Motivation is important! However, too much of it can also be harmful – at least when losing weight. We receive emails every day from people looking for help who just can’t get anywhere with losing weight. In most cases the problems are not obvious at first glance. Everyone trains 3 times a week, has a low-carb and healthy diet, and does cardio training regularly. But why are there no weight loss successes?
Over-motivated when losing weight
Athletes who have been actively straining irons for a number of years and straining their running shoes know how sensitively the human metabolism can react to changes in the nutrient balance. Especially during a definition phase, training and nutrition can become real hardship – because every gross mistake is severely punished. But success takes time and requires discipline!
Unfortunately, with many “beginners” time and discipline are in short supply. The majority of those seeking help have little more than 2-3 months of training experience and are one thing above all: impatient. Visible results are expected after a few months, but not always achieved. In addition, the motivation is often not in proportion to realistic progress. Beginners often ignore the fact that every body needs a certain amount of time to adapt to increasing or new types of stress. This applies to the tendons, ligaments and joints as well as to the muscles (hypertrophy). If the motivation of beginners gets too much so that they train 5 or even 6 times a week for an hour or more, sooner or later every body gets into the dangerous and often underestimated overtraining – and once you are “overtrained”, it only helps nor the walk to the doctor. And after the doctor’s visit, there are usually many weeks of compulsory break, during which the love handles gather new strength.
Pedants who have never been particularly active in sports often pursue (over) great goals. Even if the fitness industry likes to suggest that breakthrough weight loss and muscle gain are possible in 14 days, it would be naive to believe that nothing more than an intense Photoshop workout is required here. Let’s be honest: promising weight loss successes, defined abdominal muscles or a broad back are not a gift from God, but the result of many months of hard, constant and disciplined work.
Less is not always more
If it doesn’t work the way you imagine it, you shouldn’t despair right away. First you can e.g. Contact professionals who know what effective strength training and adequate nutrition should look like. If you would like to remain anonymous and do not want to contact your fitness trainer directly (even if advice and assistance are their jobs), you can e.g. use our contact form to get in touch with us.
In order for us to be able to provide targeted help in solving the problem, it is important that you give us some important information in advance that is essential for effective problem solving. These include:
- Age and gender
- Weight and metabolic type
- Training experience (how long have you been training? Are you generally physically active?)
- Training goal (e.g. muscle building, weight loss and fat burning or more endurance)
- Type of training plan (e.g. split training or full-body training) – Ideally: Detailed information about the plan, including number of repetitions and training duration
- Nutrition plan or information about nutrition
This basic information is necessary so that we can assess your situation as precisely as possible. Every body is individual and needs individual advice. The more detailed your information, the more appropriate the advice.
The right tools for real success
If you want to be helped here and there, you will be overwhelmed by the multitude of information and tips on losing weight on the Internet. Some aids are particularly recommended for beginners. For the first impression, we too often use values such as the fat-free mass index (short: FFMI) or body mass index (short: BMI). These values provide rough information about the physical composition of fat and muscle mass. For the rough assessment of beginners, however, the BMI (body mass index) is much more suitable, since parameters such as body fat content are ignored here.
My blogger and strength athlete Thomas Bluhm offers some really useful aids such as the nutrient calculator on his blog got-big. If you tell the tool your daily nutrient intake, you will quickly see whether the training goal (muscle building or fat burning) is in harmony with your own diet or is completely out of hand.
Such aids are suitable for beginners as well as advanced users who would like to optimize their training and document training progress. And the more information you collect, the easier it is to re-stimulate stagnant training success! So turn on the calculator and off to the studio!
With our Hypertrophy Guide you have all the fundamental basics in one hand that you need for a really effective training! Just have a look and get a little overview of the content. A minute of invested time can save many months of valuable training time that you wasted with inefficient training and nutrition methods.