It did not work.
Jenna Rizzo, a women’s weight loss coach from Georgia, shares five common fitness habits that she says were never helping her body or mind.
“When I first started getting into fitness, I literally knew nothing. Like everyone else, I turned to social media for advice,” Lizzo revealed to her 77.3K TikTok followers. Last month’s clip.
“Over the years, I’ve developed a lot of healthy habits, but they’ve done more harm than good,” she continued. “I’ll tell you what they are, and you’ll make much more progress than I did.”
Rizzo’s list of things to avoid include going too hard at the gym, following dietary rules, trying to look like others, using shame as a motivator, and not prioritizing sleep.
Working too hard at the gym
“You don’t need to go to the gym and hit it hard multiple times a week,” Rizzo says. “You’re not going to transform your body the way you want to, and you’re going to wear yourself out quickly. So I tell my clients now, [that] We want to inspire, not annihilate.”
Research in 2021 Excessive exercise has been found to increase the risk of atrial fibrillation, an irregular heartbeat, and has also been linked to rhabdomyolysis, a rare disease characterized by the breakdown of excessive muscle. Symptoms include muscle pain and swelling, weakness and fatigue, dark urine, or little or no urination.
“Exertional rhabdomyolysis can occur after strenuous exercise or high-intensity training where muscles are overworked.” Dr. Nilufer Novakt Associate Clinical Professor of Nephrology at UCLA I said last year“Rhabdomyolysis can also develop as a result of direct trauma, such as a pressure injury from a car accident or fall.”
To promote optimal health, UCLA health experts recommend incorporating rest days, varying the intensity and length of your training, eating a balanced diet, staying hydrated and getting enough sleep.
Assigning rules to foods
“Saying things like, ‘This is bad for me, so I shouldn’t eat it,’ or ‘I didn’t work out today,’ or ‘I can only eat carbs in the morning, not in the evening,’ is obviously very damaging to your relationship with food,” Rizzo explained.
“In fact, this got me into a cycle of overeating and restricting that took me a long time to break,” she added. “No food is inherently good or bad. Some foods are less nutritious and some are a little more. Approach it with that mindset.”
While there’s no one-size-fits-all healthy eating plan, experts agree that it’s important to eat a variety of fruits, vegetables, whole grains, protein, and dairy products (or fortified soy alternatives).
Make yourself look like someone else
“At the end of the day, no matter how much you admire someone’s body type and say that’s your goal, you’re never going to have that exact body type,” Rizzo said.
“Even if you eat exactly like them and do exactly like them, you’re not going to look exactly like them,” she continued, “so put that out of your mind and be the best version of yourself.”
Using shame as a motivator
“I would beat myself up if I ate something I shouldn’t have or missed a workout I shouldn’t have,” Rizzo recalled. “Over time, I developed an overall negative perception of myself, my fitness, and healthy eating, which was bad.”
Instead of beating yourself up if you stray from your workout routine, adopt an attitude that “every movement is valuable and every movement matters,” says Michelle Seger, PhD, a sustainable change researcher at the University of Michigan and author of “Choosing Joy: How to Achieve Lasting Change with Food and Exercise.” He told The Wall Street Journal last year.
As stated in Physical Activity Guidelines for AmericansAdults should aim for 150 minutes of moderate activity and two days of strength training per week. This doesn’t mean you have to go to the gym — it could be something like a brisk walk or weeding your garden.
Not prioritizing sleep
Adults should aim for 7-9 hours How much sleep do you get per night? Chronic sleep deprivation These include obesity, high blood pressure, high cholesterol, diabetes, as well as depression, anxiety and poor mental health.
“You don’t need to train seven days a week, three or four days is enough,” Rizzo argued. “You’re not going to make any real progress if you’re only sleeping six or seven hours a night.”
