I have been lifting weights consistently for over 30 years. You would think I would have made every mistake in the book by now, but no! Life is about learning and the best way to learn is to make mistakes. Actually, the best way to learn is actually to learn from *other* peoples mistakes – hence this post! Hopefully you can learn from my mistake.
So as you can see from the below charts, my fat loss had really slowed down the last 10 days. I was being very good about limiting carbs and sticking strictly to my low-carb nutritional plan with zero cheat meals. The problem was obvious. I really like salted nuts and salted almond butter and was eating too much of them. It doesn’t matter how “healthy” the food is, if you eat too much of it it makes you fat! It doesn’t matter if the food you love is “allowed” by your nutritional plan – if you eat too much of it you will get fat! So anyway, Friday of last week I gave the salted nuts and the salted peanut butter to my husband and asked him to hide them from me – problem solved! Mixed nuts without salt I like but have no tendency to overeat. In just 4 days of no salty nut products my fat loss is back on track. Even plain, healthy, foods can taste so good that over-eating is a problem. For me, my taste buds get *really* excited about salt and sugar. Salted nuts are out. Dried fruit is another problem for me. Yes, dried fruit is “healthy” but its just as much a calorie bomb as salted nuts are.
Many people seem to have unrealistic expectations of their diets. They try diet after diet, hoping that the next one will be the miracle they want. One thing to remember is that despite all the hype and slick marketing done about high profile diets and diet books – you cant eat all you want if you want to lose weight. If you are on low carb, it doesn’t mean you can eat all the nuts and cheese you want! If you are doing Intermittent Fasting, it doesn’t mean you can stuff your face during the entire 8 hour fasting window. The main mechanism by which all diets work is by controlling hunger thru appetite suppression. To be successful at losing the fat, you have to stop shoveling the food in your mouth after your hunger is sated. One point that I have said a thousand times before but it should be repeated, if you are hungry your diet will fail – you should never, ever be hungry. Hunger leads to binge. If you are hungry then either you are not eating enough or you are on a fad diet that is ineffective at appetite suppression.
Previous weeks progress reports:
- week zero
- week 1 progress
- week 2 progress
- week 3 progress
- week 4 progress
- week 5 progress
- week 6 progress
- week 7 progress
