The Top 10 Mistakes Made By People Trying To Get In Shape

5 min readMay 10, 2020

The Mistakes At A Glance

11 times out of 10, the biggest enemy we face in the gym is self-sabotage. Before you jump into training, go through this checklist to see if you can save yourself some time off a few misadventures.

1. Not Committing To New Habits

This is by far the most crucial aspect for making shape change a reality. From the first day onwards, it comes down to whether you can work new behaviours into your lifestyle. Otherwise the relapse will be shadowing your every step.

Don’t miss an appointment for a meal prep session. Set a regular bedtime that allows 7–8 hours of sleep. Put your workouts on a calendar. Think of habits that can be integrated into your day and follow them doggedly.

2. Pushing Too Hard

Hatching up more ways to inflict pain on the body can just end up slowing progress to a crawl. Mentally you’ll likely end up feeling bogged down, dreaming of simpler days. Instead of adding stress to a physique that’s not at peak capacity, try to work with it to bring about the change you’re after.

3. Getting Rid Of Fats

It’s not fat itself that makes you fat. An excessive surplus of any macro-nutrient can accomplish that. Without adequate intake of healthy fats during a diet, your hormones will tank and hunger will be an inevitably constant obstacle.

4. Taking Bad Sleep For Gran

Whether you’re looking to pile the weight on or get rid, training is going to be a significant stress that the body needs to recover from. If you’re not averaging over 7 hours, cortisol is going to linger and reach chronic levels. You’re not getting near peak performance with a scuppered metabolism that isn’t able to heal itself.

5. Relying On Supplements

These will never make up for a lack of a healthy, optimised diet. And in most cases, they won’t be doing anything besides taking up cupboard space. Most deficiencies can be corrected by just getting more of the right whole foods that will also then cover for many other nutrients.

6. The Bro Split — Training Everything Once A Week

Muscles need to be stressed and adapted regularly to improve in shape and size, once a week just means you’re taking longer to get there. Granted many have moved on and made peace with the muscle magazine days, but there are still plenty who stick stubbornly by the traditional training split. In this case, less is more, you don’t need to amass 20 sets of curls to make it a productive day.

7. Skipping The Rest Day

Your muscles get stronger at rest. The nervous system also needs time off. Even if you’re having a great run, not making some space for downtime is going to count against progress. Your ability to recover is going to play the greatest part in a successful training season.

8. Training Excessively Long

Again, it’s easy to get caught up in the adrenaline high and end up camping in the gym for three hours. You have to know when to let go. Staying past the point of no return will only end up with you completely drained and disgruntled.

9. Not Enjoying It

Training and dieting doesn’t have to be an unhappy grind, and it shouldn’t be. If you don’t like an exercise, the type of training, the food, find something else. There are plenty of alternatives close at hand, and at least one of them should allow you to throw a few sparks into your fitness game. The weekly grind is a lot easier if passion is allowed to enter the fray.

10. Following Advice Blindly

I’ll put myself under the bus here if necessary. You have to approach the fitness community with a big splash of skepticism. My programmes included. If someone is in shape, you don’t have to hang on their every word. It might be pseudo science, or it may be far from optimal for you. Going by standard advice will have you eventually trying every diet under the sun, and travelling in circles with no clear motive. Consider what your predicament is and what works best for you. Then go info shopping.