Last week we attended The Fit Festival in Edinburgh to deliver some educational presentations on nutrition, exercise and healthy living. We also had a stand at the show so we could chat to visitors and spread the Fitter Food love in person. We always enjoy any chance to meet new folk and offer advice and guidance to keep them progressing on their health and fat loss journey. However I head something at the weekend that I really want to address…
So, I heard this statement several times over the weekend:
“I eat a really strict diet, train 5-6 times a week yet I still can’t get results!”
Truth is I hear this all too often. There are actually numerous reasons why simply training more and eating less won’t necessarily help you lose excess body fat.
To address this subject in more detail I’m going to break the statement down and use it to illustrate 5 reasons why you may not be getting result, plus I’m going to detail more effective strategies to get you awesome results! BOSH!
1) You follow a strict diet
No one wants to follow a strict diet. The fact you have even given it the label of a ‘diet’ is, in my opinion, setting you up for failure. What you eat should be perceived as fuel for your lifestyle and allow you to achieve and sustain a healthy body composition. You should not feel deprived; you should love the food that’s nourishing you. What a powerful statement that is!
If you don’t enjoy your nutrition you will NEVER stick to it long-term and the whole experience is likely to cause you stress – which is never going to help you hit your health goals. A good place to start is to check out the recipes on our website or invest in yourself and purchase our book The Paleo Primer.
We’ve also discussed our Fitter Food lifestyle, where we follow more of an 80:20 approach, here. Having a little of what you fancy can often be good for the soul and in some people actually help kick start results again.
2) You train 5-6 times a week
Whilst training for training sake gets you moving and burns calories it’s pretty unrewarding, plus our bodies adapt pretty quickly to the comfort zone of this routine and we often need to shake things up a bit. When was the last time you looked at your training and noted down your progress? Be honest! Did you record any heavier weights you lifted? Did you add in more reps? Are you running faster or recovering quicker between sets? It’s incredibly rewarding to observe positive change in your training and gives it a sense of new purpose. Plus, the more improvements you see in your training performance the more likely it is to enhance your fat loss potential. On our online plans I always include space for notes in my downloadable training plans so our participants can record their progress. So get yourself a notepad just for training and start to keep a log of your sessions, track your progress and see how quickly the results happen!
3) You don’t fuel your training
A common trend with the people we chatted to at Fit Festival was that their solution to a lack of results was to simply eat less and train a little bit more. But remember frequent training requires more fuel to perform and recover. Don’t be afraid to increase carbohydrates on training days, especially in the post workout window when the glucose is used to restore muscle glycogen and build lean body mass. Protein is also important, if you are not progressing (as per point 2) chances are you’re not fuelling your session properly or recovering efficiently.
Newsflash: many of the ladies I spoke to were not consuming anywhere near enough carbohydrates for the level of training they were doing.
Check out a post from Keris on signs you are too low carb here for some extra guidance.
4) You keep doing the same thing
We often speak to people who have been doing the same thing for months or even years, despite not experiencing the desired results. But do they change things up? No. Why? Simple, because change can be scary. A rule we follow is if what you’re doing has not worked for a significant period of time then do the opposite. It sounds obvious to create change when something is not working yet so many people won’t implement this. A common thing I see is people who are struggling to get results on 6 training sessions a week, so their immediate response is they need to train 7 times a week or make their training sessions longer, as oppose to more effective. You would fall off your chair if we told you how many people lose body fat, get stronger and feel so much better for training less and eating more.
5) You fear change
When I offer people constructive advice about training, nutrition and fat loss I’m often met with a look of fear. This is how a typical conversation might go:
Me: “I think you need to increase your carbohydrates, especially around training sessions.
Client: “Surely I will get fat”
Me : “Clearly what you’re doing is working so why don’t you keep on doing that”
Client: “But it’s not working”
Me: “Wouldn’t it make sense to change it then?”
Eventually we come to the conclusion that they have nothing to lose by trying something different. I’m not talking a huge change either; it could be just taking on more carbs in the post workout window, training less and walking more, getting more sleep. Remember, even small changes can make a huge difference.
Perhaps it’s time to mix things up?
Can you give me a good reason why you shouldn’t start getting results right now?
You will never know unless you try!
If you know what you need to do but struggle to action it or take those first few steps then SIGN UP to our Fitter Food Summer Camp today, because in just 12 weeks we’ll take you from average to totally AWESOME!
Registration closes the evening of Thursday 09 July and we have 5 spots remaining! Will one of them be yours?
