8 MORNING HABITS THAT STOP YOU FROM LOSING WEIGHT

Are there morning habits that stop you from losing weight?

Are you unknowingly doing them? Because you need to give yourself a fighting chance.

If you’re trying to lose weight, the last thing you want to do is mess it up first thing in the morning.

Because if you do, you’re basically fighting an uphill battle for the rest of the day. And you’re left wondering why you’re not losing weight.

Unfortunately, there’s no shortage of bad information out there on a range of morning topics like:

What should you eat first thing in the morning to speed up your metabolism?

Should you workout in the morning?

What should you eat after your workout?

A lot of the common answers to these questions are myths or just outdated information that still gets repeated as the truth.

In this video, I’m going to give you 8 morning habits that stop you from losing weight.

8 MORNING HABITS THAT STOP YOU FROM LOSING WEIGHT

1. Eating “Traditional” breakfast foods

Let’s start with a low hanging fruit that a lot of you should already know if you’ve been following my YouTube channel.

What do I mean by traditional breakfast foods?

I’m talking about things like toast, and it doesn’t matter if it’s white or brown bread. They’re no different.

And things like bagels, poptarts, pancakes, waffles, muffins, breakfast cereal, and instant oatmeal, etc.

Eating those foods is one of the worst morning habits that stop you from losing weight. It is a sure fire way to gain weight instead of losing it.

Because those foods are extremely processed. They’re very high in refined flour and sugar and offer no nutritional value.

Not only is a diet high in refined carbs and sugar directly linked to obesity, but it’s also linked to insulin resistance, and diabetes. Also called metabolic syndrome.

If you live in the United States, 2 out of 3 American adults are suffering from it.

Because when you spike your blood sugar and insulin with foods that I just mentioned, it’s almost impossible to lose weight.

You cannot reduce body fat on a diet that chronically stimulates high insulin levels. You just can’t.

But again, we eat these Insulinogenic foods first thing in the morning. And then we down a big glass of orange juice afterwards.

I literally can’t think of a worse way to start your day if you’re trying to lose weight.

Here’s the bigger problem that I want to bring up. This is also the same stuff that we give to our kids.

2/3 of American adults are either overweight or obese. They have metabolic syndrome and childhood obesity is also at an all time high.

You need to give your kid a fighting chance, and it starts with you.

Now, I’m not saying that you shouldn’t eat breakfast. But there’s a world of difference between eating breakfast cereal drowned in skim milk. And you shouldn’t be eating or drinking low fat dairy to begin with. Versus a breakfast of bacon, eggs, and avocado.

You’ll get fuller faster because you’re eating real nutrient dense whole foods. You also won’t have a dramatic spike in insulin levels and you won’t feel the desire to eat more. Eat real food. Don’t eat processed junk.

2. Snacking

When you eat a highly processed sugary breakfast, it causes a spike in blood sugar levels. Which then triggers a subsequent insulin response to match it because too much sugar in your blood is toxic. Along with it comes a matching blood sugar crash.

But your body doesn’t want to become hypoglycaemic. So your brain then signals your hunger hormones that you need to eat more sugar. It’s a vicious cycle that happens basically all day as long as you eat this stuff.

So if you’re somebody who eats breakfast cereal, toast, and instant oatmeal. Then you’re probably someone who also snacks on fruit loops, pop tarts, granola bars, protein bars, or whatever bar is trendy right now.

And those bars are usually swimming in high fructose corn syrup, artificial flavours and additives, or just plain sugar.

Now some of you might think, but this “X” bar is better because it has natural ingredients and “natural” sugars! I’m talking about honey, maple syrup, or artificial sweeteners including stevia.

Listen, sugar is sugar. It also doesn’t matter if it’s natural sugar.

The other problem is, it’s still highly processed. Which then causes the same blood sugar spike. With a corresponding insulin response and a subsequent blood sugar crash. You get the point.

The bigger issue in this scenario again is we also give this stuff to our kids.

Luckily, you can break this cycle and reset your palette by completely abstaining from these addicting foods. You need a reset with a complete appetite correction. Click here if you want a proven plan step-by-step plan on how to do it properly.

3. Force feeding yourself breakfast

I can’t believe this is still considered “normal”. I get a headache just thinking about it.

This might be near the top as one of the worst morning habits that stop you from losing weight.

Because every trainer, nutritionist, “influencer”, your doctor, and most people in general still believe that one of the worst things you can do for your health and weight loss is to skip breakfast.

And it’s based on the severely outdated idea that breakfast is the most important meal of the day.

Without it, you delay or slow down your metabolism and risk entering the dreaded starvation mode.

Some people believe so strongly on this that they’d rather you eat something bad (see the first two points) rather than eating nothing at all.

It’s literally the most backwards way of thinking when it comes to weight loss.

This is one of the worst weight loss myths that I can’t believe hasn’t died yet.

There’s no such thing as starting your metabolism. Your metabolism doesn’t stop to begin with when you’re sleeping. Otherwise, you would die.

It is true that eating breakfast will increase your metabolism. But that’s simply due to the energy cost of digesting food. Also called the thermic effect of food.

Meaning any meal will temporarily increase your metabolism. But you’ll also wind up taking in way more calories than you burn during digestion.

So you’re at a net surplus at the end of the day. If you want to lose weight, you need to be at a calorie deficit with your hormones full optimized for fat loss.

Bottom line is if you don’t feel like eating breakfast, don’t eat.

There’s no set rule that eating breakfast will help you lose weight. There’s is no scientific research other than bro science that you need to eat first thing in the morning.

We’re the only species that wakes up first thing and shoves cornflakes down our throats. Lions don’t do that. Sharks don’t do that.

Our Paleolithic ancestors didn’t wake up and say, “Geez, I better eat breakfast! Breakfast is the most important meal of the day!” No. Sometimes they would go days without food.

In fact, you’re going to lose even more weight by skipping breakfast. Think of you body burning your fat stores for energy whenever you skip breakfast.

4. Adding flavored creamer and drinking designer coffee

Since we’re still in the topic of eating breakfast, let’s talk about a breakfast staple. Coffee.

Coffee in itself is neutral for weight loss. I love coffee.

A cup of black coffee only has 5 calories per cup and it doesn’t spike your insulin levels. People have been drinking coffee since the 11th century.

The problem lies in what you’re adding to your coffee every morning.

When you start adding in sugar, flavoured creamers, artificial sweeteners, you’re going to be spiking your insulin levels. You’re adding unnecessary calories that your body has to store as fat throughout the day. Especially if you’re someone who drinks multiple cups of coffee.

It gets worse when people get designer coffee like vanilla lattes, mochas, hot chocolate, and then they get a Crappy Frappy for a snack.

Think about it this way. The human body at any given time only contains 4 grams of sugar in the blood.

A grande caramel Frappuccino for example has a mind blowing 64 grams of sugar.

That is 16 times the amount of normal sugar that’s supposed to be in your blood.

But wait! Don’t forget that chocolate chip cookie or banana bread that we usually pair it with. Who do we give this stuff to as well? Our kids. No wonder childhood obesity is at an all time high.

I’m going to level with you on this because not everyone can take their coffee black.

You can add a tiny splash of heavy cream and it’s not going to be the end of the world. Especially if you compare it to the numbers I just mentioned. Heavy cream is pure fat and it’s not going to spike your insulin levels.

Don’t add skim milk. I want to address that quickly. If you have skim milk in your fridge or any low fat dairy, toss it out.

Because A) It’s processed and B) It’s usually full of sugar. Don’t believe me? Just compare regular milk vs skim milk next time you’re at the grocery store.

All you need to know is that anything low fat usually means it’s high in sugar. Fat doesn’t make you fat. If anything, if you’re not eating enough fat you’re probably fat.

5. Not planning ahead

If you fail to plan, you plan to fail.

Ideally, you’re preparing your own food for breakfast and lunch. Because once you leave your house, it’s open season.

You’re going to be bombarded with all sorts of food choices and not all of them are good. And that’s when you find yourself going to the closest drive thru window and ordering a donut or a bagel.

So just plan ahead. If you don’t have time to prepare breakfast, go to a place that serves traditional breakfast like bacon and eggs.

It’s the same thing for lunch. Ideally, you’re preparing your own food. But if you can’t, then you need to do your best to go to places that offers the best quality and the best options

6. Not getting enough sleep

We sleep for about a third of our lives. There’s a reason why we evolved that way.

There are tons of research out there about sleep and they all show one constant thing. The less you sleep, the more you weigh.

There’s one research that shows that when participants cut back on sleep over a 14 day period, the amount of fat they lost dropped by 55%.

Even one night of bad sleep can have negative effects on your weight loss efforts.

Because lack of sleep messes with important fat loss hormones like cortisol, which is your stress hormone. It messes with ghrelin which is your hunger hormone. And leptin which is the hormone that signals your brain when you’re full.

Those hormones don’t work the same when you’re sleep deprived causing you to feel hungrier and crave the worst food the entire day.

Nobody wakes up from a weekend bender and makes good food decisions. We usually crave the worst food.

And then we start the vicious high sugar breakfast and snacking cycle.

I always tell my students that if you had a late night out and the choice is between going to your 6am spin class or getting a couple of extra hours of sleep, I will always prioritize sleep.

Which leads me to the next morning habit that prevents weight loss.

7. Doing chronic cardio workouts first thing in the morning

I’m talking about spending an hour on the elliptical machine or running on the treadmill first thing in the morning.

Same goes for doing group fitness classes like CrossFit or Spin at some ungodly hour and it’s a near death experience every time.

You’re doing workouts that are a little bit too hard and too frequently. That is actually preventing you from losing weight.

Workouts like that are considered anaerobic workouts and they emphasize glucose burning.

Notice how you’re always craving something sugary after your morning workout? Anaerobic workouts also illicit a significant stress response.

Short term stress isn’t necessarily a bad thing.

But if you do workouts like that every day, especially every morning, the stress becomes chronic.

And chronically high stress results in chronically high insulin levels. And chronically high insulin levels leads to chronic inflammation. Which opens up Pandora’s box to all sorts of disease including cancer, obesity, Diabetes, and cardiovascular disease.

I really feel for these people because they have the right intention by squeezing in a workout in the morning before they get their day started. But the wrong execution because they’re doing the wrong workout.

8. The idea that you need to shove carbs or protein in your mouth immediately after your morning workout or after any workout

This is the infamous anabolic window.

The idea is you only have 30 minutes to 2 hours after training to drink your protein shake and eat enough Nutella to induce diabetes. Or else, you’ll shrivel and die from catabolism.

Research shows that when it comes to building lean muscle mass, which should be your main focus when you exercise. The results show that protein timing isn’t a factor.

It’s about your total protein intake for the day that matters.

So as long as you’re getting enough protein throughout the day, the timing doesn’t really matter.

The other problem with drinking protein powders is that whey and casein are extremely insulinogenic because they’re highly processed.

Protein powders also contain a lot of sugar. And I always say that you shouldn’t drink your protein. You should eat it.

What do you think is more satiating? A scoop of protein powder or a couple of eggs?

And I don’t want to hear about anyone eating egg white omelettes. The yolk is the healthiest part of the egg.

Cholesterol isn’t bad for you. That’s another nutrition myth. Your body makes cholesterol. It’s essential to your brain health and basically every cell in your body.

As you can see, a lot of the morning habits that I discussed are based on bad information or myths that just won’t go away. And they’re all preventing you from losing weight.

You need to give yourself a fighting chance by getting your day started the right way.

If you avoid all the morning habits that stop you from losing weight, you’re going to be starting your day the right way. And you’re going to be setting the rest of your day for success.

As always, if this was helpful, share it with a friend who could benefit from it as well!

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