A little trivia to kick things off here…what’s the most important fat loss organ in the body?
Whatcha think? Maybe the pancreas due to insulin management, the kidneys, the heart? The heart is an important organ…is it muscle?
It’s the brain!!
The brain is the most important fat loss organ because it controls our behaviour and our behaviour is what dictates the way we look, feel and perform…makes sense right!?
Who’s behind your brain pulling the strings? You.
You are the only thinker in your head and therefore it has to be you…no one has ever thought a thought for you, you have exclusive access to your brain…you are free to think whatever and whenever you want…fortunately, no one can take that away from you!
I support and guide my clients a ton in regards to nutrition, movement, sleep and stress management…but another huge aspect of my coaching that I support my clients with is in regards to their mindset and the perspectives that they choose to take in regards to all of the decisions that result in how they look, feel and perform.
So…in this article I’m going to be outlining 3 mindset mistakes that I see on a super regular basis that could be keeping you from getting the results that you want, let’s dig in…
Mindset Mistake #1 is thinking that more exercise is the answer…
This is so common!
On a practical level, who’s the got time nowadays to dedicate hours and hours to exercise every single day and even if you did, what happens if you go through a really busy period where you no longer can dedicate that much time to exercising…or even worse, what if you get injured?
You have to exercise an outrageous amount to offset a poor diet, 99.9% of folks can’t even do it nor do they want to, but for arguments sake let’s say that all the stars aligned and you could…
If you go through an especially busy period with say, work or family obligations or like I mentioned you experience an injury, you will gain any and all of the body fat that you lost because you don’t have the skills or experience to tweak your nutrition accordingly to accommodate said lifestyle changes.
Meaning, nutrition is by far the most efficient and practical way to go about achieving and maintaining fat loss, it’s a no contest and you can think about it like this…
Is it more practical and realistic to make more money or simply adjust your spending habits?
Adjusting your spending habits is so much more realistic because how often do you get a raise? Maybe once per year and that’s most likely generous…and how much is that raise really going to move the needle relative to your total income? Probably not at all that much. Also…
What do folks typically do when they get a raise? They spend more…and the exact same tendency applies to more exercise in regards to fat loss. When folks increase their activity, they so often justify eating more as a result and usually offset any and all of the fat loss progress that they would have made via a slight increase in calories burned…
Quite often folks will even gain weight because they overcompensate for the calories that they thought that their activity was burning…ever seen an overweight gym goer, runner, cyclist, you name it…all the time right!?
We see this constantly…noticeably overweight folks exercising consistently and getting nowhere with their body composition because they’re emphasizing the wrong tool!
You are going to get way better results by changing what you’re eating vs. simply burning more calories. One of the most common things that my clients share with me when we start working together is that they’ve finally accepted the fact that more exercise wasn’t the answer despite banging their heads against the exercise wall for years and years…
They’re always excited to be getting results, but they’re also often kinda kicking themselves a little bit at the same time because they’re like, ‘omg, I could have been getting these results in way less time if I had just addressed the nutrition piece initially!’
Don’t get me wrong, I’m a big fan of movement as you know, I encourage everyone to hit their step counts every week and I move a lot personally…but on its own, it’s just not going to get you the body that you want, plain and simple.
More exercise isn’t the answer, nutrition is.
Mindset Mistake #2 is thinking that you’re a unique snowflake…but in the worst way, a really unadvantageous way…
For some reason a lot of folks think that other people can get great results and it doesn’t surprise them in the slightest when they do, but they themselves can’t…and my question to those folks is…’what makes you think that you’re so special?’
Personally, I really sympathize with this mindset mistake because this used to be me!
I had beliefs that were literally keeping me stuck in a body that didn’t serve me. Things like…’I’ve been a chubster for years, I just love food so much, I’ve never been able to get rid of ‘name your problem area’ body fat, maybe my body just can’t get that lean’…
All of these beliefs are like roadblocks on the way to the body that you want and if the roadblock is backed up enough, a lot of folks figure ‘what’s the point’ and just turn around and head back home…unfortunately, they often don’t even give themselves the opportunity to get results!
You are unique in the sense that the specific lifestyle approach that you’ll need to take in order to get great results needs to be tailored to you specifically however, the principles and foundational behaviours that lead to great results are the same for everyone.
Nutrition is the most important in regards to fat loss followed by movement, sleep and stress management.
Everyone truly does require a personalized approach, there is no cookie cutter lifestyle that you can just plug and play, for example…
Some of my clients work a ton of hours, some travel a lot, others have kiddos, some don’t, some of them eat out super frequently, certain folks have specific food intolerances and sensitivities, alcohol plays a different role in everyone’s life and this isn’t even to mention individual priorities, preferences and most of all psychology…
The foundational principles are the same, but the actual practical implementation looks different from person to person.
Mindset Mistake #3 is refusing to revise your story…
‘I can’t lose fat because…’
‘I have a slow metabolism, I’m big boned, I have bad genetics, I’m too busy’ and the list goes on…
All of these stories are just that, they’re stories and if you refuse to revise your story, you will repeat it for your entire life, for example…
I used to tell myself the story that I was big boned and funny enough, I was a skinny kid, but when I got into high school and started playing football and basketball, I actually wanted to put on weight and I started drinking homo milk and eating microwave pastas like it was going out of style…I cringe now at my eating habits from back then, but it was clearly effective and all of a sudden my nickname was ‘Stalky,’ Stalky Sidhu…
I’m sure that you’ve seen a picture of me from more recently at some point, am I big boned? God no! Am I stalky? Far from it!!
In the vast majority of cases, body fat is the reason why we call people ‘big boned’ or ‘heavy set.’ I have tons of client examples of this on the transformation page of my website…I’m another example, I wasn’t big boned, I was just fat lol!
I actually thought that I had a whole bunch of muscle too and this is another story that people tend to believe when they’re quote unquote ‘big boned’ or ‘heavy set’…especially when they’re referencing their weight because if it’s a higher number than they think that it should be they’re just like…’oh but a lot of it is muscle!’
In some rare circumstances that may be true, like a competitive powerlifter for example, they typically carry a whole bunch of muscle and fat…but most folks aren’t powerlifters…I certainly wasn’t!
So folks find this out (just like I did) when they actually get lean for the first time. For me it was a bit of a rude awakening…body fat is mistaken for muscle sooo often and fortunately this is actually really easy to test because if you just go in the gym and lift weights and you’re not very strong (especially relative to your total bodyweight) it ain’t muscle that you’re carrying around!
Big muscles are almost always strong muscles and strong muscles are almost always big muscles.
So the truth is, if you’ve never been lean before, you actually don’t know if you’re quote unquote ‘big boned’ or ‘heavy set.’
Also, ‘bad genetics’ don’t really exist in terms of fat loss because no one in our evolutionary history was starvation resistant…if we don’t eat, we die, all of us!
On the other hand, when it comes to building muscle genetics actually play a big role, muscle building has a pretty meaningful genetic component to it…but fortunately fat loss and getting lean does not!
Literally anyone can get 6-pack lean and I don’t say that lightly…anyone! You included, you are not a unique snowflake in regards to fat loss.
You are a unique snowflake in regards to the specific nutrition and lifestyle recipe that’s required to achieve and maintain fat loss because it has to be tailored for you…otherwise you simply won’t be able to implement or maintain it.
So…more exercise isn’t the answer, nutrition is and…
If you want to lose fat and keep it off you absolutely can, but you will need a personalized approach that fits your lifestyle and that you can sustain, and lastly…
It will require releasing old stories and beliefs and without a doubt, the best way to do that is via action because if you implement the principles of fat loss, you’ll lose fat and then you’ll have no other option but to change your beliefs because your body will be shifting before your eyes…that’s undeniable evidence right there!
