The Biggest Mistakes Women Make With Their Workouts and Diet
If you’re a female, there’s a very good chance you’ve fallen prey to at least one of these mistakes before. Females, moreso than males, are at a higher risk to making key mistakes with their workout and diet program. It’s not that females are any less intelligent than their male counterparts; rather, it’s that they often are scared about certain factors regarding their workouts (I’m going to get HUGE and masculine is a common thought) that causes them to experience lower levels of results than they theoretically could.
Here are the biggest mistakes women are making with their workouts and diet programs. How many are you falling for?
Lifting Those Pink Weights
First things first, probably the single biggest mistake that females make is lifting those little five pounders, thinking they are going to get a good workout. Come on. Let’s be honest here. Do you really feel challenged by the five pound pink weights? They may look pretty but they aren’t working your muscles very hard.
Maybe you’re new to working out and do have a low strength level. Then fine – use those five pounders until you’re ready to move up. But for most women out there, I’d be willing to guess they could easily double, if not triple the weight they are lifting (lower body likely can increase signficantly more than this).
Do not be scared to lift heavier. There are so many benefits to lifting a heavier weight from increased strength, increased bone density, increased metabolism, increased rate of fat oxidation rates, and increased muscle definition.
Weights can completely change your body – but, only if you let them. Five pounders aren’t going to cut it.
Oh, and don’t worry about getting ‘bulky’ because unless you’re eating like a 20 year old male, injecting some type of ’special sauce’ (aka, steroids), or have some strange high-testosterone abnormally going on (which you don’t) you aren’t going to be resembling Arnold any time soon.
Avoiding All Dietary Fat or Carbohdyrates
The next big mistake women make is dietary avoidance. They choose their evil – usually either carbohydrates or fat and avoid these foods at all costs.
While it is true – low carb diets can be very effective for fat loss (and these are ‘all the rage’ right now), you can’t zero-carb for extended periods of time and expect to keep up your workouts. It. Just. Won’t. Work. Trust me on that one. You must consume carbohydrates at some point if you want to exercise simply because at the intensity level required for weight lifting or interval training, the body can only use glucose for energy (which comes from carbohydrates).
If all the exercise you do consists of getting up to get another cup of coffee at work, then fine, you might be able to eat zero-carb it. But, even then, that diet isn’t going to be so fun. At the very least, eat fruits and vegetables.
Same thing with the zero-fat diets. Fat is a required nutrients and plays many roles in the body. When you cut fat, your diet becomes bland, you start suffering from dry skin, your menstruation may stop, and you just don’t have the energy levels you used to. You don’t need to eat tons of fat each day, but at minimum I’d recommend keeping your total calorie intake to no less than 15% fat.
Becoming A Hamster On A Wheel
Mistake #3. Cardio, cardio, cardio. Walk into any gym and chances are you see this. Males hanging out around the free weight section (maybe with the odd brave female scattered in amongst them) and rows and rows of females slaving away on the cardio machines (with the odd male of course, but we all know why he is on those cardio machines).
While cardio does have its place in your workout program, it shouldn’t be the be all and end all of it. Too much cardio essentially just transforms you into a smaller version of your current self. While that may be good, if you’re still ’soft’ that likely isn’t what you want. You want to be lean and toned – that’s the attractive look you’re going for. Women who do way too much cardio without any form of resistance training often usually have a body type resembling ’skinny fat’ (thin but with high levels of body fat).
…not to mention hours and hours of cardio tends to be beyond boring, unless you’re one of those few individuals who were born to run.
Starving Then Binging
Finally we have the fourth mistake. This is how this situation plays out. You are good throughout the whole week – didn’t go off your diet – heck, you maybe even cut back more than you needed to. Then the weekend hits and BOOM – you’re in the pantry, you’re in the fridge, you might even be found at the local drive-thru.
You’ve starved all week and now you’re body is crying for food. One small craving hits and it’s a landslide from there.
While it’s great if you stick to your diet during the week, you shouldn’t be on a diet that’s so strict that every so often you just eat yourself into a frenzy. This yo-yo effect just hampers the metabolism and encourages fat storage.
It is true that every so often on a diet you do need to take a periodic diet break (to keep the fat burning hormones in the body happy), but to go all out every weekend and consume large quantities of food is just not necessary.
This is a strong signal you have not chosen a good diet plan that you can reasonably stick with.
So, keep these mistakes in mind. They are killers and if you’re committing them, you aren’t going to get the results you’d like to be.
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