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Let's take a dive into 10 mistakes I made before I learned how to sustainably lose excess weight and keep it off. We go over things like fad diets, black and white thought patterns, and different limiting beliefs that kept me stuck for years + what you can do to navigate them yourself with an empowered approach.
To try a free week of my signature Fit for Hiking program to get you fit from the trails (gym AND at-home options) start HERE.
To try a free week of my signature Fit for Hiking program to get you fit from the trails (gym AND at-home options) start HERE.
For next level fat loss strategies, hormone/gut health help, serious performance goals and unparalleled support, apply for Mountain Metabolic coaching. Learn more HERE.
For more free wellness resources, hiking/travel guides, and other blog posts, check out my website HERE.
What is Fit for Hiking?
Where fitness and outdoors meet. In this space we chat all things hiking, exercise, wellness, adventure, motherhood, and metabolic health from a female perspective! Get ready to learn + be inspired to live your fullest, most adventurous life!
Hi, my name is Brady and I'm a long time fitness professional and Midwest girl turned mountain living hiking addict. In combining my knowledge of fitness and passion for hiking, I've helped hundreds of women get lean and strong for the trails. Think of this as your one stop shop for both education and inspiration on all things female wellness, trail talk and adventure. Hiking, female metabolism, motherhood, nutrition, travel and fitness are all topics you'll hear discuss here. If you are outdoorsy and active, looking to level up your health, unlock your potential, and become inspired to live your most vibrant life, you're in the right place. You're listening to the fit for hiking podcast. 2s Hello and welcome back to the fit for Hiking podcast. Wow, you guys, I'm so excited to get into today's episode. We are, you know, kind of right into a new year. You know, if you're listening to this as it's coming out, it's kind of the beginning of the year. And, you know, it's been such this is typically the time of year when we are really setting ourselves up for some big goals, typically wanting to reevaluate, like where we're at with our health, where we are with our goals. Compared to last year. Maybe we set some lofty goals last year and we're realizing, okay, we didn't really follow through the way that we might have hoped. Maybe we still kind of feel like we're flailing, um, despite our best efforts. So I wanted to talk about ten of the biggest fitness and nutrition mistakes that I have made over the years that have kept me stuck, and just kind of spinning my wheels and going from year to year without seeing progress. Because the reality is that is super frustrating when you really do care so much about seeing a certain result or improving your health, improving your habits. Maybe weight loss is a big thing for you right now, and yet you don't quite know how to get there, and you just feel like there's so many barriers and you just keep making the same mistakes. Um, it's frustrating, right? I've totally been there. I've gone through a £25 weight loss journey myself over the last few years, and for several years before I successfully lost the weight and kept it off, I would lose and regain like the same £10 over and over and over again. Despite working in fitness and knowing a lot of things, I was still also learning. I didn't have all of the knowledge that I do now. I would fall victim to some of the diet culture, things that are so prevalent predatory marketing, you know, dieting schemes and. Honestly, I just didn't really understand yet. Um, so many things hadn't clicked for me. And as a personal trainer, as a fitness professional, I have now devoted myself to continuing to learn. But I also have so many of my own experiences from the past ten years of working at fitness, working with clients, and working on myself. So I really wanted to share some of the biggest mistakes that I've made over the years. And maybe some of these will be familiar to you, but hopefully I can help you not make these same mistakes and progress a whole lot faster than I did. So let's get into this. All right. Mistake number one is assuming that more is always better when it comes to working out exercising. The reality here is that quality really is more important than quantity. And I think we're so, um, accustomed to just being like, oh, well, if I'm going to do this thing, if I'm going to try to work out, I'm going to try to lose weight, then I need to be working out like 5 to 6 days a week. Um, you know, doing as much sweating, as much hard exercise as possible. Usually burpees come to mind. Or like hard workout classes, maybe like spin classes or berries or F45 or some of the common ones, um, or just doing like hit style intense bootcamp classes. Um, and the reality is, it doesn't need to be that hard on your body. You don't need to break your body down day after day, not giving yourself a rest. Days like the 75 hard thing is really big in January, and I think a reset is great, like having some goals, having some parameters is great, but the concept behind like working out twice a day without any breaks, no rest days for 75 days is so unhealthy and like super not productive. You're not going to give yourself the rest you need. You're not going to actually build very good muscle because you're not going to rest properly. You're not going to be able to actually build on, recover, repair the way that you need to to see body composition changes. So you know, this concept of like no days off and more and more and more is better is so false. And I used to fall victim to it too. I thought I needed to do two days and add a run on top of all my workouts. And the reality is, once I scaled back and actually started just being intentional with like good quality workouts where I was progressing on what I did the the prior week, and I wasn't just doing random movements to sweat as much as humanly possible and make myself sore. Then I started actually seeing body composition changes and progress. So sometimes doing more can actually lead to diminishing returns and different types of negative adaptations, because our body's adjusting to what we're doing instead of actually seen. Progress can also lead to excess stress and overeating, which is why so many women will work out for years. In order to lose weight and not really see a whole lot of progress. There's such a common thing where like, people are like, oh, I've been working out for years. I saw it in working in fitness and nothing really changes because they're almost overdoing it and then overcompensating, overestimating how many calories they're burning in their workouts and then overeating. And then you kind of are negating the effort there, especially if all you're doing for your workouts is like working out to burn calories. So what we want to do here is we want to create a stimulus that's actually new to the body, to progressively challenge your body, to make those adaptations and then continue building on that. That's why progressive overload style training is so effective, because the body does adapt. So being strategic and doing quality workouts is so much better than just doing random crap like doing the same, like bodyweight style hit workouts on repeat for years and years and then wondering why nothing's really changing. Okay, long winded answer, but let's get into number two. Number two is having an all or nothing mindset around health in general, feeling like you always have to be on or off the wagon. This is such a persistent mindset that I've seen in working with clients, and it kind of creeps back into my mindset sometimes if I'm not careful. And I had it for years and I really struggled to break this mindset. But honestly, I would say that this is probably the number one thing that holds people back from making sustainable long term changes, because they're always waiting for that one perfect time to arrive when they can reset and nothing will come up. No obstacles, no bad weekends, no honor, you know, off cycles like they're just going to be perfectly on the wagon. But then once that thing does happen, that throws them, quote unquote, off the wagon, like a vacation or a sickness or an injury or even just having friends in town or one bad weekend, then they consider themselves off the wagon completely, like giving up on all healthy habits altogether. It's very all or nothing, black or white. So what I want to say here is that the regimen that you can follow consistently for the rest of your life is better than a quote unquote perfect regimen that you can follow for one month. I want to say that, again, the regimen that you can follow consistently for the rest of your life is better than a perfect regimen that you can only follow for a month. Okay. So even if you were to say, okay, next month I'm only going to eat veggies and protein, I'm going to cut out carbs, I'm going to cut out alcohol, cut out sugar, I'm going to work out five times a week and then throw some runs in there like, yeah, that's great. That's super idealistic. And I've seen this a lot where people will post like, oh, I lost, you know, £15 in 30 days. And here's how I did it. And then they start spouting off like the most intense regimen, like, oh, I did fasted cardio for an hour every single morning of the week, no days off. And then I also did five strength training sessions on top of that. And then I also did three Pilates classes thrown in there somewhere. And I also didn't have alcohol, and I also didn't have sugar. And it's like, yeah, of course you lost that much weight, but like, are you going to actually be able to maintain that for any amount of time? Like, what's the exit strategy here? Because when there's no exit strategy and there's no way to maintain, you're not going to maintain those results. So it's really important to not just look at this as a quick effort or an all or nothing mindset, but rather, what can I actually do for the rest of my life right now, if you were to look at my life for an example. I work out maybe 3 to 4 times a week, typically from my home weight training and walking, mainly, um, hiking, getting outside when I can. But it's winter right now, so it's a little bit tougher and I don't follow any sort of diet. I track calories every now and then just to kind of check where my baselines are. I don't take any drastic measures. I don't do fasted cardio. I don't, you know, fast for 72 hours every now and then. I don't cut out sugar. I have sugar every single day. And yet I've been able to maintain a £25 weight loss. I'm not the most lean person you've ever seen in your life. I don't have shredded abs year round. Um, you know, I don't necessarily look like a fitness model, but I'm really happy with my body composition. When I feel like I'm able to do the things I want to do, I feel fairly strong in my outdoor activities. I am lean enough that I am happy with my body composition, and to me that's balance. Like, I don't feel like I have to kill myself to maintain this. It feels pretty easy to maintain at this point and I'm I'm content with that. And that's kind of what you have to find for yourself is where is that sweet spot for you? What are you willing to sacrifice? Because new level, new double. Like if you want to go harder than your if you want to see like better results, quote unquote, you know get shredded, then you're going to have to sacrifice more and more and more. So what is good enough for you? And so for me, I found I do so much better with a balanced, moderate approach that I can maintain for the rest of my life. It helps me avoid extremes and still maintain with ease, which is my sweet spot. Don't want to be obsessing about this stuff. I don't want to be thinking about it 24 seven. 1s All right, number three. Thinking exercise is the best means of weight loss. So I actually did a full episode on this. I'm talking about why working out is actually not a great weight loss strategy. A lot of people immediately think of burning calories when they think of losing weight. And the reason why that this is not the best strategy is one we are usually grossly overestimating how many calories we are burning, and that number is going to go down as our body adapts and as we do lose weight. So we're just naturally going to burn less calories in every single workout session. Also, it becomes so easy to eat back those calories in a matter of seconds, and you can really quickly negate what you're doing in your workouts with what you're eating. And that's typically what causes people to not lose weight despite working out all the time. I've seen it so many times and I did it for years. I would work out so much with how much I worked out. It was like shocking that I was not losing weight and in fact I was often gaining weight. And the reason was because I was hungry. I was eating a lot because I was working out so much. You're gonna drive up your hunger hormones, you're gonna get hungrier mentally. There's also that thing of like, oh, I earned it. I can eat back these calories. Um, and you're just gonna work up an appetite more, and so you're going to need to eat more. And if you're not careful, if you're not keeping close track of things, then it's really easy to completely negate any sort of deficit. So going about, you know, a weight loss journey, purely focusing on your exercise will maybe work for a little while, especially if you have more weight to lose. Um, but it's going to stop working. You're going to have diminishing returns as you go. You're going to reach a point where you really have to take a very close look at other factors, such as your nutrition, how much you're actually in taking on a daily basis. Um, you know, your weekends versus your weekdays, your steps, your, um, you know, sleep quality, stress management, all of these different things really do make a big difference, especially as you keep going. The more weight you lose, the harder is going to be. So, you know, just relying on exercise not usually the best tool, especially if you're already starting out like at a moderate to like lower weight range. Okay. Number four obsessing over changing my body type instead of being confident in my own skin and frame. This is a kind of a tricky one, because you have to kind of find that balance for yourself of pursuing a better version of yourself, you know, pushing your goals, things like that. Self-improvement, but also not getting obsessed with becoming something that maybe your body is not capable of becoming and working in fitness. I've really had to grapple with this myself because I've never necessarily had like, the leanest body type ever. Um, yeah, I'm like a very normal framed person, and my sister is actually quite thin. She's always had a much smaller frame than me. I've always been a little curvier, a little more like muscle bound. And she's very small, very tiny. And it's been that way our whole lives, and she's never had to work for it, really. Like she doesn't like to work out. She doesn't pay attention to what she's eating. And I've always worked out I've always paid attention to those types of things. Um, you know, it's my passion. I love fitness and and so it's always kind of frustrated me, like, why is she so thin? And I will never have that frame. And I used to try so hard to kill myself in the gym to look a certain way and completely change my body shape when the reality is, is I can become the leanest version of myself. I can really push myself, um, physique wise. But that's not going to change my body type. That's not going to change my body frame. I'm never going to have a Victoria's Secret frame. I'm never going to be the skinniest girl in the world. And I've had to come to peace with that, that even when I'm at my leanest, I'm still probably not going to look like a lot of fitness models. And that's okay with me. You know, I've come to peace with that now, especially in my late 20s, early 30s, where I feel like in my early 20s, mid 20s I was very insecure and really struggled to accept my body type for what it was. So that was definitely a mistake that just made me so obsessive. And I didn't enjoy fitness because I felt like I was punishing my body to try to change it, to be something that it just was never going to be. So if that's you, I definitely recommend doing some mindset work around body acceptance and knowing that your workouts and your nutrition manipulations will only get you so far. You also have to start accepting your body type for what it is. 1s All right. Number five is cutting out food groups or carbs specifically for weight loss slash health. I would say mostly we do these things for weight loss, not necessarily health. And obviously if you are doing, you know, any sort of vegan diet for moral reasons, that's a different story altogether. What I'm talking about is like when we cut carbs, cut fat, or whatever sugar for the purpose of losing weight. I really stayed away from carbs for like years. I had this big fear of like, veering away from like a quote unquote paleo thing. So I would very much avoid bread, gluten, any sort of things like that without even thinking about it. It almost just became this unconscious thing that I did was just like, never eat carbs. And wow, I still am kind of unraveling that mindset and that behavior pattern for myself. Um, but I definitely don't see a value in cutting out a food group, especially as females. Our hormones really do require a good blended ratio of our macronutrients. So that's your protein, carbs, and fats. And when we pull back on one of those so significantly, sometimes it can really hinder our hormone production and it's not doing us any favors. And when we're looking at body composition, it really doesn't matter our carb to our fat ratio, right? When it really what matters if you're trying to lean out is total calorie intake. And then we want to keep protein high to minimize any sort of muscle loss. So we don't need to obsess over cutting fat or cutting carbs. And really you're going to hinder your workout performance. You're not going to feel as good. And you can even end up, you know, hindering some hormone productions which can lead to some metabolic dysregulation. So it's not doing you any favors to cut carbs. That's not going to be the answer you think it is. So when people are like, oh, I cut carbs and I lost £20, or I cut sugar and I lost £20, they were putting themselves in a calorie deficit by means of cutting out a food group that maybe they were overeating. So yes, you can absolutely lose weight doing a low carb diet, a low fat diet, you know, low anything diet. But really all they're doing is lowering their total calorie intake by avoiding some of these foods. You don't have to avoid them altogether. You could still throw in a bagel, throw in a bowl of cereal, a piece of bread, a dessert. But just look at your total daily amounts and focus on those portion sizes without the restriction, because chances are you're not going to cut carbs for the rest of your life. So then what do you do when you reintroduce those things? Right? Then you're probably just going to be back at square one. So learning how to moderate your intake of all things is really going to be the best way to set you up for long term success, which is definitely what we focus on in Mountain Metabolic program versus just cutting things out altogether. Um, and definitely there's, you know, it's a it's a process to kind of undo that. So I would say if you are someone who's been doing that for years and you're trying to get back to more intuitive, well-rounded eating, give yourself grace because this doesn't happen overnight. 1s Um, okay. Number six is thinking that another diet would be the thing that would finally get me results or get me to lose weight. So kind of just chasing diet from diet to diet. And I really craved those black and white rules. And this is why we don't do what black and white food rules within mountain metabolic coaching, because they can be kind of a crutch. They can be something that we say, oh, I want rules. I want to be told I can't have carbs. I want to be told I can't have these certain foods. I want to be told I can't eat past 6 p.m. or the kitchen closes after dinner or whatever. Um, because they feel like these parameters that we can live under. But then the second that we quote unquote break those rules, then we shame spiral typically, and we're off the wagon. And it's just a vicious cycle. This is why I don't like the black and white food rules. I so much more appreciate the well-rounded approach that lends itself to real life. Like real life is not always going to be so neat and perfect. And tidy in black and white. There's going to be gray area things. There's going to be social events and times when you do want some comfort food and, you know, just imperfect situations. It's not always going to be so perfect. So when we tried to put everything in a box nice and tidy, then when the imperfect situations come up, we don't know what to do. So moderation all the way. Like I will definitely stand on that soapbox forever. If we can't learn moderation, then we're going to probably stay in a like vicious cycle of dieting, um, or dieting mindset for a very, very long time, which is a sucky place to be. Um, all right. The next one is just having kind of short term thinking when it came to metabolic health. So I was really not focused on how to support my metabolism as a female and how to support my overall female health. I was more worried about manually burning calories through things like cardio and hit, um, dieting, which if you're doing it chronically, whether you realize it or not, can definitely suppress metabolic health and lower your basal metabolic rate over time. And then not just looking holistically at female health, things like stress and sleep and over exercising and inflammation and all of these things that really affected my results or lack thereof, and also how I was feeling. Not really looking at the signs and symptoms, like not having a cycle for years. As a early 20s female that is super not normal. That was my body telling me that something was off. So really kind of looking at some of these things and challenging them like, okay, is this normal or have I just accepted this as normal? And am I supporting my health the best way that I possibly can? Or am I kind of just sort of starving myself behind, you know, saying I'm doing intermittent fasting or have I become really obsessive over my workouts where I'm just kind of running to burn calories because I over eight yesterday and I'm punishing myself. I get real with yourself if you're actually supporting your health, or if some of these things are more orthorexia behaviors, which I definitely have fallen prey to in the past. Um, number eight is trying to follow strict meal plans, so I am not a advocate of meal plans. I don't think that they are typically helpful, especially for goal of like just getting into good food habits and weight loss. If you have like very specific health concerns that you're trying to eat around, working with a registered dietitian with, you know, a strict meal plan might be the way to go. Or like if you're in an elimination diet or something like that. But just for the average person who's trying to eat healthy and lose weight, I don't like strict meal plans where it's like, okay, this is exactly what you eat for breakfast. Then for lunch, you're having chicken and broccoli, and then for dinner you're having fish and rice and steamed spinach. Um, I don't think that these things are sustainable. They're boring. They don't allow for spontaneity. They don't allow for, like, a lot of enjoyment or socialization. And then if you veer off the plan, you're going to feel guilty or like you're breaking some sort of rules. And again, there's no exit strategy. Like if you do that and you're just following it by the book, then what about when that meal plan ends or you're bored with it, or you just don't want to pay for it anymore? Like, how are you sustaining those habits? So I think that having some like, recipe ideas can actually be helpful. Having some examples, but not having something that's so strict that's like, I have to eat this every single day. Otherwise I am failing my diet. Number nine, thinking that certain types of exercises would make me longer and leaner versus. Be looking. And this is a super persistent myth in the fitness industry. Um, that very much frustrates me as a fitness professional, but I definitely kind of fell victim to it about ten years ago. So I definitely know that mindset as a female because of all the predatory marketing that's out there for females. So one thing that's important to understand is that muscles don't, um, they don't tone, they don't, um, you know, you can't like, tone a muscle. You can only grow or shrink a muscle. So what you want to do with your workouts is grow your muscles. Because lean mass is so important for longevity functionality. As we get older, better bone density, better metabolism, better body composition, um, but there's no workouts that are going to, um, quote unquote hone your muscles. Okay, so that's not really a thing that happens within the body. All that we can do is we can grow a muscle or we can lose muscle. So when we're doing resistance training, we want it to be with the goal of gaining muscle or maintaining muscle. So you don't need to listen to these things that say like, oh, well, that workout will bulk your muscles and this workout will lean out or tone or shred your muscles. Those are just words that are kind of used to target female psyche that like, it's just ingrained in us that toned and lean is better than gain muscle or bulk. Um, so those words are definitely, um, not my favorite. And I don't like that. They are used to like, target female emotions and female brains. When we are thinking about the type of exercise that we want to engage in. So focusing on having as much muscle on your frame as you can is the best thing that you can do. And studies show that you can really do this even with a lower weight, higher rep range. As long as we are working those muscles as close to failure as possible. So whether that's with a moderate weight that you're doing 12 reps with or that's heavy, heavy weight that you're only doing for 6 to 8 reps, or that's lightweight that you're doing for 30 to 50 reps, obviously you can elicit the same result in less time if you're just lifting heavier weights. You don't need to be afraid of that. It's not going to bulk your muscles versus lightweight, high rep, quote unquote toning. And I, I just want to kind of break that myth for you. If that's something that still kind of persists in your mind. And number ten, our final one is not being honest about intake. And this is food and alcohol and how weekends were really derailing my progress. Like, I feel like for a long time I wasn't super honest with myself about that. I would track during the week and be like so on it and do all my workouts and crush it. And then on the weekends, I would just kind of throw caution to the wind and have three days, or I'd be like drinking way more, eating way more. As a result. Not paying attention to all to what I was eating like, it didn't even make sense. Like during the week I was paleo, like low carb, being super careful about these things. And then on the weekend I just went to the full opposite end of the spectrum. And I think especially in your 20s, that's an easy thing to do because you're going out more, that's more like maybe a part of your lifestyle. But that definitely held me back for a long, long time. So if you're not honest about your intake and really, really taking a look at it, I mean, so many people will say like, I can't lose weight no matter what I eat. I'm eating 1200 calories a day and I'm not losing weight. Um, but then you actually look at what they're tracking. And usually this is kind of crazy. Studies have shown that we underreport by 50%. 50%, you guys. That's crazy. But it's so often that we can just say like, oh, I'm, you know, I'm not. I'm eating healthy, I'm not overeating. And we don't really look at like the serving sizes, the calorie amounts in things, the little snacks, the little sips, all of these things that add up or like our weekend eating versus weekday eating. So really just being honest about that intake, even if it's just for a season of being really meticulous and really paying attention. Okay, that wraps it up. I hope that this has been insightful, kind of just bearing all of my mistakes with fitness and nutrition that I've made over the years, but I hope that it helps somebody. And this is the exact type of stuff that we work through in Mountain Metabolic coaching. So if you're just feeling stuck and you need a professional to work with you, I honestly cannot recommend it enough because having that accountability, knowing someone's going to be asking you the right questions, troubleshooting through the things that maybe you've been stuck in, patterns you've been stuck in for years, and you need a third party professional to help. There is nothing wrong with that, and it's so cool to actually get to the end of the year and say, I did it. I invested in myself, I made the hard changes, I did the hard work, and I'm in a different spot. I'm in a better spot. I actually did the things that I set out to do. So the last thing I want is for you next year, this time to be stuck in the exact same spot that you were right now, listening to this episode. So let's make some changes. The application form is in the show notes the link for it. So just click that and that will kind of guide you to a series of questions. And then I will be reaching out to chat with you. All right you guys, thank you so much for tuning in and I will see you in the next episode. 1s Thanks for tuning in to this episode of the fit for hiking podcast. As always, I hope it leaves you feeling inspired and informed on how to take your health and adventure into your own hands. For more content like this, be sure to follow along with my daily posts at Ponytail Underscore. On a trail that's ponytail underscore on a trail. You can also stay up to date on my new episodes being released at Fit Underscore for hiking, and find more free resources at ponytail on a trail comm. Happy and healthy trails.