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5 Common Mistakes Healthy People Make
And you never – ever – eat fast food. Well, almost never.
But you do have a few unhealthy skeletons in your closet – ones that you probably aren’t even aware of.
The following 5 mistakes are frequently committed by health conscious people. Once you break these bad habits, you’ll find that achieving your weight loss goals just became a whole lot easier.
1. You’re Sleep Deprived
- Healthy adults require 7-8 hours of sleep each night. When you fail to meet this need your body goes into sleep debt, which continues to accumulate indefinitely until you catch up.
- A lack of sleep negatively affects your immune system, your nervous system, and interferes with healthy hormone release and cellular repairs.
2. You’re Dehydrated
- It has been said that 75 percent of the population is chronically dehydrated. Would you disagree? When was the last time that you actually drank 8 glasses of water in a day?
- Dehydration occurs when more fluid leaves your body than is taken in. Symptoms include: fatigue, irritability, headaches, nausea, rapid heart rate, and, in extreme cases, even death.
- Dehydration also slows your metabolism, which hinders weight loss.
You shouldn’t wait until the feeling of thirst or dry mouth hits you, at that point damage has already been done. Instead, constantly rehydrate throughout your day to avoid dehydration.
3. You’re Stressed Out
- I don’t have to tell you that we are living in a fast-paced world and that most of us have stress levels that are through the roof. But what you might not realize is that your stress levels are making you fat.
- Stress creates an increase in the hormone cortisol, and chronic stress creates a chronic increase in cortisol. This is a problem because is slows your metabolism, leads to cravings and is linked to greater levels of abdominal fat storage.
- The vicious cycle of stress and weight gain goes around and around. Stress causes you to eat emotionally, and your raised cortisol levels cause that food to be stored as fat.
4. You Eat Out Too Often
- Research suggests that most people eat out one out of every 4 meals and snacks. That’s an average of once a day.
- Restaurant food is designed to do one thing: to taste good. In order to increase eating pleasure, each item is loaded with fat, salt and sugar. This causes you to eat way more calories than you actually need.
- Even when you order ‘healthy’ items, you’re still taking in more calories and fat grams than you would if you had prepared the item at home. Imagine the last salad you ordered out. Didn’t it come with cream dressing, croutons, cheese sprinkles and a piece of butter-laden bread on the side?
The main reason people eat out is for convenience, so with a little organization you’ll find that preparing your own meals takes less time than you thought it would. On the weekend sit down and plan out your meals for the week. Then go to the grocery store and stock up on everything you’ll need for those meals.
5. You’re on Exercise Autopilot
- You do the same thing each and every time you exercise. Same machines, same pace, same duration. While your routine sure feels comfortable, your results have long since halted.
- A plateau occurs when your body adapts to your routine and weight loss stops. It is incredibly frustrating, and totally avoidable.
- You don’t have to increase the amount of time that you spend exercising in order to see quicker, faster results. It’s all about challenging your body.
There are two simple ways to instantly increase the effectiveness of your exercise routine. First, increase your pace. Secondly, increase your intensity. Constantly vary your speed and intensity in order to keep your muscles guessing and adapting.
Are you ready to break the plateau as you take your routine to the next level?
Would you like to know without a shadow of a doubt that you are going to lose weight in the coming months?
It’s my goal to see you achieve greatness. I believe that you’ve got what it takes.