ease up. With each week reduce your expectations a little bit. Think of this as easing your way into your new body as opposed to starving yourself into it.
As a rule of thumb, you should match the size of your calorie deficit (calorie you eat minus the calories you burn) to the amount of body fat you have. The more fat on your body, the larger the deficit you can handle. However, if you are already lean and are trying to become even more defined, then your best bet is to go with a smaller deficit spread out over a greater amount of time. It takes a little longer, but you won’t be faced with a lack of energy or muscle loss.
MISTAKE #3: YOU FOCUS TOO MUCH ON POST-WORKOUT NUTRITION
Back in the 1990s and early 2000s, there was massive upswing in the supplement industry. Suddenly, the chalky protein powders and concrete tasting bars were suddenly more palatable, and for some they became enjoyable. As the supplement industry grew to a multi-billion dollar business, a-not-so-coincidental emphasis on post-workout nutrition began to take hold of nutrition research.
While post-workout nutrition is important, there was an over-reaction to its importance—especially for someone on a weight loss plan. In fact, if your primary goal is weight loss, you could be erasing all of the fat-scorching benefits of your workout if you eat too many calories (and carbs) after you finish your sweat session.
The reason for eating after your workout goes like this: After your finish training, you need to replenish the glycogen (stored carbohydrates) that you burned during exercise. But the truth is, the glycogen in your muscles will replenish themselves over the next couple of days, and this slow approach will help you lose body fat.
However, if you stuff yourself with massive amounts of carbs and proteins after your workout, you can completely erase the fat-burning environment you created in the first place. That’s because the calorie deficit you created by exercising would be eliminated.
YOUR FIX
Be conservative with your post-workout nutrition if you are trying to lose weight. If you’re working out with any consistency, then technically every meal you eat is both pre and post workout (because metabolic effects of a single workout can last up to 48 hours). Every meal is important to your weight loss and muscle building goals, so there is no need to cram your calories in during the 60-minute ‘post workout window,’ especially if you are trying to lose weight.
An exception to the rule exists if you are already lean. At low levels of body fat (visible six-pack) post-workout nutrition does become more important, and the timing can be emphasized more.
MISTAKE #4: YOU DON'T ADJUST YOUR PLAN
Counting calories is a great way to lose weight—with one small exception: Your calorie goal is nothing more than a guestimate. And that has nothing with the choice of calculator you use or the foods you eat. The fact is many foods are mislabeled and your body works on a unique set of variables. So while using calorie calculators and applications may seem like a foolproof plan, you need to adjust how you eat based on your results.
Consider the following example, using a common caloric formula:
Let’s say calculate your BMR (basal metabolic rate, or the daily calories you burn) as 1720 calories. As part of the equation, you then multiply that number by 1.3 to get the exact number of calories you burn in a day. (2,236) Then, you subtract 500 calories to get 1736, or the “exact” number of calories you need to eat to lose a pound of fat in one week.
If you were to spend the next 7 days tracking every single calorie you put in your mouth, one of two things could happen. You’ll either lose the weight or you won’t. So what happens when you don’t drop the pounds? For most people, you might blame your metabolism, your workout, or even the foods you eat (you knew those apples weren’t organic!)
But the problem most likely has nothing to do with any of those factors. The calculators are great for helping you track what you eat, make adjustments, and learn portion sizes. But they cannot accurately measure your metabolism. What they do provide is a starting point and way to be honest with how much you eat and exercise. But it's still your job to test out your plan and determine if you need to make adjustments.
More importantly, the calculators can’t be held accountable for bad food labeling. If you were to visit your local health food store and buy 3 protein bars and weight them, you might be shocked to determine that many are inaccurate. I did this exact experiment, and in some cases a protein bar that is labeled 85 grams and 350 calories turned out to be 115 grams. If we assume the 30 extra grams is only from carbohydrates or protein, then that is an extra 120 calories you would be consuming simply because the label is wrong. If some of the excess 30 grams are from fat you could be overdoing it by as many as 200 calories! And that’s just one little protein bar. Imagine if you were diligently counting your calories while trying to lose weight and you ate one of these protein bars every day. You’d go insane trying to figure out why you weren’t losing weight as fast as you predicted based on your calorie counts. The truth would be that all along you were just eating more calories than your food labels were indicating.
YOUR FIX
There is no perfect math with the human body, especially when it comes to losing weight. Using tools can be very helpful, and it’s something next necessary for most people. But if you don’t lose weight, it’s not because the tool is broken. Use these tools as a way to determine a starting point. From there, the key is finding what works for you, and adjusting until you find out what you need to eat and how much you need to exercise to produce results.