Clara Day Herrera, yoga expert and author of best-selling wellness book “How To Never Diet Forever” encourages Filipinos to invest in self-care. “Take care of your well being so when the people you love struggle, you’re fully ready and healthy to help them,” she reminds everyone.
For Clara, consistency is the key. She suggests 10 things you should stop doing this year:
Set unreasonable goals
When you decide to embrace a weight management journey with clear intentions, ask yourself: What sustainable steps can I take in terms of diet and exercise? Will you commit to the gym four hours, six days a week or will you allocate just four days of an hour of workout time ? Will you vow to skip dessert indefinitely or treat yourself to a slice or small serving from time to time? Keep in mind that sustainability is the key to consistency and the latter leads to success in any endeavor in life, especially in weight management.
Thinking diet and workout are your only options
Your overall lifestyle is a significant contributing factor to a successful health journey, as much as your nutrition and exercise. Getting enough quality sleep, managing your stressors, and monitoring your food consumption are crucial in keeping the excess weight off. In case you missed it, sleep deprivation affects two important appetite hormones in our body – leptin and ghrelin.
Underconsumption of food
In our attempt to lose weight, many of us fall into the trap of excessively cutting down our food intake. When calorie consumption significantly drops, the metabolic rate also slows down. Our basal metabolism determines the amount of calories our bodies burn at rest.
Having a nutritional plan that is hard to follow
Keep in mind that you will have to follow 80% of a nutrition plan to manage weight and sustain the progress over a period of time.
It is necessary that this translates into a lifestyle for you. So choose a method that you can see yourself doing 80% of for a long time. If the method is too restrictive, you may see results initially but may backfire when you decide not to continue it.
Skipping strength training
If you could prioritize one thing in terms of fitness, go for strength training. Strength training involves using muscle groups to execute a certain task, like lifting weights or squatting in which you use your body weight or equipment like barbells and resistance band to improve strength, endurance and muscle mass. You will appear leaner and “toned” as you build more muscles and shed fats.
Sometimes, you may lose inches off your body even if you don’t see a change in scale. It is still a good indication that you are losing fat and building more muscle mass.
Not managing your stress
You workout and you are mindful of what you eat but you are still unable to shed inches or weight. How stressed are you at work or at home? Most of us turn to food for comfort when we’re feeling a lot of pressure. This happens because of our survival mode wherein once your body reaches a certain stress level, it does what it feels it should. Usually the tendency to overeat becomes the body’s response.
Not paying attention to the timings you consume your food
According to Ayurveda, a 5000 year old time-honored system and science from India which aims to bring balance to our lives through prevention of diseases, we should eat light breakfast at 9-10 am since our digestive system is still weak when we wake up. The best time to consume our heavy meal is at 12-2pm since our digestive fire is strongest at these hours. A light meal for dinner is recommended at 6-7 pm.
It is essential that we rest our digestive system and refrain from eating 3-4 hours before bedtime.
More of these in my book: How To Never Diet Forever – the 9 powerful secrets to beauty, longevity and fulfillment without counting calories ever.
Not being mindful of your body’s reaction to certain food items
Our bodies are intelligent. The body knows what food makes you feel good and what makes you bloat or feel sluggish. Listen to it. Consume more of what your body accepts well and lessen or avoid what your body rejects.
Food is meant to energize us and make us feel alive. Observe how your stomach reacts when you consume highly processed food or types of food that are low in fiber. Do you feel bloated? Do you become constipated? Do you feel lethargic? This means that the food you consumed becomes an impediment to your digestive system.
Not considering nutrient content of food and focusing only on calories
If you are on a fat loss journey, know that creating a deficit on your total calorie intake is essential to lose fat.
However, most people focus only on counting their calories. Keep in mind that choosing a healthy diet solely based on the caloric value of foods negates the overall goal of your health journey because calories are not equal; they differ in nutritional quality based to their source.
Calories is just a unit of energy to measure the amount of energy we could get from food. We lose fats through deficit in calories but it has nothing to do with our nutrition, regeneration or body recovery. Nutrients are responsible for performing all the functions of the body, your health, your immune system and many other functions.
Not focusing on progress and focusing on external validation instead
Your friend’s weight loss results may not be the same as yours and that is ok. Be patient with yourself. Embrace and enjoy the healthy lifestyle instead of focusing on the timeline that you have set for yourself.
Every inch loss, every pound that you were able to shed, every additional kilogram on your dumbbells that you were able to lift, every quality rep that you are able to do, every piece of clothing that fits you better than before are all indications of progress. So celebrate and thank yourself for doing a great job.
The scale is not the only gauge that will determine whether or not you are successful on your goal to have a beach body ready the whole year.
For more wellness tips, follow Clara Day Herrera on Instagram and listen to her Podcast on Spotify and Apple Podcast.
Clara Day Herrera is the CEO and founder of CDH Wellness Corporation that gave birth to popular cleansing reset program PillowBread PH. The reset program is backed by science and approved by doctors.
