Errors you made during fat loss quest

[ManOfSteel2013]

So share your stories about what you did wrong during fat loss that you have learned to correct now.

I want to know what you guys think about lack of sleep.

[Djent22]

well i lost 20lb of weight this summer and was getting an average of ~5 hrs of sleep per night and some times even less. I think sleep has more to do with motivation and how hard you can go at the gym. But, if you have a pre work out supplement it may give you the stregnth you need to get through your routine (i didn't take pre workout tho).

[Shandlar]

Didn't lift for the first 6 months. Was doing 4 or 5 days of 1h/d MISS cardio 'pushing through' the pain and absolutely killing myself to nearly puking day in and day out so that I could still 'eat normal' and only cut out some beer and pop here and there and lose weight.

I lost weight and got my breath back (running 3x 5ks at a 28 minute pace each week still now), but it was absolutely miserable and only lost at 0.9 pounds per week.

Lifted heavy since feb, spent 12 weeks over the summer weighing out my food and counting cals perfect to calculate my TDEE vs just guessing, ramped up to a high protein diet and now started a real cut with a real deficit and am seeing 2 lbs/week come off without any of the hunger or treadmill pains from last year.

It really is a numbers game. Do the legwork to figure out your own body, do the math, stick to a plan that is low-pain, and the weight just falls away. I have <10 hours of real hunger a week now even on a near 1000 calorie deficit when last year a 400 calorie deficit left me hungry continuously.

[ManOfSteel2013]

Thing is, for my height I am normal weight (need to update stats) but I still have some fat, like I don't have the abs that I should have. So weight loss and fat less are different things.

[riverjay]

Thing is, for my height I am normal weight (need to update stats) but I still have some fat, like I don't have the abs that I should have. So weight loss and fat less are different things.

Keep lifting heavy

Also don't do too much of a deficit

Measure progress and stick to it. If you're not losing, then lower cals slightly, repeat/monitor.

These helped me a lot.

[OzChops]

Mistakes I made (only very recently corrected):

- Didn't start lifting early enough. I lost 55 pounds eating less and moving more, but no lifting. Feel MUCH better now with adding the lifting and will likely end up looking much better in the end as a result.

- "Winging it" with regards to food intake. I ate less, but how much less? I didn't know, I wasn't counting. Was today really a deficit?

- Being overly restrictive. Because I wasn't counting calories, I simply avoided many foods I loved which lead to adherence issues, blowouts, binges etc.

I'm sure there are others.

[cpprogress]

Lack of consistency in diet, by far. I'm still as motivated to exercise as I was when I started losing weight, but it sucks when you put in a ton of work monday to friday, start seeing real results only to negate almost all of it by letting your nutrition go on the weekend. Thankfully, I'm reaching a point where I've had enough of that.

[DRtrainer]

My first fat loss quest was a disaster, i didn't know anything about nutrition and i ignored my protein intake, i didn't even lift weights so i ended up with a skinny fat look with lots and lots of loose skin.

[transformerchad]

Keep lifting heavy

Also don't do too much of a deficit

Measure progress and stick to it. If you're not losing, then lower cals slightly, repeat/monitor.

These helped me a lot.

All of this

Make sure you eating enough!
Count calories
Get in plenty fiber
Stay hydrated
Stay focused on the goal
If you have intense cravings for something , eat it and fit it into your calories .

[Iopu]

The biggest mistake I made was cutting calories from 2500 to 2000. On 2500 I lost a bit of strength at the start but continued to maintain the rest of my muscle. On 2000 I was getting weaker every single week. I even started looking very skinny in a shirt and it wasn't obvious that I lifted from looking at me.

[jimaras22]

crash diet,didn't count calories,low protein/fat , too much cardio , no lifting for some weeks,thinking that supps are more magical but they are not,and also i avoided fruits for some days.

that's my errors and many other people make them ofc ...

[crupiea]

Too militant about my diet and training.

I worked out every day and ate the same thing every day at the same time for 2 years.

When it came time to maintain and bulk I was lost. I damn sure didnt want to just eat more of the same stuff i ate for the prior 2 years.

I put some weight back on.

This time though i am eating more, training less and have a variance in both. Its much easier. The results are a tad slower but no big deal. Its about 6 lbs per month vs 10. not the end of the world for the payoff.

[aman88]

Not eating much carbs was the biggest mistake I ever made. That was over a year ago though. Corrected that this year and had the best cut of my life.

[lilhenry]

Mistake: Worrying about having a meal/snack every 3 hours to keep my metabolism humming, lol.

[DiannaPrince]

Mistakes:
Thinking that there was a way to reliably lose fat without counting calories. IF, low carb, does not work for me. At all. I weigh and track everything, now.
Never sticking with one diet long enough to see results.
Eating Lean Cuisines. Gross.

[TheGhost9900]

Was not weighing foods out with a digital scale. So I was way off on my calorie count some days. (see: peanut butter

[elgatito71]

to much cardio for me...

[stephenlatsha]

When i first started out i thought i had to be very strict with my diet... like no carbs no sugars etc.Now i know food choice doesnt matter just need to be in a calorie deficit and hit your macros for best results

[poker27]

That a cheat day, weekend, or week will ruin your results that you have working on for months. I would typically get very depressed after a cheat day, so instead of hitting the gym and eating healthy the next day, the cheating would continue, and I would fall off the wagon. Now, that I track everything I eat (and guesstimate on cheat days) I can see how many days of eating X will put me at a deficit with the cheat day included.

[ManOfSteel2013]

wait, aren't cheat days productive??