When you start anything new, there’s typically a learning curve – and EM2WL is no exception. Many of us step in to this journey with similar backgrounds, having made similar mistakes, and hit similar brick walls. We decide to take a chance on this “eat more” thing, and see where it takes us.
Then, many of us end up making one of two HUGE newbie mistakes. Landing ourselves back at square one.
(Periscope snippet. Blog recap below video…)
Mistake #1: Over committing
Biting off more than you can chew is a common newbie mistake for the over achievers in the Fam. They “rip the bandaid” when increasing cals, move straight into intense, high volume exercise routines they find on the internet/social media, and purpose to eat 100% clean…100% of the time. Go hard, or go home – right? If you’re newer to proper ways of eating, and still in your first 1-2 years of lifting, I gotta keep it real and say, “wrong.”
When just getting started, you don’t need to do everything that people who have been working out for years are doing. After a certain amount of time in this journey, we all will HAVE to step it up – but doing so before it’s time can actually hurt your progress in the long run.
One reason we often get caught in the dieting yo-yo is because we mistakenly assume that if we eat at a minimum and workout at a maximum, then we can get results faster. We eventually find out that all we really did was speed through the stop sign, only to get pulled over for reckless driving. Unfortunately, this approach leads to eventual burnout, isn’t sustainable, and can kill your metabolism. Think less is more when it comes to working out, and eat according to your activity (in other words, match them — not increasing one, while decreasing the other). Start slow and take baby steps that make sense for you and your life so you can create a healthy, sustainable lifestyle.
Mistake #2: Under committing
Starting anything new can be scary. But when you get too scared thinking about what it will take to achieve your goals, you may find yourself never even starting.
For people just beginning, the idea of eating more and working out less can be scary, backwards-sounding, and confusing. The under-committed beginner (my own hands waving wildly in the air at this point) wants to know all the information before diving in. Understandable, but one will never really be able to know (or even comprehend) all of the the information before embarking on a new endeavor. Every new journey has areas that you will not understand until you are in them. Someone could describe it to you perfectly, but you will never know for yourself until you experience it. Remember transitioning from teen, to adult? Or becoming a new parent? There were likely parts of those journeys that someone probably did tell you about, but you didn’t understand until you were in it.
Convincing yourself that you must have every strand of proof, know how to prevent every obstacle, predict every milestone — with exact timelines to boot — is what we call analysis paralysis. Unlike becoming the Over-Committed-Burnout, being an Under-Committed-Over-Analyzer, can lead you to never really starting. When you find yourself overcomplicating an issue, remember that it’s typically a sign that you are actually procrastinating on doing what you know you need to do. Gather “enough” info and just start. You can always tweak as you go.
Why it Matters
You may have started off doing too much too soon, and fallen away – or perhaps you’re still doing nothing at all with the info you have. Either way, the end result is…frustration with not moving forward. Standing still, falling behind, or even running in place, are usually the exact reasons that we started this journey. Yet, this version of standing still tends to weigh heavier on us (because we were scared from the start!), and causes us to want ditch eating more, and run to the nearest quick fix (#comfortzone).
I get it. This journey ends up being harder than most of us ever thought it should be, and tests our faith as we continue to discover that virtually everything we ever thought we knew about dieting was wrong. Progress should come slow, not fast. We should be lifting weight, not just doing cardio. Inches may drop even when the scale doesn’t. And so on…
Be patient and trust the process. The key is to remember that this truly is a lifestyle, not just a means to an end. So whether you need to turn things down a notch, or simply start – know that you’re not alone. We’re all navigating these waters together, and every person who has had success on this journey has come to a similar crossroad (hmmm…metaphor overload? LOL).
In a world of instant gratification, remember that you’ve been there, done that. Focus instead on sustainability, and slowly becoming the person that deserves, earns, and maintains, the rewards that only delayed gratification can provide (you know…the ones that have been eluding you for.ev.er?)
You’ve got this, Fam.
~Kiki
PS. Got questions? Join our Online Facebook Community and be around like minded people who “get” your journey
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If you’ve dieted in the past or are currently dieting, you may have experienced (or heard recently about) metabolic issues. Headlines, infomercials, and even your fave fitspo are doling out method after method for how to “fix” the damage done to your metabolism. We hunt for the best foods, drinks, supplements, workouts, and “bulletproof” ways to turn back the hands of time (dang you, aging process!!). Some are in denial, others using it as a crutch – but we can’t deny that our metabolisms seem to be doing everything in their power to work against us.
But what if the one aspect that we often glaze over/assume is negotiable when seeking to rebuild our metabolisms, is key to pulling this whole thing off? And where the heck does dieting (and finally losing that weight) come in to play?
When you’re dieting, the amount of calories you burn literally becomes less – anywhere from 300 (average) to 800 calories fewer. This change can happen in as little as a two month time frame because of what dieting does to our metabolism. This adaptation, in addition to the natural aging process of the body that also slows the metabolism, can create the perfect backdrop for what is now trending as “metabolic damage.”
The effects of short bouts of dieting can affect your body for up to a year. Longer/repeated bouts can make this unwanted adaptation last even longer! The approach of eating less and working out more has a failure rate of 95%. For a generation that has more diet plans, health food stores, gyms (and internet access to pics of the fittest people on the planet) than ever before, the obesity epidemic is only rising. And it’s not for lack of trying…or at least not in full.
Sedentary lifestyles (thanks again, technology!), of course, contributes heavily to slowed metabolic rates. Hormones also affect metabolism, as do environmental pollutants. Out of all these things, though, your muscles relationship to your metabolism carries the highest weight (literally). Most diets place primary focus (and success rating) on the amount of weight loss. However, twenty to fifty percent of the loss you experience during a typical, low-calorie/high cardio diet is muscle mass. Seventy-five percent of your BMR (basal metabolic rate) — the amount of calories you burn just being alive — is composed of your muscle. Therefore the more muscle you have, the higher your BMR becomes. And vice versa.
This is important to understand in the scheme of weight loss. Striving to lose only weight – while paying little attention to where the weight comes from – is destructive to the maintenance of any perceived success. And if you’ve ever lost and regained weight before, you know that keeping the weight off is harder than getting it off in the first place. The second you go back to eating “normal,” game over.
So while you may end up weighing less after any given diet, it will be to the detriment of your metabolism. Those who simply lose weight from dieting, require less calories to maintain that weight than someone (of the same weight) who has never dieted. The more times you repeat this process, the lower your calorie requirements are. It’s a nasty metabolic game that you don’t want to play, and will likely never win.
Kashonna focused on building muscle, and no longer worries about the scale!
Regardless of whether or not you want a muscular look, they key is the look that you want (less fat), without having to reduce calories into oblivion, requires muscle. The point of resistance training is to preserve the muscle mass you have and build more. If your muscle mass is decreasing due to the diet you’re on, then your plan of attack is counterproductive. Set your diet/exercise plan up for success. Dieting with no exercise will result in the highest loss of muscle. If you’re dieting with some cardio, you will lose slightly less muscle. If you’re dieting and doing resistance training, you will lose little to no muscle – this is key!
The bottom line? The best way to fix your metabolism is to build and rebuild muscle mass, not just lose fat (or worse, lose weight). Having more muscle will increase the amount of calories that your body requires, and will aid you in finally losing the fat. If you’ve already played Metabolic Roulette for longer than you can remember, then the steps to healing your metabolism will eventually become inevitable. Eat and exercise in a way that keeps or adds to the muscle mass you already have and you’ll be heading in the right direction to fix and maintain your metabolism at its highest efficiency.
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Contrary to my personal anti-treadmill stance, cardio can absolutely play a role in fat loss. But just like everything else in life, there is such a thing as too much of a good thing.
Although our motto here at EM2WL is “cardio for fun, weights to transform,” we DO recognize the value that cardio can add to a goal-specific workout plan (and that fact that some of you REALLY actually…umm…love it). So it’s understandable that cardio lovers in the Fam, striving to heal their metabolisms and finally lose fat tend to panic a bit when they hear anything about doing “too much” cardio!
When it comes to cardio, it seems that people either love it or hate it. Whether you’re a group instructor, runner, or despise cardio, your workouts should work for you, not against you. In order for this to happen, you must understand the purpose behind each type of workout, how it pertains to your goals, and apply it accordingly.
Cardio is endurance exercise. The more you do, the better your body adapts, and builds up the ability to be able to withstand the same circumstances next time.
This adaptation is great if the goal is to cover a certain distance in increasingly quicker amounts of time (think: training for a marathon), or simply last longer in Zumba class. As far as general heart-health is concerned, this is usually the goal.
Your new level of efficiency is usually noticeable during workouts when you’re suddenly able to do more cardio than you initially were physically capable of doing just weeks/months before. For example: you may have originally broken a sweat doing ten minutes of cardio before, but now you have to do fifteen minutes to get to the same level.
If you were formally breathless chasing the kids, or climbing a flight of stairs – this type of adaptation is an amazing/healthy feeling. However, when the goal is fat loss, this adaptation means you now have to do more work to achieve the same results you initially were achieving with your cardio-only workouts.
Adaptation = doing the same work for lesser results.
When it comes to adaptation, strength training is no exception. If you lift the same weight day in and out, your body eventually adapts and that weight just won’t cut it. You’ll have to introduce new stimuli to keep getting results, or risk hitting the infamous plateau.
But there’s good news when it comes to weight lifting adaptation: all you have to do to bust past that plateau is to lift heavier weights! The duration of your weight lifting sessions will never have to change (like your cardio has to) so long as you’re increasing your weights. This allows you to still be efficient without putting in extra time. Weight lifting gives you the most bang for your buck.
In other words: endurance exercise improves your endurance, but doesn’t necessarily contribute to fat loss beyond the initial newbie phase.
Lifting improves your strength, endurance, lean body mass (muscle!) and assists in fat loss.
So how do you know that you’ve entered the “adaptation zone?”
In addition to monitoring your performance during the workout, you can turn to your heart rate monitor (HRM) for clues. Using a HRM – or other wearable fitness device that monitors HR (like Fitbit) will allow you to see when your body gets to a point where it becomes more efficient at cardio.
As endurance improves, your HRM will subsequently show that your calorie burn is lessening for common cardio activities. When you notice that you’re burning less cals boing the same amount of work, your body has adapted. At that point you must either increase time, or change up your workout style to continue getting results.
If, for instance, you’re training for a race or are focused on increasing endurance, remember increased efficiency is in fact a good thing. When that calorie adaptation occurs, you’ve just shortened your race time. Increasing the time of the workout is actually the goal in that case. On the flip side, when it comes to fat loss, inefficiency is key.
Doing the same workouts, but burning less cals, would mean that over time you’d be eating too much (even on a diet) – and eventually start GAINING weight.
That is what we’re trying to prevent when we provide warnings about “too much cardio” during your reset or early stages of fat loss. It’s not about removing something that you love, but rather understanding the roles that workout style plays in your fat loss journey.
There is no magic, universal number for how much cardio is too much. By using the tips above, your best answer is to listen to your body and evaluate often to see where your efficiency levels are at and if they’re conducive to the physique goals you’re trying to achieve.
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A fat loss journey is simply that, a journey. While we like to envision waking up one morning with that dream body we’ve been working for, the reality is that being fit and healthy is a long(gggggg) process. It’s human nature to want things right away – especially in our microwave society where everything is fast and convenient – and get overwhelmed in frustration (or give up) when it doesn’t happen. In order to have long-term success, you have to get your thoughts locked into a positive place, relax, and trust the process.
So what are some things that you can do to make sure you’ll stick to your new routine, create new habits, and not lose the optimism that you will achieve everything you set out to?
View it as a way of life
You know those people who always say “I can’t, I’m on a diet.” Don’t be one of them. As the annoying, and overused cliche reminds us: this isn’t a diet, it’s a lifestyle. Many diets and restrictive plans attempt to hide behind the “lifestyle” persona – so allow me to add that if you can’t do it for life, then it’s not a lifestyle.Learn to tell the difference between diets pretending to be something that they’re not, and small changes that slowly add up to a changed life.
Diets subtract, lifestyles add. Diets remove things from your life (often the things that you love the most), leaving you feeling deprived and hopeless. Lifestyles constantly introduce new options – giving you renewed hope that your goals are not only obtainable, but maintainable. You can (and should) allow yourself most things, in moderation, at appropriate times. Diets end, lifestyles do not. Making better food choices is something that will make you look and feel better for years to come. Find a way of eating that allows you to enjoy this process, while not feeling completely foreign to you.
Celebrate small changes
Don’t downplay, or overlook allllllllll the little changes that will ultimately compound into the change that you’re looking for. Are you able to lift heavier than this time last month? Hit your macros for three weeks straight? Feeling more energy than you have in years? Hair/nails growing back? More…regular than you’ve ever been? Look at every scale and NON scale victory as a sign that you are headed in the right direction. Success in your journey is the accumulation of EVERYTHING that happens along the way, so don’t get sidetracked when it seems like “nothing” is happening.
Have 50 pounds to lose? Celebrate small milestones, even if it’s only losing a half pound/inch.
And while we’re at it…
Try to remove words like “only” (or phrases like “I’m not really expecting any changes…” grrrr) from your journey vocab, especially when used in the negative. If you lose “only” an inch one month, keep a progress-minded mentality and remind yourself that clothing sizes are based on those same inches (or cm, etc). In the US: There’s typically only a ONE inch difference between most clothing sizes from 0-10, and around two inches difference between sizes 12-24. So “only” an inch this month, could become THREE sizes smaller if you kept at the exact same rate of progress, for only eight more weeks. THAT’s the power of consistency in mind, food, and workout. Ditch the scale mentality, and celebrate your inches!
The journey to losing 100 pounds starts with a single pound, and finally being able to fit into your smaller size jeans again begins with the first .25 inch. If you only focus on the big picture, you are likely to get discouraged and lose sight of what’s actually happening.
Realize you are human
Mistakes will happen. Even the top fitness experts and pros in the world slip up sometimes (yes! even your fave fitspos who claim they don’t… “cheat“), because they are human too! Falling off track with a meal or skipping a workout or two doesn’t mean that you’re a failure. It is simply inevitable. Life happens, willpower runs out. For everyone. Period.
If you allow yourself to stay stuck in a black or white world, where each day falls only under “perfect” or “oh well…ruined” – you’re not going to get very far. Paying close enough attention will reveal a wonderful gray area, otherwise known as “80% of your life.” Don’t be afraid to accept and choose to purposely live in the gray. It can be scary in the beginning – but the sooner that you accept where you really live, the sooner you can truly make your house a home.
Don’t waste an entire week, chasing ONE perfect day. Don’t allow ONE imperfect meal, to ruin what could otherwise consistent day/week/month/year. Learn from it and move on. Don’t dwell on the past.
I repeat: Get back on track (at the very next opportunity!) and. move. on.
Reframe the bigger picture
While most people exercise with a physique or weight-related goal in mind, there is much more to being healthy than meets the eye. Consider reframing the way that you’re looking at your journey, and focus on behavior, or fitness-based goals, rather than simply “waiting to look better.” The time is going to pass anyway, so why not look deeper into the actual behavior and fitness based habits that WILL get you to where you want to be. Focusing on those goals can be much more time bound, predictable, and practical than daily scale woes, constant body shaming, and putting a deadline on physique progress (which is none of the above).
Think of all the good nutrients you give your body when eating healthy. Dwell on the lifelong benefit to your muscles, joints and metabolism when you lift. Looking great is just a bonus when you think about all the ways you’re improving your actual quality of life.
If you were driving a car and a tire went flat, what would you do? Most people would fix or change the tire, not slash the other three. Just because a part of your journey seems questionable (plateaus, slip ups, etc.) doesn’t mean you throw in the towel. Persistence pays off! Believe in what you’re doing and repeatedly remind yourself why you set off on your journey in the first place.
Set the GPS. Expect the occasional wrong turn, pit stop, traffic jam, and re-routing. But allow yourself to relax into the journey, as much as possible, knowing that you WILL ultimately get to your destination (or at least in the vicinity if your GPS is old school! LOL).
Trust the process, Fam.
~Kiki
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Last week we discussed the biggest lies that you’ll tell yourself before starting a new diet plan, and the reality check required to begin your journey on the right (and successful!) foot. But the mental struggle doesn’t stop there. Many of us start out on our journey fully prepared for the fact that we have some major changes to do, one habit at a time, and that we need to give ourselves enough time for these changes to take affect. But as we head deeper into that journey, a whole new set of lies erupt. We began to question everything that we stood so firm on in the beginning — often start searching for shortcuts and detours — leading to shiny diet syndrome.
Whether you’re a vet, or just getting started down this scary, awesome, life-changing, fulfilling, and totally nerve-wrecking path, the mental journey is the same. At some point in your walk, you’ll find that inevitably, certain thoughts creep in. Resist the urge to give in to the lies, which ultimately leads to giving up, by arming yourself with truth.
LIE:It shouldn’t be this hard.
TRUTH: This is a setup for failure.
Telling yourself this lie means that the second it does get hard – you stop trying, and look for something easier (read: quick fix). Since quick-fixes probably lead you to where you were when you started down this path (read: spinning wheels), you already know that easy isn’t worth it. When you’re trying to hit any goal, there is going to be work involved. While you want to make sure that your diet has you written all over it, and that it’s easiER than the unrealistic thing that you quit doing – don’t fall for the lure of thinking that achieving your goals should in some way be effortless. Take the steps to make it as effortless as possible, but give yourself realistic time frames and expectations for achieving your goals.
To combat the lure of fads, Jenny reminded herself that she was “hungry, worn out, and irritable all the time” on low cal diets.
LIE: It’s easier for others
TRUTH: It’s not.
At some point in the journey, you’re going to look around and play the woe is me card (see below). Along with this comes the belief of all martyrs…that “everyone else” is seeing progress faster than — or accomplishing what you want — with much less effort than you.
Wrong.
This plays right into the “it shouldn’t be this hard” mentality, and trust that believing either lie will get you nowhere. Social (and traditional forms of ) media can make ANYthing appear to have happened overnight, or with little effort. Most of us aren’t sitting around capturing our “bad” days on film for all the world to see. But when we have success, we want to share it with the world. Don’t get so caught up in the pics that you tell yourself that you’re the ONLY one that success takes time for. And remember that one day, YOUR picture will be the one that is tempting someone else to think the very same thing.
LIE: No one has my circumstances (aka “woe is me”)
TRUTH: Somewhere, someone with your EXACT circumstances is killing it.
“Woe is me,” is not helping you. In fact, once you even start entertaining this thought, you take your eyes off of your own goal. Telling yourself that everyone one other than you has perfect circumstances, will have you spinning your wheels in jealousy, rather than progressively taking steps forward. Let’s be honest, there’s nothing like good ol’ discouragement and hopelessness to cause you to give up on your journey (or never start in the first place).
Even if you have unique circumstances, few of us are that special that NO one in the whole earth deals with the same set of circumstances. Somewhere, someone is dealing with the exact same circumstance as you, and winning (even if its a version of winning that you haven’t imagined). I have dealt with health problems my entire life. As easy as it would be to throw my hands up in the air because some random person that I “know” on Instagram is seeing progress faster than I am, I double tap (or unfollow, if it bugs me that much), and keep it moving.
Keeping it real…it sucks. And yes, I may have to make more adjustments, or push harder/rest more, etc., than “everyone else” – but it’s not an excuse to quit. And I am NOT a special snowflake.
Work with what ya got. Find peeps that motivate you because they fought for what they have. Kill it in a way that only you can.
LIE: It wasn’t this hard before
TRUTH: Avoid over-romanticizing your old ways, and see them for what they really were
Before…what? Were the circumstances different then? Was it hard under the circumstances? If not…could the lack of effort required/lessons learned be the reason why you weren’t able to sustain the “success?” Or could the fact that before is referring to several diets ago be the reason that it’s so hard now? Excessive dieting primes your body for fat gain, a lowered metabolism, adrenal fatigue, and thyroid issues (to name a few!). So if this is your 10th diet, expect it to be harder than the first. It may not seem fair…but then again, neither is the unnecessary damage that most of us got away with for years before our bodies finally said “enough!” So if your body is finally calling your bluff, it’s time to pay the piper and put in the work that should have been put in all those not-so-hard times around the block.
The struggle is real. After over a year of EM2WL, Becca was tempted to speed things up by dropping cals. Check out how she bounced back, changed her focus, and conquered above and beyond her fat loss goals.
Also ask yourself if you’re looking back through rose-colored lenses, and not remembering certain things that happened before. Many of us decide to tackle this new lifestyle starved, with no energy, foggy brain, brittle hair/nails, constantly freezing, and gaining weight like it’s going out of style (WHILE. ON. A. DIET.), among other things. But oh how quickly we lay that version of “before” aside the second that we hear about our cousins-sisters-baby mama who’s just lost 100 pounds on the latest “eat-all-the-celery you-want” diet.
Ummmm…no thanks.
Whenever tempted to think about how easy things used to be, remind yourself that the easier road didn’t fix the problem (hence the current predicament) — and don’t over-romanticize. LIE: It’s taking too long
TRUTH: Paying our debts is individual. Progress is a result of physical AND mental health.
How long did it take you to get where you are now? Are you (unrealistically) expecting it to take only a fraction of the time to get out of it? If you dig a hole of debt, it’s not easily undone. Many of us are so indebted to our bodies for all that they’ve brought us through, and under the most harsh circumstances at that. Why do we jump into a journey of healing, or decision of better self-care, and then get upset at our bodies for not “snapping out of it” quick enough?
Imagine a person treating you with the same disrespect, followed by impatience/annoyance at your inability to just go back to the way things were. In their mind, enough time has passed, that you should be “over it” and trust them again. Some nerve! You know, that even if you choose to forgive them, trust is earned…not given. And the more times they’ve walked all over you, the longer you’ll have your guard up.
Why do we fail to see that our body is the party that has been wronged in this trial? We must give our body the respect that it needs, and the individual timeline that it requires to trust us again. The time will pass anyway, so don’t lose focus (or kill the trust factor…again) by chasing down quick-fixes.
What you learn about yourself in the process, is usually more important than the actual final result. Are you impatient? Waiting on perfection? Fostering feelings of self-hatred? Looking for outward things to solve an internal problem? Use the time that you’re waiting, to deal with things that focusing on weight loss may be over-shadowing (perhaps purposely). Face who you really are, under the skin, muscle, fat, and bones…and make sure she’s someone you actually like when it’s all said and done.
Because who you are, follows you wherever you go.
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You may have started off doing too much too soon, and fallen away – or perhaps you’re still doing nothing at all with the info you have. Either way, the end result is…frustration with not moving forward. Standing still, falling behind, or even running in place, are usually the exact reasons that we started this journey. Yet, this version of standing still tends to weigh heavier on us (because we were scared from the start!), and causes us to want ditch eating more, and run to the nearest quick fix (#comfortzone).
A fat loss journey is simply that, a journey. While we like to envision waking up one morning with that dream body we’ve been working for, the reality is that being fit and healthy is a long(gggggg) process. It’s human nature to want things right away – especially in our microwave society where everything is fast and convenient – and get overwhelmed in frustration (or give up) when it doesn’t happen. 
Don’t downplay, or overlook allllllllll the little changes that will ultimately compound into the change that you’re looking for. Are you able to lift heavier than this time last month? Hit your 
If you allow yourself to stay stuck in a black or white world, where each day falls only under “perfect” or “oh well…ruined” – you’re not going to get very far. Paying close enough attention will reveal a wonderful gray area, otherwise known as “80% of your life.” Don’t be afraid to accept and choose to purposely live in the gray. It can be scary in the beginning – but the sooner that you accept where you really live, the sooner you can truly make your house a home.
Last week we discussed the 
Even if you have unique circumstances, few of us are that special that NO one in the whole earth deals with the same set of circumstances. Somewhere, someone is dealing with the exact same circumstance as you, and winning (even if its a version of winning that you haven’t imagined). I have dealt with health problems my entire life. As easy as it would be to throw my hands up in the air because some random person that I “know” on Instagram is seeing progress faster than I am, I double tap (or unfollow, if it bugs me that much), and keep it moving.
Imagine a person treating you with the same disrespect, followed by impatience/annoyance at your inability to just go back to the way things were. In their mind, enough time has passed, that you should be “over it” and trust them again. Some nerve! You know, that even if you choose to forgive them, trust is earned…not given. And the more times they’ve walked all over you, the longer you’ll have your guard up.
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