Tried everything and still not losing weight? It might be one of these five common weight loss mistakes that you are committing. Here’s how to fix it.

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Dieting is hard, and yet we do everything in our powers to make it even harder than it needs to be in order to see just a few pounds drop off of the scale.

And in that pursuit of the perfect diet plan that can rid all of the belly fat with just a few smoothies or clean foods and just two or three 7-minute ab video workouts per week, it’s easy to see why so many people slip up, fall down and simply fail to reach their weight loss goals.

The problem is that with all of the misinformation in the dieting world, it’s just far too easy to forget the big pillars associated with losing weight:

• Establish a calorie deficit
• Eat enough protein (more on that here)
• Prioritize nutrient rich foods 
• Pick up heavy stuff a few times per week
• Walk like you’re a nomad
• Sleep like the dead
• Be consistent and flex your patience muscle

Those big rocks are the 90-95 percent of the entire journey. Seriously. Nail those pillars and the results will come. 

The problem for most people is that very last bullet point. Sure the results will come, but they might not come right away.

You can get your favorite show streamed instantly. Need a new air fryer? Cool. You can get that delivered in just one or two days. Want some dinner tonight? Awesome. You can order that up with the quickness.

But weight loss? That shit takes time. And we are an impatient society. And it’s that impatience that leads to a ton of mistakes along the way in hopes of simplifying or speeding up the fat loss journey.

Today, we’re going to talk about some of those common weight loss mistakes that are keeping you from reaching your fat loss goal.

At the end of this article, hopefully, you’ll have an idea of how to get back on track so the scale starts moving in the right direction again.

Let’s get into it.

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The 5 Most Common Weight Loss Mistakes

This is not a definitive list of everything that you are potentially doing wrong along the way to fat loss awesomesauce. But, I’m going to cover the biggest culprits. Avoid the following usual suspects, nail the big pillars of fat loss and you’ll be on your way to sexy town.

And it all starts with the No. 1 Rule of Fat Loss. You’ve got to manage your energy balance.

I. You’re only focused on clean or healthy eating

Before we dive into this, I want you to know that you should absolutely prioritize nutrient rich foods with tons of lean protein, lots of fiber and plenty of complex carbs (like fruits and even some starchy veggies). If you’re doing this for the majority of your diet, you are miles ahead of most struggling dieters.

So that is awesome.

However, you also need to embrace the first rule of weight loss: You must establish a calorie deficit. And in order to establish that calorie deficit, you must understand how much food you are eating.

Loading up your plate with a ton of avocado and eggs and veggies and a side of whole grain toast or oatmeal is great. But, even if you are managing to hit a ton of “clean” foods, you can still be eating too many calories to bolster your weight loss efforts.

Let’s play this out with one of the most common culprits:

• A small serving size of nuts works out to about 160 calories.
• One medium avocado is about 250 calories.
• And one serving of almond butter is about 200 calories.

The clean eating folks will convince you to ignore total calories as long as your meals are whole, nutritious foods. So, you were over here just grabbing a handful of nuts to snack and smashing half of an avocado onto your whole grain toast because it was clean and healthy.

But at the end of the day, you were piling on a ton of calories and bumping your calorie deficit into what we call “accidental maintenance” calories, or even a calorie surplus.

So the bottomline here is that you do not have to count calories, but all calories will count.

Yes, there is more to the weight loss factor than just simply calories in versus calories out. Hormones play a role. Exercise and strength training play a role. Your daily activity outside of the gym plays a big role, too.

But, make no mistake about it, you must hit those calories in order to see long term, meaningful weight loss.

Now, if counting calories or tracking macros seems like a bit of a slog and you are just really intimidated by that process, there are ways to get around it and manage that calorie intake in different ways, check that out in this article where I covered how to do just that.

Including the liquid ones, like you’d find in alcohol. You can read more about alcohol and weight loss in this guide here.

II. You’re not tracking accurately

Alright, you realized that “clean” eating isn’t the most accurate method for establishing that deficit. So, you’ve been tracking your calories. Awesome.

But, if weight loss is still not happening, it means that the first rule of fat loss is still not being met: You are still eating too much and you are not in a deficit.

Of all of the common weight loss mistakes, this one could be the most frequent perpetrator. You’ve likely been making teeny tiny errors in your calorie and macro tracking methods.

Perhaps you’re actually eyeballing your portions. Or maybe you’re skipping out on tracking those random little bites of food, or tastes of the meal you’re prepping, or the casual chip off of your kids’ plates.

These calories add up. And if you aren’t tracking them accurately, you could be screwing up the whole process without really even knowing it.

The solution: track every single bite of food. Every. Single. One. 

And actually, the best way going forward is to take a few minutes today to plan out all of your food tomorrow. That will help keep you accountable to the game plan and make it harder to veer off-plan.

III. You’re not eating enough (for too long)

I’m always hesitant to bring this one up, because it might not be what you think.

This is less about that mythical concept of starvation mode and more about doing something sustainable for the long term.

Let’s set the scene: You want to drop about 10-15 pounds because you’ve got some important trip or event or vacation coming up in a few months. That’s a worthy cause and I’m not going to knock it.

But, in order to lose the weight, you dive into a super low-calorie approach with punishing cardio and endless HIIT classes. You’re killing yourself.

After eating almost 2200 calories per day, you decide that the magazine covers are correct and a 1200 calorie diet is going to get you that two pounds per week of weight loss that you’re after.

And to be clear, if you could actually manage to stick to 1200 calories a day, you’d likely see pretty dramatic results.

But, 1200 is simply not sustainable for the vast majority of us. It’s too low. It’s too restrictive.

As a result, you ended up sneaking a few bites of food here or there.

Or maybe you decided that you did great during week, so you can ease up the calorie counting on the weekends for a few cheat meals. Those cheat meals are cheatier than you think and you’ve knocked your hard-earned deficit back into that accidental maintenance realm.

And then there’s the third option where the misery of such a low-cal approach had you feeling totally restricted and you just threw up your hands and quit altogether.

The goal of a fat loss diet is to eat as much food as possible and still lose weight. It is not to starve yourself as aggressively as possible and pray for the best.

When you shoot for super low calorie diets, you make things incredibly difficult to provide any sort of leverage. What happens when things stall a bit?

Well, at 1200 calories, there’s no room to really remove food. So you’d be left with the options of …

1) increasing your daily movement by a ton (think lots of boring cardio)

OR

2) increasing calories for a while during a diet break to offset any metabolic adaptation that you suffered from such a low starting place.

Let me be clear: unless you are short, petite and sedentary, there is little reason why anyone should be eating as few as 1200 calories per day.

That is absolute garbage.

Again, there are exceptions to every single rule. However your body (and metabolism) is much smarter than you give it credit for. And punishing yourself with super low calorie diets is a recipe for disaster.

The solution: Actually aim for a larger and more moderate calorie deficit target so you can stick to it. You can and should be able to include wiggle room for foods that you enjoy in moderation and still make progress.

How do you get to a moderate calorie deficit? Great question. Here’s a fantastic guide to making that work for you.

IV. You are not strength training and focusing on way too much cardio

Cardio is a fantastic tool and can help in your weight loss journey. But cardio should be treated as a side dish.

The main course is strength training. You’ll want to force your muscles to move and get stronger. In doing so, you’ll see benefits in your metabolism and in your total daily energy expenditure, or TDEE.

More muscle, or at least preserving the muscle you have, will allow you to eat more while still losing fat. And again, that’s the ultimate goal of the fat loss diet: eat as much food as possible while still losing weight.

Cardio does help burn calories. It improves cardiovascular health. And cardio also helps in nutrient partitioning––meaning it helps circulate the nutrients from your salad throughout the body.

It can and should be a part of everyone’s weekly regimen. But again, one of the most common weight mistake that new dieters make is relying on cardio as the sole driver of the entire fitness program. Don’t do that.

If you need help getting started with a solid strength training routine, you’ll want to check out my guide to the best weight loss workout program for beginners.

V. You’re too focused on your diet and weight loss

This can sound counterintuitive, so allow me to explain.

This final weight loss mistake has to do with restricting yourself so much because you are so wrapped up in trying to lose a few extra pounds. 

Or perhaps you’ve embraced this punishing mindset that you’ve got to make the diet absolutely terrible or else it isn’t working. 

As a result, you skip out on social functions and opportunities and turn your entire life into this quest to see progress on the scale.

Now, for starters, the scale is simply not the only measure of progress and you’re setting yourself up for failure if you expect that piece of fickle plastic to be on your side every day or week. There are many more ways to track and measure your progress. So, keep that in mind.

Allowing your scale weight to define you and your entire life simply ain’t it, fam.

When the dieting game consumes your every ounce and fiber of existence, it leads to unhealthy relationships with food and exercise. That’s a long term recipe for disaster. 

My goal for you is to embrace the journey and enjoy the slow and steady progress. Again, the idea of a fat loss diet is to eat as much food as possible and still lose weight. 

The same applies to exercise. Your goal is to move a bit more (probably more than what you’re used to doing daily), but to do so in a way that fits your lifestyle without taking over your life.

You should be able to say yes to those occasional happy hours with coworkers.

When the friends text you about meeting up for brunch over the weekend, you shouldn’t feel the need to cancel because you’re scared to death of what you can eat. 

If your kids have your schedule jam-packed on Saturday, you don’t need to cancel all of your plans so you can crank out a 60-minute sweat session on your exercise bike just to burn more calories so the weight loss can come quicker.

Stop looking for quick fixes. This stuff takes time. A long time. You didn’t gain weight overnight, you won’t lose weight overnight, either.

So now that you have fully appreciated that mindset, buckle up for the journey and understand that diet and exercise are not your life. They are simply one healthy part of your lifestyle.

The role of exercise is not really about the calorie burn

There’s levels to this shit. And calories in versus calories out is the overarching tenet of weight loss. But, please understand that calories burned is more than just what you did in your latest Barre Class.

In fact, as I’ve pointed out time and time again, your metabolism is much more than the burn calories from exercise. Those purposeful bouts of movement only lead to about 5-10 percent of your daily energy expenditure.

Which is why diet is a more important piece of the fat loss puzzle.

So what is exercise for? Great question:

• Heart health
• Bone health
• Strengthening muscle
• Better energy levels
• Improved metabolic rates
• Hormonal health

The list goes on. And strengthening muscle with a regular program focused on resistance training is the best way to make sure you’re getting the most bang for your buck.

Strengthening muscle will lead to some improvements in metabolism, which makes fat loss easier. More muscle burns more calories throughout the day. Which basically means you get to eat more food to lose weight or even just to maintain your weight.

But exercise is not meant to be the driver of your weight loss journey. 

Remember that the first rule of fat loss is all about establishing a calorie deficit.

And a calorie deficit is best powered by managing how much food you shovel into your facehole every day. When all else fails and you’ve fallen into the trap of one of these common weight loss mistakes, just remember to take it back to that first rule of fat loss and get back to the calorie deficit.

Let me help you learn how to avoid these common weight loss mistakes that are holding you back … 

I’m here to help you out. 

If you have any questions, reach out. I answer all of my emails at pete [at] petecataldo [.] com … Hit me up with the subject line “Common weight loss mistakes” and I’ll answer any questions you have to make this work for you.

Or you can hit me up anytime on the socialz on Facebook, Twitter or Instagram.

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