9 Things NO ONE TELLS YOU about Losing Weight

We're told that reducing our body fat is going to improve our lives make us healthier and help us feel more confident and even though all of this can be true there are some things about weight loss that no one really wants to talk about these things are swept under the rug so to speak because they don't go along with the narrative that the fitness industry stands by which is the idea that losing weight and burning fat always works out for the best no matter what . 

So today i want to go over 10 truths about weight loss that no one really tells you but you definitely should know and the very first thing that we have to talk about is the prevalence of body dysmorphia in fitness you would think that as you lose weight and as you develop a more aesthetic looking body you'll become happier with the way you look which will increase confidence in all other areas of your life and even though yes many level-headed people will experience these amazing benefits from dieting and exercising .

I know first hand how easy it is to get sucked into the mindset that your body is never good enough some of the most unconfident socially awkward and self-critical people that i've ever met have been bodybuilders and physique competitors with amazing looking bodies most people would kill to have a body like the really fit looking people that you see in magazines and in competitions but little do you know that any slight flaw that many of these fit people perceive on their bodies become drastically magnified and that creates massive amounts of stress in their lives these issues can be as silly as legitimately stressing over your bicep being 17 inches instead of 18 inches also keep in mind that if this obsession over slight imperfections or even sometimes non-existent flaws .

If these affect bodybuilders they also affect regular people that just want to get into better shape now even though the data does show that only about 2.5 percent of males and 2.2 percent of females in the united states live with body dysmorphic disorder the rate of body dysmorphia is much higher for regular gym goers as shown by a cross-sectional study where researchers found that almost 40 percent of the regular gym participants surveyed were at risk of body dysmorphia that's insane guys especially since this is a fixation that significantly interferes with daily life and can lead to depression as well as unhealthy choices like crash dieting becoming bulimic and abusing steroids so do your best to keep a level head and set achievable goals that prioritize your health at least as much if not more than your aesthetics now another negative about weight loss that you don't typically hear about is the problem with excess skin when you gain a lot of body fat your skin becomes stretched and if it stays like that for a long period of time the skin loses some of its elastic components creating a loose skin look after someone loses a substantial amount of weight keep in mind not everyone will have excess skin after losing weight factors like your genetics your age the length of time that you were carrying around the excess body fat for and the total amount of weight that you lost all of these things play a role in what your skin looks like afterward typically people that have either carried the excess fat around for many years or people that lose a lot of weight like a hundred pounds or more both of these types of people are more at risk for developing saggy skin one of the best natural preventative measures that you can take for loose skin happens to be weight training so make sure that you include resistance training as a part of your weight loss workout plan rather than just dieting and performing cardio another fact that you won't really hear about is that dieting in a restrictive way or getting too lean can cause reproductive issues including but not limited to erectile dysfunction in fact if you're one of the many people that has searched for how to get under eight seven or even six percent body fat .

I can pretty much guarantee you that if you are successful at getting that lean things downstairs aren't going to be working quite the same until you bring your body fat percentage back up to a sustainable level now don't get me wrong being overweight or obese is bad for reproductive health as well because excess body fat raises estrogen and reduces testosterone but very few people know that being too lean can do the same for example in a study that examined the hormonal profiles of male bodybuilders for six months before and after their competition the bodybuilders were able to reduce their body fat percentage from an average of 14.8 percent to 4.5 percent at the same time testosterone levels declined from 9.22 nanograms per milliliter to 2.27 nanograms per milliliter keep in mind that anything below 2.5 is considered low testosterone this is why natural bodybuilders usually have no sex drive weeks and sometimes months before getting on stage and this often also pairs with erectile dysfunction the good news according to the same study is that testosterone levels return back to the baseline level of 9.91 nanograms per milliliter during the weeks and months following the competition so the adverse effects are not permanent but unless you're aiming to compete you might want to avoid going too low in body fat percentage and instead if you're a man aim for a range of around 8 to 14 body fat and if you're a woman you should aim for at least 14 to 20 percent body fat also in general for optimal hormonal health make sure that you're eating enough fats when you diet never allow your fat intake to drop below 20 percent of your total calorie intake moving on next is the fact that overweight people do not actually have a slower metabolism way too many people believe that skinny people are genetically blessed because they have a fast metabolism meanwhile heavier people are genetically cursed because they have a slow metabolism but this is complete and utter nonsense in fact it's the opposite research indicates that the heavier you are the higher your resting metabolic rate tends to be so overweight people actually have faster metabolisms than people that maintain a lighter weight this makes a lot of sense .

If you think about it the more mass that you have the more energy it'll take for your body to maintain and move around that mass the next fact that no one tells you is that if you spend enough time consistently exercising you will more than likely run into an injury and unfortunately no amount of stretching mobility work or perfecting your form can fully prevent this risk of injury to give you a better idea we can look at some stats for example between 1990 and 2007 we have data showing that over 970 000 people were treated in emergency rooms for weight training related injuries out of those people 114 of them died now keep in mind this isn't intended to scare you 114 deaths over the course of 17 years is tiny so you're almost definitely not going to die while lifting weights however an injury is a lot more likely it's estimated that almost 460 000 people were injured while exercising or using exercise equipment in the year of 2012 alone when it comes to strength training specifically the chances of sustaining an injury while lifting weights can be measured at a rate of 2.4 to 3.3 injuries per thousand training hours and if you're training about five hours a week you'll hit a thousand training hours within four to five years so you should almost expect some form of minor injury over that time length now this isn't saying that you shouldn't exercise because you create massive risks of injury in everyday life if you don't exercise simple situations like walking up a flight of stairs or lifting something off the floor is more likely to lead to an injury if you let yourself become physically deconditioned by avoiding exercise so definitely exercise just understand that given a long enough timeline you will probably get some kind of minor injury and your responsibility is to recover and get your butt back into your workout routine or else you will reverse all of your fat loss and muscle building progress within just a few months another major fact about losing weight that most people don't know is that cardio is not the most effective way to lose weight .

We can see this for example in a meta-analysis of 14 other studies involving a little under 2 000 overweight and obese people that found that isolated aerobic exercise or cardio was not an effective weight loss therapy another meta-analysis one that mostly examined cardio found that adding cardio to a diet plan did not increase weight loss more than simply dieting without doing any cardio at all the difference in weight loss was 0.3 kilograms which is nothing now there are a couple reasons why cardio doesn't tend to be ideal for weight loss one is that it constrains energy expenditure which means that it often causes people to reduce their general activity levels and energy expenditure throughout the rest of the day which could counteract the calories burned during the cardio resistance training on the other hand tends to not cause constrained energy expenditure which is why it's generally more effective for weight loss and body composition in general this doesn't mean that you shouldn't do any cardio at all just understand that according to the evidence resistance training tends to be more effective for losing weight and keeping it off than cardio another thing that no one seems to tell people that are trying to lose weight is that your intake of micronutrients which are vitamins and minerals are crucial for weight loss just like your intake of macronutrients you probably heard many times that losing weight is all about burning more calories than you consume which is true to lose weight you must be in a calorie deficit but this does not mean that micronutrients are irrelevant they're absolutely not vitamins and minerals play an important role in body weight management that's because all of them are in one way or another involved in processes related to your body composition.

Let's take a look at zinc for example not getting enough of this mineral can reduce thyroid production which in turn can prevent weight loss by slowing down your metabolism and if you're zinc deficient this effect could be significant for example in a study someone with a zinc deficiency was able to increase their resting metabolic rate by 527 calories per day simply by fixing that deficiency so yes at the end of the day losing weight is about burning more calories than you consume but in order to do that consuming enough micronutrients including zinc is vital another example is calcium this mineral helps your body burn fat for fuel which is why some data indicates it might aid fat loss and help you prevent regaining lost pounds another weight loss fact that most people don't realize is that not all forms of stress make you fat it's very common to assume that stress causes fat pain but stress by itself doesn't actually make you fat in fact acute stress may even assist with fat loss since acute stress tends to reduce hunger this makes sense since it activates the fight or flight system and if that system gets activated your body is more worried about staying alive than consuming food which leads to a reduction in hunger it's more so chronic stress that you have to be afraid of because it depletes your willpower making it harder to stay on track with your diet chronic stress is more likely to make you reach for junk food because junk food stimulates the production of feel-good opioids which lowers cortisol by inhibiting something known as the hpa access so people that are in a constant state of stress self-medicate with unhealthy foods to cope with that stress causing them to take in too many calories if you're struggling with chronic stress consider adding a daily meditation routine since it's been proven to be very beneficial for chronic stress last but not least is the fact that steroids are a lot more prevalent in the gym than you might think and many people that are interested in losing fat end up trying steroids without realizing that if they're used you can end up with severe side effects especially if they're used incorrectly it's estimated that 2.9 to 4 million americans have used steroids between the ages of 13 to 50. 

Most beginners associate steroids with muscle growth rather than with fat loss but research shows that when you create an androgen deficiency by reducing hormones like testosterone for example you end up increasing body fat on the other hand if you increase testosterone it'll have the opposite effect and it'll assist with fat loss but even though many people are aware of the adverse physiological effects that can happen in response to using steroids fewer people seem to be aware of the psychological effects that they can have for example research suggests that about 32 percent of people who take steroids become dependent on the drug most people also don't realize that it's common for steroid users to experience withdrawal symptoms when quitting steroids and sometimes the symptoms are severe they can include things like fatigue loss of appetite restlessness insomnia reduced confidence reduced sex drive and sexual issues on top of that research shows that withdrawal can also cause depression leading to all kinds of other issues and the worst part is that steroid use can cause long-lasting or even permanent damage to the endocrine system this could make someone dependent on steroids for the rest of their life or they will experience the consequences like low libido and erectile dysfunction so those are nine very rarely talked about facts regarding weight loss .