It never fails.

 

If you’re working out with a quality exercise program, giving your honest to goodness 100% efforts in the gym, and eating a “healthy” diet tailored towards fat loss, but aren’t losing any weight, then you are a sinner! 

 

Or rather, you’re guilty of committing one of the cardinal sins of fat loss.  But have no fear, poor misguided soul; the road to salvation still lies ahead for you. 

 

Your penance?  To read this list of the 7 most common sins that shut down fat burning in your body, commit it to memory, and take our advice to heart!

 

1) Alcohol consumption

 

One of the biggest mistakes people make is drinking alcohol while on a fat-loss program.  Having alcohol will stop fat burning in it’s tracks. 

 

Here’s why: Your liver is Mission Control with regards to fat burning – not only does it decide to turn fat burning on and off, it also decides where the fat being burned comes from (your arms vs your abs, for example).  When you consume alcohol, it makes its way over to the liver for processing and elimination. 

 

Unfortunately, the liver is a poor multitasker, and since ridding your body of the toxic alcohol compounds is a higher priority than your six-pack, fat burning gets relegated to the bottom of the “to-do” list. 

 

Alcohol – just say “no thanks.”

 

2) Eating the deadly combination – Carbohydrates and Fat

 

Most of the foods that combine carbohydrates and fat will never make it onto a “best foods for fat loss” list.  Looking at them, it’s easy to see why: cake, mac and cheese, ice cream, Fettucine alfredo…

 

All the foods listed possess the perfect composition trigger fat storage – copious carbohydrate content to cause an insulin spike and surplus of calories from the fat contained in the food, easily transported into your body’s fat cells for energy.

 

Avoid foods with this combination like the plague, even minimizing their intake on cheat days.  They will literally destroy your progress towards fat loss.

 

3) Letting insulin run wild

 

Insulin is a hormone that is responsible for life.  However, if you eat infrequent but huge meals, consume large amounts of carbohydrates, or ingest refined sugars, you can cause large spikes in your blood level of insulin, which facilitates fat storage. 

 

By keeping insulin levels low and steady, you can maintain a fat burning environment and avoid spinning your wheels. 

 

The best ways to maintain a steady, low insulin level are to eat 5-6 small meals a day, to minimize consumption of starchy carbohydrates (limiting them to the specific situations Mike outlines here), and to avoid calorie-containing beverages, like soda, beer, and blended Frappucinos.

 

4) Allowing stress to run your life

 

Chronic levels of stress result in high blood levels of your body’s stress hormone, cortisol. 

 

Cortisol has many useful functions in your body, but over time, elevated levels of cortisol can cause fat storage, particularly around the midsection (the notoriously stubborn and unhealthy visceral fat).  This is the opposite of what we want on a fat loss program.

 

Do things to reduce the stress in your life.  Take a walk outside, play recreational sports, meet with friends and talk about the recursive interactions of the motifs in Bach’s chorales. 

 

You could even do the quick 5 minute breathing meditation in Black Book of Secrets.  Keeping the stress level down will make sure your fat burning engines keep chugging away.

 

5) Not drinking enough water

 

As little as 1-2% dehydration can cause your fat burning mechanism to slow and stop.  It’s estimated that in the average adult, over 65% of their bodies are composed of water.  

 

In overweight and obese persons, however, that percentage drops (since fat contains little water), as low as 38% in extremely overfat people.  What’s this mean?  That the more you have to lose, the easier it is for you to unwittingly slip into dehydration!

 

Maximize your water intake each day – make 64 oz a day your initial goal, then progressively work up to greater volumes, up to a gallon of water daily.  No, this amount of water isn’t toxic – water toxicity occurs when several gallons of water are consumed in an extremely short period of time.

 

128 oz over 24 hours or so is not only safe, it’ll go a long way towards getting you to your fat loss goals.

 

6) Extreme starvation dieting

 

An easy way to make sure your body holds onto every last scrap of fat with a death grip is to dramatically slash the number of calories you eat daily (by 1000 or more, if you really want to do a number on your metabolism). 

 

We’ve written previously about how starving yourself in hopes of losing fat faster actually sabotages your efforts since you’ll be losing muscle tissue, slowing your metabolism, and activating your body’s “starvation alarm”, making it even more resistant to burning body fat for fuel (until really, truly necessary).

 

Having an intelligently planned schedule of 5-6 small but substantial meals spread evenly throughout the day will help keep your body adequately fueled while allowing for the caloric deficit necessary for fat loss.

 

7) Playing the “make-up” game

 

Christopher previously blogged about this phenomenon, but let me summarize it for you here:

 

Individuals playing the “make-up” game cheat all the time on their diets, justifying to themselves by saying, “Well, I’ll just make it up in the gym later.”

 

No, you won’t, and here’s why: Exercising to burn excess calories is a losing battle.  It would take you roughly 45 minutes of running at an 8 mph pace to burn 500 calories, but eating 500 calories takes only a few minutes. 

 

You can effectively slash that time if you chose to drink those 500 calories.  The bottom line – there isn’t enough time in the day to make up the excess of calories you can consume by exercising.

 

Sorry, Virginia; you can’t outrun a crappy diet!

 

The best way to combat this tendency is to avoid it altogether.  Don’t accumulate a debt of excess calories that you intend to pay off later – it doesn’t work for credit cards, and it’s even worse for fat loss.