People say that summer bodies are made in the winter, but you should practice healthy habits all year round to feel your best! There’s a few mistakes you could be making when it comes to that new diet you’re on. They’re easy mistakes to make because we all chase after fast results to a great body. Feeling confident and looking good takes time and patience. All you can do is enjoy the journey to reaching your goal and making yourself a better person.
1. Calorie restricting
Calorie restricting is the worst thing you can do to your body. Once you stop giving your body the food that it needs, it starts to slow down your metabolism and store more fat so it can survive. This goes hand in hand with skipping breakfast. Your parents weren’t lying when they said breakfast is the most important meal of the day. Having breakfast kickstarts your metabolism for the day and gives you the energy you need in the morning.
2. Too many fats and sugars in your diet
Don’t restrict yourself and say you’ll never have junk food again but binging on pizza and greasy foods can ruin your whole diet. Instead take a cheat day or a cheat meal once a week to indulge. Also try to cut out all the extra fatty foods in your diet like butter or cheese. Extra calories from drinking alcohol every weekend, especially if it’s beer, can add up fast. Even if you drink hard alcohol and chase it with some soda, the sugar isn’t exactly helping your diet. The food you eat affects how your body looks more than your workout does.
3. Slacking on your workouts
Only putting half the effort into your workouts isn’t going to lead to much progress. You have to put in 100% of the effort to get 100% of the results. Another mistake you could be making is only targeting certain areas of your body when you work out. You can’t choose where the fat goes on your body, just like you can’t choose the places it comes off first. You have to do full body workouts to see overall results.
4. You eat your meals too fast
Do you finish your meals within 15 minutes? Chewing slower and actually enjoying your food can help you get full faster. It takes a while for your stomach to send your brain the message that it’s full, so chewing your food will help reduce that overly full feeling you might get at the end of your meal.
5. Not drinking enough water
Drinking water can help your body digest food easier and can help you feel less bloated. This will be especially helpful If you eat a lot of salty foods, as it can prevent your body from retaining a ton of extra water.
6. You decided to do a low carb or no carb diet
These kinds of diets aren’t sustainable in the long run. Do you really think you’ll never eat carbs again? Carbs are good for you and provide you energy, you just have to cut back on the fatty foods in your diet.
We can’t have perfect bodies overnight (I wish) but we can work on ourselves every day to reach our goals. One trick I use to stay motivated is to follow fitness accounts on Instagram. If I don’t feel like going to work out one day, I scroll through my Instagram and that usually gets me out of bed. Just think about how good you’ll feel when you reach your goal, whether it’s just eating better or losing a couple of pounds.
Featured image via Andreas Schantl on Unsplash
