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Most people start the year with good intentions, they eat well, and they quit drinking and smoking and hit the gym. Unfortunately a lot of people are misinformed and follow advice and guidelines that will guarantee nothing but failure.





Let me explain.





Here are the five most common mistakes people make when beginning a new health and fitness programme, the reasons why they don¿t work and what you can do to get your goals back on track¿





Mistake 1.





Following a diet





The best way to lose weight is to eat less right?





Wrong. Whether it be the Atkin¿s diet, the slim fast diet or the cabbage soup diet the only thing you are doing to your body is increasing its ability to store fat.





I¿ve discussed this before but basically if you don¿t eat enough you slow your metabolism and burn less fat as a result. Any weight that is lost on a restricted calorie diet will be predominantly water and muscles mass and by doing this you are almost guaranteed to gain all of the lost weight and more.





Mistake 2.





You don¿t eat any fat





Fat makes you fat?





Wrong!





Here are the facts. It is true that fat is the most calorific of the nutrients we eat. Fat contains 9 calories per gram, whereas carbohydrates and protein contain 4 and alcohol contains 7.





The problem is the saturated fats that you find in processed foods such as biscuits, cakes and sweets that cause weight gain and clog your arteries.





Unfortunately fat has got a bad name, because not all fat is bad.





The unsaturated fats found in oily fish, nuts and pulses are in fact very good for your heart and cholesterol levels. Research also shows that health fats, such as Essential fatty acids, actually help burn fat, as they assist in transporting oxygen to the body¿s tissues.











Mistake 3.





Eat ¿Low Fat¿ foods.





Supermarkets aren¿t stupid, a few years ago, faced with the accusation that ready meals were fattening, they began introducing ¿low-fat¿ versions in an attempt to make us all think we were being really healthy.





Unfortunately, ¿low fat¿ may sound healthy but in order to lose the fat without losing the taste the manufacturers use extra salt, sugar and additives. So eating a low-fat ready meal means you¿re actually consuming unnecessary useless calories.





What do you do?





How about trying natural, unprocessed foods? These foods are so healthy they don¿t need to have bad stuff taken out of it and a fancy label slapped on them. That¿s why they¿re good for you¿.so long as it¿s eaten in moderation!





Mistake 4.





You only do cardio training





Cardio burns fat, weights build muscle. That¿s the simplistic, misguided advice that countless exercise regimes have been built upon.





In fact, weight training is an important element of any fat-loss fitness plan. Firstly, weight training itself can burn over 400 calories per hour and will continue to burn more calories long after you¿ve stopped exercising. Also, if you¿re lifting weights to gain muscle, a greater proportion of your weight loss will come from fat.





Unfortunately most people decide the best way to lose fat is to get in the ¿fat-burning zone¿ and plod along on the treadmill for 60 minutes at a time. The theory is that relatively low-intensity exercise burns more fat than high-intensity exercise. This theory does hold some weight but cardio training for fat loss DOES NOT WORK!





Not only do you burn less calories in the time you exercise but your body releases cortisol while you train which depletes the amount of muscle mass you have creating a reduction in your metabolic rate.





If you want to burn fat then follow high-intensity exercise programmes that burn more calories and start weight training because more muscle mass means less fat!











Mistake 5





You do endless sit-ups





Did you know that for every 100 sit-ups you do, you lose ten pounds of fat? No you didn¿t, because I made it up. - It¿s rubbish!





Unfortunately some people insist on crunching up and down for hours on end, believing that this basic exercise was a miracle fat-loss technique.





The fact is that a crunch exercise performed badly is an extremely dangerous movement for your neck and encourages poor posture, but that aside, even performing 1000¿s of sit-ups a day wont make the slightest difference to your ¿six pack abs¿ if you don¿t eat or exercise in the right way.