Hidden Calories Destroy Weight Loss

Weight loss can be frustrating.  Many times you think you are following the plan perfectly but are not the results you want because of hidden calories that you do not even notice.

It has to be the diet right?

What do most people do in this situation?

Most end up stopping the lifestyle change all together or go back to their initially bad habits because they think nothing is ever going to happen.

You know you’re not eating the ‘wrong’ foods, and you’re sure that you’ve been hitting your fat loss macros.

So what gives?

You’re probably consuming hidden calories that you don’t even know about…

hidden calories

  1.  The ‘Un-Tracked Calories’

Have you ever been offered something to eat by a friend and thought, “that looks good, I’ll track it later” only to forget when you get home? Or upon reaching the day’s end with a slew of leftover macros, you decide to throw caution to the wind and eat roughly what you’ve got left?

Chances are, neither of these situations will make a huge difference to overall progress, but if you’ve hit a wall and you’re stumped and confused as to why you’re not progressing, then these untracked or loosely estimated calories could be the culprit.

“That looks good, I’ll track it later

This is why it’s so important to log everything, and not just rely on your intuition.  This is especially true the closer you get to your goal.

2.  You Eat Out Too Often

Eating out can (and should) be part of a flexible diet. After all, what kind of life is it if you always have to say no to friends and turn down invites to dinner?

But the thing is, there’s a lot of room for error when eating out. It’s not easy to accurately estimate calories at restaurants, and the larger and more junk-like the meal, the further off you’re likely to be.  Not to mention you have almost zero control or knowledge on how the meal was made, how much it was made with etc.  This is especially true with beginners (people beginning their new habits generally do not know how to intuitively eat just yet)

You’ve got strategies you can use to help you hit your macros when eating out, such as asking for sauces and dressings on the side, picking simple dishes to make estimation easier, requesting that meats be grilled rather than fried, and looking at nutritional data on websites. But chefs can vary in how they prepare your dish, and you still don’t have total control over how your food is cooked.

3.  The Macros are WRONG

Shock, horror! How can macros be wrong? Aren’t there laws about the information that goes on food packages?

When you learn that labeling laws allow for “caloric rounding”…

There are, but manufacturers are sneaky and there are loopholes they can get through. Take the popular sweetener Splenda for example:

While it’s listed as calorie-free, each packet actually contains around 1 gram of carbohydrate and 5 calories! This means that if you have a couple in your morning oatmeal, one pack in every coffee you drink throughout the day, a few more in some Greek yogurt, and so on, you can rack up an extra 15 to 20 grams of carbs and close to 100 calories.

The same goes for calorie-free sauces, spray butter, sugar-free jello, and similar items. The suggested serving sizes are often so small that even though the label says ‘calorie-free,’ but the actual amount you have is closer to 15 or 20 calories. While there’s no need to ban these items, you need to realize that they do still have calories. If you eat a lot of them (as many dieters do in an attempt to combat cravings) then your calorie count will start to add up.

Be on the lookout for sugar-free gum, diet drinks, and even some protein bars too, as these can often list ‘net carbs’ which is the total carb content minus the fiber. To hit macros precisely, you should be tracking the total carb content, fiber and all.

Hidden Calories

4.  Drinking Your Calories

Coffee doesn’t need to be counted in your macros if it’s black. If not, you’ve got to count it.

We’ll leave out coffees like cappuccinos, mochas, and frappuccinos that obviously have calories in them for the moment, but did you know your plain old coffee made at home can increase your calorie intake without you realizing it?

When you add anything to your coffee, be it milk, half-and-half, or other assorted varieties of creamer, that’s calories you’re adding in. These macros should be counted.

5.  Mindless Snacking

When people mindlessly snack, they really do not even pay attention how much they are eating.  They eat 2 oreoes here and a handful of popcorn there and so on.  This causes a massive amount of calories because everything adds up (not too mention, "snacks" are usually not that healthy).  Here at Strive Fitness and Performance we do not use the word "snack".  Most people think of "snacks" as an apple or a piece of cheese.

Instead we want to think of each moment we eat as a meal.

How would you make the "snack" into a meal?

By counting the macros in the meal.  Take the apple.  It is a carb.  So what is missing?  Fats and proteins are the missing component in the equation.  In order to make this "snack" into a more nutritious meal, we could add some peanut butter (fat) and a protein shake (protein).  Now not only are we getting enough food, but we are also more full, which eliminates cravings in the long run.

6.  You Are Eating From A Bag

We’re all guilty of this one:

You eat a handful of trail mix, nuts, chips etc.  No measuring, no portion control.  This may sound harmless, but

A.  You have no idea how much you actually just put into your mouth

B.  You never really stop with just one handful

C.  Think about how many mindless calories the many handfuls throughout the day will add up to.

 

Time to Get Super Strict?

So what are we saying? That you can never eat out? That you have to weigh your veggies to the precise gram? That you must enter every single packet of Sweet n’ Low into your tracking app?

No, not at all…unless you’ve hit a plateau.

Plateaus are going to happen during any fat loss diet, and the go-to step is generally to either reduce calories or add cardio so you stay in a deficit and carry on progressing.

However, if you’re already on low macros and struggling to see why your body isn’t changing in the way you want it to, the first step should be to make sure you’re being honest with yourself and not eating any hidden calories that aren’t being accounted for.

 

 

Losing weight is hard. We focus solely on the number on our scale (mostly because it is fast an easy to do). That number  goes up, it goes down and so does our sanity.

Losing weight it involves spending time at the gym, stopping yourself from eating your favorite foods, and saying “no” to things that make you happy in general and “yes” to things that don’t.

If you’re like most people, you want to see results that justify your hard work.  And that result, more often than not, has to do with seeing that number on the scale go steadily down. So you weigh yourself. Even though you know you shouldn’t, you weigh yourself every day because you need a reason to keep going.

Everything is fine, until the unthinkable happens:  the scale stops going down.  Or, after one “cheat day” you find yourself 8 pounds heavier and you think, “Oh no! Everything I’ve done for the past 2 weeks is for nothing!”  Repeat this a few times and before you know it, you’ve given up on working out and you’ve dumped your diet and are back to squat one.

Sound familiar?

The truth is you were probable doing a great job.  You were just overly focused on the wrong indicators.  Wanting to lose weight is a great goal, but the scale is just a number.  It tells us how much you weigh (water, fat, muscle, bones etc.) not how much fat you have in your body.

Here are some reasons why you should not depend on the scale.

First and foremost…

  1. You’re confusing “weight loss” with “fat loss”

It’s a safe bet to assume that when people want to lose weight, what they really mean is that they want to lose fat.  The problem is, many people use the words “weight loss” and “fat loss” interchangeably, which are two separate concepts.

Losing Weight is not hard– you’ll drop a few pounds if you sit in a sauna for a while.  Fat loss is harder to achieve, depends on several factors, and it takes more time than you think to truly lose it.  Here are a couple key points about fat loss to consider:

Muscle and water are two other components that make up your weight, and when you lose weight, you can lose some of each.  How much of each you lose depends in part on how much fat you have to lose when you start.  Overweight people have more to lose than thin people, and will be able to lose weight faster as well.

Many people set fat loss goals for themselves that are unreasonable (see any challenge/product that will get you to lose 30 lbs in 6 weeks).  The truth is, without going on an unhealthy near-starvation diet, you can only expect to lose 1-2 pounds of fat per week at best.  If you are unsure about whether you are losing weight or fat, contact us for a FREE INBODY ASSESSMENT SCAN
Don’t expect to lose 10 pounds in a week, because even if you do, that weight is not going to be all fat.  Losing muscle is not good for your health, and you will want to preserve it as much as you can.

2.  You’re retaining water due to your salt intake

Salt (or more accurately, sodium) is everywhere and extremely hard to avoid.  It might not surprise you that a single patty cheeseburger contains over 500 mg of sodium (nearly a quarter of the daily recommended levels).

Sodium is linked with water retention, and it is the job of your kidneys to expel unneeded sodium out of your body.  Until your kidneys are able to do that, you will temporarily be holding onto extra water.

So, if you were on a diet but flooded your body with more salt than you normally have, you can expect to see a temporary increase in weight.  It doesn’t mean that all your hard work is for nothing; it just means that you’re experiencing additional water weight because of the extra sodium in your body.

However, there are other factors other than diet that can lead to fluctuating weight on the scale, including…

3.  Your muscle gains are outweighing your fat loss

If you’re lifting weights as part of your strategy to burn fat and lose weight, you’re doing something right!  Adding resistance training to your fat/weight loss plan is a great way to protect and preserve muscle loss as you subtract fat from your frame.  This is why we focus on changing the body fat % of clients, so we focus on not only losing fat, but also focus on getting our clients stronger.

However, if you’re new to weightlifting and you’re pushing yourself hard, you’re going to see some things on the scale that may surprise you.  Your weight might actually not go down; it might go up!  Why?

This is because as you are losing fat, you are replacing that weight with muscle.  Your weight may not go down, but your body fat percentage will.

There are so many things that can affect your weight, so you should never get into the habit of weighing yourself every day.  So if not that, what should you be doing?

As difficult as it sounds, if you are using just a scale to determine your progress, you have to take the averages from your measurements.  This will help us determine trends in your weight and will help you go against going all out for some quick fix or to get to a certain number fast in order to win a competition.

Because your weight is made up of many different elements and can fluctuate for so many different reasons, assessing your weight by tracking your body composition is a much better way to determine how you’re meeting your goals.

Bottom Line!!!  Don’t let the scale trick you!

Don't let your daily and weekly fluctuations in body weight discourage you.  It is completely normal and it does NOT reflect fat loss programs.  If you diet and exercise properly with enough patience and determination, you will reach your goals.

If you need help reaching your goals, contact us here at Strive Fitness and Performance and we can set up a consultation to figure out the right path for you.

Committed to your success,

Derek Ledwidge

Strive Fitness is a Customized Training Program designed specifically for people over 30 years of age. A Personal Training Gym in Clinton Township, Michigan
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