Common Diet Mistakes

#1. You don't feed the muscle, skinny fat is the result.
Feeding the muscle is critical in dieting down and keeping the weight off. If you drop your calories too much or don't eat for muscle preservation you will end up wasting muscle and crash your metabolism. I've seen this happen too many times; sometimes people get the weight off but it's unsustainable in the long term. They end up

with high cortisol levels, nutritional deficiencies and a crashed metabolism. Furthermore all that is acheived is the "skinny fat" look. The only way to become ripped and see definition is to feed the muscle and melt the fat by doing cardio and resistance training. By eating a lot of high quality, nutrient dense foods you are able to acheive the following:

• Increased satiety
• Higher energy levels and improved exercise performance
• A stronger immune system
• Improved mental functioning and mood

Feeding the muscle is what gets you those abs, not severely reduced calories with little protein. For an example of what hard work and ample calories do, I dieted down to sub 10% on 3500 calories per day and achieved this at 75kgs:

But you need knowledge on diet, health and metabolism to do so. Anyone can do it, all you need is time.

#2. Poor food choices
Calories are not the only significant factor determining rates of fat loss. Starving to lose body fat is not the answer. You must fuel your body with quality food sources. Calories are secondary to food choices. Eat 2,000 calories of "whatever" and 2,000 calories of high quality carbs, protein, healthy fats, and vegies and see what happens. Calories are never equal.

#3. Dieting too long
Never diet for more than sixteen weeks. If you do the body starts to hold onto fat because it thinks it's in starvation mode. You must have a few weeks to a month off then resume; this is essential! Having some time off is also beneficial for your sanity, helps you to regain focus on your goals and also fires up your metabolism and speeds up your fat loss in the long term. Think of it as a requirement... it just needs doing.

#4. Not knowing your body and current fuel requirements
You need to learn not only what to eat and how much to eat but also when.You need to aim to fuel your body for the next 3 hours at every meal during the day. Try and work out what your energy requirements are for the next 3 hours and eat accordingly. If you have set out to do intense physically activity and are not properly fueled, the result is likely to be reduced performance and feeling drained and awful. If you are sitting in an office, eat accordingly. If you have 2,000 calories to get through per day, stagger them to suit energy requirements and eat foods to suit those requirements.

#5. Not enough vegies
Vegetables help to keep you full and increase absorption rates of protein. Numerous vitamins and minerals are contained in vegetables and they are a great source of dietary fibre. Fibre is very helpful as it helps clean out toxins from your body, stabilises blood sugar and keeps you feeling full. Try to get a variety of different coloured vegetables in your diet every day.