watered-down asymmetrical physique . The harder your intensity in the gym , the more you will boost your metabolism and dig into every ounce of fat to use as energy . Nowadays , there are those who are too afraid of overtraining . They hold themselves back mentally and this is why they don ' t push hard . Most have nothing to worry about as it ' s an extremely small percentage of people that I ' ve ever seen who can actually train hard enough to reach a point where overtraining will set them back . Not to mention , it doesn ' t just happen overnight it takes a long time for overtraining to occur .
Being too scared of losing muscle- Losing muscle really sucks ! I ' ve seen it happen , and it ' s happened to myself as well ! But it also doesn ' t happen overnight . The easiest ways to maintain your muscle mass are eating enough protein , not losing more than or 1 to 1.5 % of your body weight every week , and the hardest one to achieve , is to keep training , intensity and performance high in the gym . If you ' re maintaining most of your strength as your body weight and body fat keep coming down , there ' s a very good chance that you ' re not losing muscle .
The moment that you begin drastically dropping your loads , losing weight very fast and giving less effort in the gym , that can be a sure way to lose muscle mass . Make sure to keep the above things in order while digging deep into yourself and pushing the body fat levels as low as possible and you ' ll continue seeing amazing results .
Being overly stressed- Stress can drastically affect the way we mentally feel and also a lot of the hormonal processes we want to optimize in order to have a great and healthy physique . Sometimes a blend of emotional stress mixed with physical stress will tend to affect our sleep dramatically which can affect our recovery . It also leads to an imbalance in cortisol which leads to a not very nice-looking physique . Make sure to keep stress low during your preparation by just being mindful and focusing on proper mental and physical recovery . Techniques like journaling , prayer , meditation , yoga , and just paying attention to recovering as best as possible will be key .
Not giving yourself enough time to prepare- you may have all your ducks in order , but if you don ' t give yourself enough time , you won ' t have the opportunity to go from lean to shredded . It ' s great if you can be disciplined for a few weeks , but can you do it for a few months without breaking ? That consistency of effort through time without deviating what will dictate if you ' re a champion or if you only put effort in the short term .
Seeing cheat meals and refeeds as necessary- It sure is nice to eat extra food when you have been in a caloric deficit . Sometimes it actually helps the dieting process by improving training performance and boosting metabolism when implemented at the right time . The problem becomes when individuals begin to have them purely for mental reasons and they have to have them on specific days even if their body does not need them . One large cheat meal can completely undo a full week of dieting hard . I have seen it happen and it sure is not worth undoing so much hard work in