Many things can go wrong when you under estimate the importance of being meticulous. Before I start mentioning some common mishaps, I want to remind everyone who is JUST starting changing their lifestyle that if you right now have a lot of bad habits, been eating too much for too long time and have many many pounds to lose, you are up for a treat: in the beginning whatever good change you make will show on the scale and in the mirror. Just changing some meals from bad to better, maybe add some walking to the daily regimen you will see changes. However, as the weight drops, so do the results from doing those SMALL adjustments. The less you have to lose the more meticulous you need to be. It always gets harder and harder the better conditioned you are.
Common mistakes:
1. Reading labels on condiments, sauces etc about the calorie content but not the ingredients. In America a serving which has 5 calories or less can be called calorie free. So let us say a little tablespoon of some delicious sauce has 1 gram of SUGAR, it counts as 4 calories and thus voila calorie free. Since you forget that you think it is a free food. You heap up maybe 5 tbsp and suddenly it is 5 grams of sugar. That is 20 calories. If you do that every day for 30 days it comes up to 600 calories. That is a pound of fat in a year you might hold on to due to the little spicy sauce.
2. Forgetting that the fat burning zone doing cardio is not challenging for your body. You are just doing your time. You need to kick it up regularly or your body will get used to the routine. If it gets used to it you will see no further progress.
3. Not counting vegetables. Well, this I understand if you are following any regular diet plans where a cup of broccoli with your dry rice and chicken breast is considered calorie free due to the tiny serving of it, but when you are on the Fighter Diet you better count; 1 pound has about 100 to 150 calories. So if you eat five pounds a day it is a lot. How could you not count that?
4. Thinking you are not having carbs because you are not eating grains at lunch and dinner or after workout. Veggies have carbs. Yoghurt has carbs. There is some carbs in most protein powders. You won’t die ok?
5. Falling into the belief refeeds is a cheat day. it is not. Refeed is carb loading, not junk loading. If you spike your insulin levels with lots of carbs, then add fats, you are getting yourself in trouble since that opens up the fat cells pretty well and you can just scoop in the fats there quickly.
6. Not eating enough vegetables and then get hungry and cheat. Fighter Diet is all about preventive eating. You eat yourself FULL so you won’t SNACK later. If you just cannot stomach a lot of volume, well, then just divide it into smaller meals or snack all day on the veggie amount. However if you just don’t eat you will get too few calories and then comes the craving attack.
7. you change your weight training regimen that built your body because you believe you should do so to get leaner. No, most likely not. You need to diet and do lots of cardio. Don’t change the weight training so drastically because if you change that stimulus you will change your body’s muscle development. you want to keep it but just tighten up? CARDIO and DIET.
8. If you are well trained at a high level, you must keep on pushing the limit in the gym. In cardio too. It is not “dangerous” to get out of breathe, you are supposed to if you train intervals etc. If you can keep a poker face you are not training hard really…
9. Forgetting that in order to train hard you need to take care of your body. massage, stretching, foam rolling. Your body does not “owe” you to keep up with your demands. You have the obligation to take care of it. you do have one body only, treat it with respect.
10. relying to much on your emotional ups and downs. You should not let your emotions run your fitness life. If you don’t want to go train, ask yourself why. because you had a bad day? what are you going to do instead: watch tv?….. Stay committed. Don’t just do what you want but what you should to get to where you want.
11. Not measuring your protein sources. A lot of people read “oh a heaping scoop” and make it one an a quarter scoop just because it must be ok amount. It’s “just protein”. Well that is more calories than the scoop said on the label. Same thing with chicken, meat etc. you don’t KNOW how little 3 oz cooked is until you actually weigh it. it is ridiculously little. Protein is not calorie free.
12. Believing that protein snacks are ok to add to a restricted diet. well, no, not if you are right on spot with how many calories you are supposed to take in. protein is not less calorie rich than carbs. And if you overdo the protein, well, how good is that for your health or the environment for that matter?
13. believing that protein bars are healthy. No they are not. Seriously, check the ingredients. Does it look like health foods? Unless you use the bar for energy needs (which means you are not a dieter, you are into performance or NEED extra calories, for instance you are a distance runner going into hard workout) or it is some kind of fiber supplement bar (I am creating one without crap!), then there is no reason to eat bars. Tastes good? well, hell yeah, check the crap in those bars and you see why!
14. Being afraid of being full. Hey, those fibers and veggies add bulk in your stomach and intestines momentarily. it does not mean you are getting fat. And don’t you dare weigh yourself throughout the day with all that. Seriously. If I did I would be around 130 lbs and I weigh in at 115 on a good day….
From Fighter Diet Blog.
