8 Morning Habits That Stop Weight Loss

If you’re trying to lose weight, the last thing that you want to do is stop weight loss first thing in the morning.

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

Unfortunately, there is 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 metabolism? Should you work out? What should you eat afterwards?

A lot of them are myths or severely outdated information that still gets repeated as the truth up to this day.

And if you’re doing those things, you’re gonna be starting your morning at a severe disadvantage when it comes to weight loss.

In this video, I’m gonna give you 8 morning habits that are preventing you from losing weight so you can actually have a fighting chance at this.

1. You’re eating “traditional” breakfast foods

Let’s start with a low-hanging fruit that stop weight loss that you should probably already know. If not, prepared to get your mind blown.

I’m talking about eating traditional breakfast foods first thing in the morning. What do I mean by traditional breakfast foods? I’m talking about toast, and it doesn’t matter if it’s white or brown bread. It’s literally the same thing. Bagels, croissants, pop-tarts, pancakes, waffles, muffins, breakfast cereal, and instant oatmeal. I might have forgot a thing or two there but you should already know the foods that I’m talking about here.

If you eat those foods first thing in the morning, that is a surefire way to gain weight instead of losing it. Because those foods are extremely processed. They are made out of highly refined white flour and they offer no nutritional value.

Not only is a diet high in refined carbs and sugar directly linked to obesity, but it’s also directly linked to insulin resistance and diabetes. All those three things that I just mentioned can be summed up under one name and it’s called metabolic syndrome.

And if you live in the U.S., two out of three American adults are suffering from it. Because when you chronically spike your blood sugar and insulin levels with the foods that I just mentioned, it’s gonna be almost impossible for you to lose weight.

Listen, you cannot reduce body fat on a diet that chronically stimulates high insulin levels.

You just can’t.

And again, we eat these extremely insulinogenic foods first thing in the morning. And then we down a big glass of orange juice afterwards. I literally cannot think of a worse way to start your morning if you eat those foods.

Now this is a bigger problem that I want to bring up. This is also the same stuff that we give to our kids.

So two out of three American adults are either overweight or obese. They suffer from metabolic syndrome and childhood obesity is also at an all-time high. If you have a kid, you need to give your kid a fighting chance at this. And it starts with you.

Now, I’m not saying that you shouldn’t eat breakfast. But there is a world of difference between eating breakfast cereal that’s drowned in skim milk, and you shouldn’t be eating or drinking low-fat dairy by the way. Versus a breakfast of bacon and eggs and some avocado.

If you eat the latter breakfast, you’ll get fuller faster because you’re eating real nutrient-dense foods. You also won’t have a dramatic spike in insulin levels and you won’t feel the desire to eat more.

It’s as simple as this. Eat real food for breakfast. Don’t eat processed junk.

2. You eat highly processed snacks

Which leads me to morning habit that stop weight loss number two.

When you eat a highly processed sugary breakfast, it causes a spike in blood sugar levels with a subsequent insulin response to match it. Because too much sugar in your blood is toxic. Which then results in a matching blood sugar crash. And your body doesn’t want to become hypoglycemic. So your brain sends hunger signals that you need to eat more sugar.

This is a vicious cycle that happens all day.

So if you’re someone who eats breakfast cereal, instant oatmeal, and toast first thing in the morning, then you’re also probably someone who snacks on fruit loops, granola bars, pop-tarts, protein bars, or whatever trendy bar is out there right now.

Those bars are usually swimming in high fructose corn syrup, additives and artificial flavors, or just plain old sugar. Now some of you might say that this “X” bar has natural ingredients. It has “natural” sugars. I’m talking about honey, maple syrup, and natural sweeteners like stevia.

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

The other problem is it’s still highly processed. Which will then still cause the same blood sugar spike with the same insulin response and a subsequent blood sugar crash.

The bigger issue in this scenario again is this is the same stuff that we give to kids.

Luckily, you can break the cycle and reset your palate by completely abstaining from these foods. What you need is a diet reset with a complete appetite correction. And if you want a proven plan on how to do this then make sure you check out the Fat Loss Accelerator.

3. Force feeding yourself to eat first thing in the morning

The next morning habit that stop weight loss that you want to avoid is force feeding yourself breakfast to begin with.

I’m getting a headache just thinking about this.

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

It’s based on the severely outdated and inaccurate information that breakfast is the most important meal of the day. And if you skip it, you’re gonna delay or slow down your metabolism. Or worse, you’re gonna enter the dreaded starvation mode.

Some people believe so strongly on this, that you have to eat first thing in the morning, that they’d rather you eat something bad rather than not eat at all.

It’s literally the most backwards way of thinking about weight loss. It’s one of the worst myths out there that I can’t believe hasn’t died yet.

Listen, there is no starting your metabolism. Your metabolism doesn’t stop. And it is true that eating breakfast will increase your metabolism. But that’s simply due to the energy cost of digesting your food. It’s more commonly known as the thermic effect of food.

Meaning any meal will increase your metabolism temporarily. But you’re also going to be taking in way more calories than you burn during digestion.

So you’re at a net caloriesurplus. If you want to lose weight, you need to be at a calorie deficit. Bottom line is if you’re not hungry, if you don’t feel like eating breakfast, don’t eat.

I used to force-feed myself breakfast back in the day. I also struggled to lose weight.

There’s actually no set rule that you need to eat first thing in the morning. There is no scientific research that proves that eating breakfast will help you lose weight other than people repeating this myth from the bro-science community. 

We’re the only species that wakes up first thing in the morning that feels the need to shove food down our throat.

Meal times are completely made up.

Our Paleolithic ancestors didn’t wake up first thing in the morning back then and said, “Oh, I better eat breakfast. Breakfast is the most important meal of the day.”

No.

In fact, if you want to lose weight, you’re way better off skipping breakfast.

Think of skipping breakfast as your body using up your fat stores as breakfast.

4. You’re drinking too much liquid calories

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

Coffee.

Now, coffee in itself is neutral when it comes to weight loss. A cup of black coffee only has 5 calories and it doesn’t spike your insulin levels. People have been drinking this stuff since the 11th century.

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

So when you start adding sugar, flavored creamers, artificial sweeteners, etc. You’re going to be spiking your insulin levels which blocks your body from burning fat. You’re also adding unnecessary calories that your body has to burn. And the excess calories gets stored as fat throughout the day. This gets magnified if you drink multiple cups of coffee throughout the day.

Now, it gets worse when people order designer coffees like vanilla lattes, mochas, hot chocolate, and then they get a “Crappy Frappy” mid-morning.

Yeah, that’s no good.

Think about it this way. The human body at any given time only has about 4 grams of sugar in your blood. A grande caramel Frappuccino for example has a mind-blowing 64 grams of sugar. That is 16 times more than the normal amount of sugar that’s supposed to be in your blood. But wait! Don’t forget the chocolate chip cookie or the banana bread.

And again who do we give this stuff to as well? Our kids!

I’m gonna level with you on this because not everyone can take their coffee black. You can add a tiny splash of heavy cream to your coffee and it’s not gonna be the end of the world. Especially compared to the numbers that I just mentioned. Because heavy cream is pure fat and it’s not gonna trigger an insulin response.

Don’t add skim milk. And I want to address that quickly. If you have skim milk or any low-fat dairy sitting in your fridge, toss it out. Because, A.) I.t’s highly processed because they have to take out the fat and B.) It’s usually full of sugar.

Don’t believe me? Next time you go to the grocery store, compare a carton of full fat milk versus skim milk. You’re gonna see that the skim milk has way more sugar.

All you need to know is that low fat usually means high sugar. Also, fat doesn’t make you fat. There’s another myth for you.

5. Not planning ahead

The next morning habit that stop weight loss is not planning ahead.

If you fail to plan, you plan to fail.

Ideally, you’re preparing your own breakfast food and lunch. Because once you leave the house. it’s open season. And you’re gonna be bombarded with all sorts of food choices and not all of them are good.

If you’re not prepared, that’s when you find yourself going to the closest drive-thru window ordering a donut or a bagel.

So do your best to plan ahead. And if you don’t have time to prepare breakfast for example, then go to a place that serves traditional breakfast of bacon and eggs.

6. Not getting enough sleep

The next habit that stop weight loss is 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 how important sleep is when it comes to your health and they all show one constant thing. The less you sleep, the more you weigh.

For example, there’s one research that shows that when participants cut back on sleep over 14 days, the amount of fat that 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 affects ghrelin which is your hunger hormone. Lack of sleep also affects leptin which is the hormone that tells your body that you’re full.

Those hormones don’t function the same way when you’re sleep deprived causing you to feel hungrier and crave the worst foods throughout the day.

Nobody wakes up from a late night out and says, “I’m really craving asparagus!” No.

We crave the worst foods. We create fast food. And then that starts the vicious high sugar breakfast and snacking cycle.

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

7. Doing chronic cardio workouts

The next morning habit that stop weight loss is doing chronic cardio workouts first thing in the morning.

I’m gonna raise some eyebrows on this but hear me out.

I’m talking about spending an hour on the elliptical machine, running on the treadmill, or doing group fitness classes like CrossFit or spin. And you’re doing it at some ungodly hour like 5:30 or 6:00 in the morning and it’s a near-death experience every time. You’re doing workouts that are a little bit too hard and a little bit too frequently.

That is actually preventing you from losing weight. Because workouts like that are considered anaerobic workouts and they mainly focus on burning glucose. You become even more sugar dependent. Notice how you’re always craving something sugary after workouts like that?

Anaerobic workouts also elicit a significant stress response. Now, short

term stress isn’t necessarily a bad thing. But if you do workouts like that

every morning and every day, the stress becomes chronic.

And chronically high stress levels leads to chronically high insulin levels. Chronically high insulin levels leads to insulin resistance. Which then opens up Pandora’s box to diabetes, obesity, and cardiovascular disease.

I really feel for these people because they have the right intention by trying to squeeze in a workout first thing in the morning. But the wrong execution because they’re doing the wrong workout.

The workouts are way too stressful and way too hard.

8. Drinking protein shakes and eating carbs after your workout

The last morning habit that stop weight loss is the idea that you need to shove carbs or protein down your throat immediately after your morning workout or after any workout.

This is the infamous “anabolic window” where you approximately have 30 minutes to two hours after training to drink your protein shake and eat enough Nutella to induce diabetes. Or else, you’ll shrivel and die from catabolism.

That is simply not true.

Research after research shows that when it comes to building lean muscle mass, and that should be your 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 shakes is that Whey and Casein are extremely insulinogenic. Because they’re highly processed and they contain a lot of sugar.

I always say that you shouldn’t drink your protein. You should eat it. What do you think is more satiating first thing in the morning. A scoop of protein powder? Or a couple of eggs and some bacon?

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 that needs to die. Your body makes it’s own 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 mentioned in this video are based on bad severely outdated information or myths that won’t seem to go away. And they’re all preventing you from losing weight.

You need to give yourself a fighting chance at losing weight and it starts by getting your day started the right way.

And if you avoid all the bad morning habits that stop weight loss, you’re gonna have a real fighting chance and you’re gonna set up 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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