It has been several months since you became a member of Gold’s Gym yet you are not satisfied with your weight loss results. You remember how excited you were when you signed up for a gym membership but now you are slowly losing hope that you can shed those unwanted fats.
Weight loss is one of the main motivations for gym goers, whether they are enrolled at Gold’s Gym or LA Fitness. Failure to lose weight, understandably, is really demoralizing.
Perhaps it’s high time to look at how you go about your gym routine. You could be committing some exercise mistakes that are preventing you from reaching your fitness goals. Here are some of the common mistakes that gym goers commit that prevent them from losing weight.
Poor or Incorrect Form
Are you in the right form when doing strength training exercises? If you have been undergoing strength training routine for a few months now but the results have been underwhelming, then it’s high time to check your form. You can meet with a personal trainer and ask him or her if you are doing the moves correctly, or you could watch yourself in a mirror. Poor form means that instead of using your muscle strength, you are relying more on momentum in performing the exercises.
Cardio Isn’t Intense Enough
Some gym goers are not really fond of cardiovascular exercises. You could be one of them. You might be overlooking the fact that you have to get your heart pumping in order to lose weight. If you want to see some positive results, you might have to do 60-minute cardio workouts every time you hit the gym. So spend more time on the treadmill or elliptical. Like it or not, you really have to sweat a lot in order to achieve your weight loss goals.
Eating a Lot Before and After Workout
Sure, you need to eat some snacks like banana before a workout but you could be consuming a lot of high-calorie snacks before you hit the gym. It does not make a lot of sense to consume a 500-calorie snack before going to the gym, only to burn around 300 calories after working out, right? As much as possible, limit your pre or post-workout snacks to 150 calories.
Some of the recommended snacks before and after a workout are crackers with cheese, fruit smoothie made with soy milk, a cup of blueberries, and half a slice of whole wheat bread.
You Are Not Lifting Enough Weights
Aside from cardiovascular exercises, strength training is critical if you are to lose weight. Strength training causes your body to build bigger muscles, which in turn boosts metabolic rate and then translates to more calories burned.
Subsequently, if you are not losing weight after a few months of gym membership, it could be because you are not lifting enough weights. Or your weights are a bit light. You must push your muscles’ limit, so to speak. Make sure that you do enough repetitions, like 10 to 12 reps. You can tell that your weights are heavy enough for your body when your muscles feel the burn after 10 repetitions.
You are Not Warming Up
There are a lot of reasons why personal trainers constantly remind their students to warm up before a workout. Warming up not only prevents injuries but can also speed up fat burning. Don’t skip the warm-up part, even if you are rushing to finish your time in the gym because you need to dash to the office or attend an important gathering.
When you warm up, do your exercise at a very low intensity. If you are to spend much of your time in the treadmill, start by walking then jogging. Keep the pace until you break a sweat. Or you can also try dynamic stretches like side lunges, high knees, and butt kicks. You should also avoid static stretching, or holding a pose for several counts because it actually calms down your body and impair your performance later on.
Same Workout, Same Results
You might not be achieving your weight loss goals because you have been doing the same workout every time you hit the gym. In case you are repeating the same exercise every time you are in the gym, your body would likely hit a plateau. You might want to ask a personal trainer to make a new workout program for you to challenge your muscles and get a more effective workout.
Or you could mix things up. Say you spend much of your time on the treadmill, then it might be a good idea to join the yoga class. Or you could focus your training on free weights. Whatever you have in mind, make certain that the exercise you are to take up is something new and strenuous enough to challenge your body.