Fattener: Avoid these everyday mistakes

Are you not losing weight despite a supposedly exemplary diet and regular sports sessions, but are you even gaining weight? This could be due to the following everyday mistakes, which unfortunately turn out to be fattening.

Fattening: Avoid These 7 Behaviors

1. Go shopping hungry

A simple thought explains why this mistake can make you fat: you can only eat the foods you have on hand. If you reach into the chip bag in the evening, it is not your lack of discipline that is to blame , but your shopping behavior. If there are no chips in the house, you can’t eat them either. Well-planned shopping is therefore the be-all and end-all for a healthy diet. Always make a detailed shopping list in advance, from which you do not deviate – preferably digitally, since you probably always carry your smartphone with you. More importantly, never go shopping when you’re hungry or craving. Tasty packaging images and cheap candy specials will make it impossible for you to resist a growling stomach.

2. Use convenient means of transport

In order to stay in shape, maintain their desired weight or lose excess weight, many people focus on intensive workouts in the gym or long jogging sessions. This is of course commendable and also advisable. However, some amateur athletes are surprised that, despite regular training, they have a few extra pounds or fat pads on their ribs that just don’t want to go away. The methods of locomotion in our everyday life could be responsible for this. Do you drive to work comfortably in the morning or do you take a bus or train almost from door to door?A potentially fattening behavior. This is how you miss the opportunity to increase your daily amount of exercise in the simplest way. Think of it like this: if you cycle to work, say, 20 minutes, you can easily incorporate a 40-minute cardio session into your daily routine. After five working days you have already covered 200 minutes a week on the bike – without having to pull yourself together for an intensive workout.

Tip:  If you live in a rural area or are dependent on the car, bus or train for other reasons, you can still increase your activity level with these simple tricks: Park your car several streets away from your destination and walk the rest of the way. When using the bus or train, get off one or more stops earlier and walk the rest of the way.

3. Snacking

Of course you know that sugary snacks like chocolate bars or gummy bears make you fat.  However , not everyone is aware that healthier foods such as fruit or a slice of wholemeal bread with cottage cheese as a snack can slow down weight loss and even lead to  fat storage . This is related to our blood sugar levels and the insulin response of our pancreas. When we eat, insulin is responsible for moving the sugar in our blood to where it is needed – to the muscles, brain or other organs. Since insulin is a so-called  anabolic hormone it promotes muscle growth on the one hand, but also the build-up of fat mass on the other. Constant insulin releases from small snacks ultimately lead to our  liver  getting too much sugar, converting it into fat and having to store it in our depots.

And this phenomenon can also be observed in studies: In a 6-year  Danish experiment  with over 2000 test persons, the  fat mass  and  body fat percentage increased  over the course of those people who ate fewer main meals but many small snacks in between of the years significantly. On the other hand, those who  ate several large main meals without any snacks in between even lost weight during the test period.

4. Diets

Most trend diets revolve around prohibitions and renunciations – be it the renunciation of carbohydrates, fats or the ban of all sweets. On the one hand, such bans are far too general, for example, all carbohydrates are demonized, although refined sugar is the real problem and whole grain cereals, on the other hand, contain healthy minerals and fiber. On the other hand, prohibitions force people into a tight corset of action from which one would like to break out quickly after just a few days, which only encourages “relapses” and the desire for the forbidden. In addition, crash diets usually work with too high a calorie  deficit of 1000 calories or more. Due to the extremely reduced calorie intake, our body gets into the Hunger metabolism  – a kind of economy mode. He tries to store fat for starvation and instead breaks down energy-hungry muscles.

Tip: In order to lose weight in a healthy and long-term manner, you should make a fundamental change in diet – more vegetables, legumes and whole grains, fewer finished products and cook yourself as often as possible.

5. Sitting for long periods of time

Sitting is rightly called the new smoking. After all, sitting for hours without a break causes our muscles to atrophy, our hearts to weaken and our calorie consumption to drop significantly. As a result, we are almost forced to gain weight – even evening leisure time sport cannot compensate for the eight hours of sitting in an office job. The only solution is to take regular breaks, where we go for a walk or climb and descend a few stairs to stimulate our circulation and also give our eyes a break. In the ideal case, we stand at the latest every 60 minutesup and move our entire body once – a few minutes are enough. A height-adjustable desk and an active lunch break can also prevent chronic damage and weight gain.

6. Eat in front of the screen

Do you devote your full attention to the food during your meals or do you watch an exciting, thrilling series? Unfortunately, the latter applies to the majority of us – and that can take revenge on the scales. Because our feeling of satiety depends heavily on how much we perceive the process of eating ourselves. Smell, look, chew, feel, taste – all these sensory stimuli signal to our body that we are absorbing nutrients and that we will soon feel full . If we only eat on the side – on the way to work, under time stress at the computer or in front of the TV in the evening – we tend to eat a lot more and ignore our stomach distension.

Tip: It is therefore best to eat your meals completely free of distractions or at least limit the entertainment to auditory stimuli, eg relaxed music or a podcast.

7. Too little sleep

Several studies have already shown that reduced sleep quality and a shorter sleep duration can affect weight . Two mechanisms seem to be responsible for this: On the one hand, we tend to have ravenous hunger and appetite when we are overtired. On the other hand, a lack of sleep is reflected in the metabolic processes of our muscle and fat cells . The so-called glycolysis – the carbohydrate combustion of our muscles – is significantly reduced after a night of drinking. At the same time, our fat cells store more substance. If it doesn’t work out with losing weight, bad sleep or too little sleep can also be to blame.

Tip: Turn off all screens at least an hour before going to bed, as both their light and the processing of series, films, etc. keep our heads and bodies awake.