Are You Suffering From Analysis Paralysis?
By Sheila • Oct 10th, 2008 • Category: Fat Loss
I recently ran across this article, A Microscope Keeps You Fat, written by Chad Waterbury. In this article, Chad speaks to individuals who are far from their goal, yet get confused by and wrapped up in the finer points of fat loss, rather than concentrating on the big picture. He reminds us to keep it simple, focus on the basics, and not get overwhelmed by the details.
If you still have a long way to go on your fat loss journey, take a look a few of Chad’s great tips.
Nutrition
- Artificial sweeteners are the last thing you should focus on at this point when it comes to fat loss. Rather than researching which is better for you, Splenda or Equal, you should instead be looking at your total carbohydrate intake and what sources you are getting your carbs from. The focus should be on whole food sources, not packaged foods, take-out, or lattes.
- Fructose (and fruit) is not bad for you. If you are consuming a balanced ratio of protein, carbs, and fats, leaning heavy on natural food sources, you don’t need to worry so much about details like fructose intake.
- Focus on achieving at least your body weight, in grams, of protein. This is more important than whether or not you are eating complete proteins over incomplete.
Don’t overanalyze your diet. Step back and look at the big picture, not the minute details. Big changes lead to big results.
Exercise
- Focus on whole body workouts, consisting of compound exercises over single-joint exercises, as they burn the most fat. Think lunges with an overhead press rather than bicep curls.
- Keep rest periods short and loads and/or total reps high when training for fat loss.
You can check out the full article on Figure Athlete, here.
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Great post! I just inspired a friend to lose weight when I told her I lost 130 pounds by getting rid of analysis paralysis. During the first week of a fresh attempt at weight loss, I found myself spending five minutes analyzing whether to eat all, some, or none of a very tempting chocolate treat. That’s when I remembered the closing to Barry Schwartz’s book The Paradox of Choice. I realized my analysis of every food decision was (1) adding to the anxiety that drove my food cravings and (2) using up a lot of time better spent building relationships with people, instead of food. I decided to follow just a handful of rules, but follow them without any more analysis. It worked beautifully!
Good post and it’s a great article.
It’s so true how people get wrapped up in the minutia too soon when looking to lose weight. Like in one of the tips above people read how fructose is supposed to be bad for you and then read how fruit has fructose in. So they then worry about removing fruit from their diet - yeah, like eating fruit got you into that state in the first place :-). Just concentrate on eating healthy and moving more seems to get a lot of people towards their goal.
Thanks Patty and Jon for the great input. We tend to complicate things so much by thinking, and thinking, and thinking about them. We all intrisically know what is good for our bodies, but it’s easy to get caught up in wanting to eat something else, so we focus on ways to eat that instead and still gain the same results. Then we don’t see the results, and wonder why the *diet* is not working.