Do you make these mistakes trying to loose belly fat?
When trying to loose belly fat do you make any of these common mistakes? There is a lot of misinformation out there regarding fat-loss and you could well be a victim yourself!
Eating too little fat
Do you eat a low fat diet to loose belly fat ? This is not a good idea as your body requires fat for daily bodily processes. Some forms of fat know as Omega 3 even have positive drug-like effects on body composition and have been shown to reduce the risk of cancer, joint problems and protein breakdown.
I get my Omega 3 fat in the form of milled flaxseed (added to meals or shakes) and also by taking Cod Liver Oil before bed.
Not eating breakfast
When you are trying to loose belly fat , breakfast is a MUST. Breakfast literally means breaking the overnight fast. When your body is in a fasted state after not eating, it goes in to ’survival’ mode where you will be more inclined to store body fat and definitely not lose fat!
Eating breakfast also boosts your metabolism first thing in the day giving you more energy and firing up your fat burning engine.
The bottom line is eat breakfast EVERY day without fail. I usually have 3 eggs scrambled with some spinach or a protein shake.
Eating before bed
As we talked about above, your body is likely to go into a state of starvation overnight; kicking in it’s survival instincts
To minimise this effect, it’s a good idea to actually eat before you go to sleep. Something like a slow-release protein is ideal.
Believe it or not, you actually burn more energy sleeping than you do sitting watching TV so don’t think that while you are asleep you don’t need fuel.
I recommend eating cottage cheese or a protein shake before bed, and I do this myself every night.
Eating too little
Are you guilty of trying to starve yourself in order to loose belly fat? Well this is actually doing you more harm than good.
As we have already talked about, when your body doesn’t get enough food, it actually goes in to a starvation mode preserving as much energy as possible (which is does by storing fat)
To keep your body happy that its going to get plenty of food in the coming hours, days and weeks, it’s better if you eat smaller more regular meals. This will also help keep your blood-sugar levels more constant which should make you feel more energetic and less hungry.
I thing that eating about 6 small meals per day is around the right number.
Being too strict with yourself
If you are a very strict dieter and follow a perfect eating regime, then you might be hindering your progress when trying to loose belly fat.
It’s actually been shown that it’s more beneficial to have a cheat meal or cheat day each week so why not reward yourself with some ‘bad’ food.
Just remember, you only deserve this if you’ve been 100% on your diet for the rest of the week and when I say cheat, I don’t mean eat everything under the roof!!
For my cheat day each week, I like to have a home-made pizza. The following day, it’s back to being well behaved again
