People say that the hardest part of any workout routine is finding the motivation to exercise, but I respectfully beg to differ. The hardest part is definitely the actual exercise—logging mile after mile on the treadmill, doing crunches and squats until I want to drop, and exercising my willpower over dessert, so I don’t derail my hard work. You’d think that kind of effort would be enough to see big changes, right? But even though I exercise almost every day, I always feel like I’m falling short of my fitness goals—to lose that last ten pounds and run a faster mile. What gives? If you’re going above and beyond your CDC-recommended 150 minutes of exercise per week, shouldn’t you see some serious results?
Unfortunately, it’s not always enough just to exercise—you have to do it right, otherwise you might be wasting your time. There are many ways in which even the most dedicated fitness junkies can undermine themselves. If you’re making small mistakes with your workout routine, you could be sabotaging all your efforts.
Don’t Run on Empty
You don’t need to eat 12,000 calories a day like an Olympic swimmer, but extreme dieting doesn’t make your workouts more effective, either. In fact, just the opposite is true. Liz Lenkeit, a personal trainer in San Francisco, says, “Women come in without eating and then they get lightheaded, have no energy, and no motivation.” Restricting your calorie intake while increasing the amount you exercise can send your body into famine mode, where it conserves fat and burns muscle. In order to keep your metabolism running correctly, it’s important to eat the right diet for your workout.
Lenkeit recommends a well-balanced and “colorful” diet, full of things like nuts, beans, vegetables, and lean protein from fish and chicken. The good news is that regular exercisers need to eat more. The bad news is that a short walk doesn’t give you carte blanche to eat a plateful of brownies. Don’t take a small amount of exercise as a license to eat or drink anything you want. And don’t forget—beverages are nutrition, too. “Any soda is unhealthy, including diet,” Lenkeit says. Even if you eat right, the sugar, carbs, and chemicals in alcohol, soda, and energy drinks will derail even the most dedicated workout regimen.
