5 Harmful Social Media Mistakes That Distract You From Successful Weight Loss
Have you ever thought that your social media behaviors have been holding you back and distracting you from actually reaching your goals?
I know that I never did when I first began my weight-loss journey in 2019.
Don’t get me wrong - I love social media! Instagram and Facebook, especially, were such helpful resources to finding supportive communities and helpful tips along my journey.
Nevertheless, it’s not perfect and sometimes comes with harmful distractions that potentially could be holding you back from seeing quicker or more aligned results!
In this article, I’ll be sharing with you 5 of those harmful distractions and a few tips to enjoying social media while preventing these mistakes in the future.
Piecing Together Free Info That Contradicts Each Other
Social media is great because you can find endless pages of free information on the internet, but it absolutely has its limitations.
You may have noticed a lot of information on social media may contradict each other - making the journey really freaking confusing!
Here’s one of the thousands of examples:
Both are valid advice simply because different things work for different people; And different people succeed with different motivators and strategies.
The first tip, for example, may help someone who is preparing for a bodybuilding physique competition while the second tip may be better suited for someone focusing on long-term sustainable weight-loss. Both focus on weight-loss but are completely different goals.
Just like how you have many different routes to arrive at a destination in your car, there are many different routes you can take to achieve weight-loss.
When you try to piece together advice from many different sources from the internet, they may make the journey really confusing and frustrating simply because they are not from the same puzzle - they aren’t supposed to fit together!
This can slow down your progress because you’ll be wasting so much time going back and forth between different tips and advice that may not even directly align with you and your journey.
How to fix this mistake: Work 1:1 with a coach to create a step-by-step action plan that aligns with your goals, biological factors, lifestyle, and preferences. This will save you so much time because you are literally handed specific advice that aligns directly with you and your goals.
Taking Advice From People Who Are Not Qualified To Give Advice
”It worked for me, so you should try it” is not valid evidence that something will work for you.
While social media is a great place for collaboration, unfortunately sometimes you’ll find yourself getting advice from someone who is not qualified to give you fitness or nutrition advice. Just because they lost X lbs or have your ideal body does not mean they are qualified to consult you on your journey.
Certified Personal Trainers, Group Fitness Instructors, Health Coaches & Nutrition Coaches spend thousands of dollars to be trained and educated to support you! Beyond their base certifications, we are required to continue expanding our knowledge and stay up to date with recent research through re-certification processes and CEUs (continuing education units).
We are trained to coach and support each individual person based on their unique goals, lifestyle, biological factors, and preferences.
If you are unsure if someone is qualified to give you fitness/nutrition advice on your weight-loss journey, ask to see their certifications! If they do not happily and willingly show you, I’d call that a red flag!
I happily display all of my certificates of completion for my coaching certs, training, and courses on my about page to make it simple and easy to find!
How to fix this mistake: Before accepting advice (both directly and indirectly through social media posts), double-check the person’s qualifications. Even if you are just consuming free advice online, it’s important you are consuming accurate free advice. For additional qualification-checking, check out the company they received their certification from. Did they get certified from a credible source or did they just get a generic “certificate of completion” from websites that don’t even specialize in fitness/nutrition?
Competition Over Community: Comparing Yourself To Others
I love Instagram especially because it is such an amazing place to find inspiration! There are so many Womxn who I follow that show up for themselves every day and watching them kill it motivates me and inspires me! It’s such a great place to build a community of womxn supporting womxn!
On the other hand, it can also become a place of comparison and competition.
Comparing yourself to others is harmful because their journey is not your journey. You have different biological factors, lifestyles, preferences, and goals. Just because you both are online to share your weight-loss journey does not mean it is the same journey.
Focusing on comparison can really take away from your own aligned progress and can distract you as you try to compete with things that work for them but may not work for you.
How to fix this mistake: Remember that you are on this journey for You. Don’t compare your day 14 to someone else’s day 365. Remind yourself daily that the actions you’re taking right now are for you and your specific goals! If you’re struggling with obsessing over certain people with comparison, I would recommend unfollowing or blocking them. Your piece of mind is more important in this journey than “saving” a friendship that is destroying you from the inside out.
Forcing yourself to do something that “works” - even if it may not work for You
As I shared earlier, there are many different ways to arrive at your weight-loss goal. While the key to weight-loss is to be in a caloric deficit, you can arrive at that daily caloric deficit and many different ways.
It doesn’t matter what method you choose:
Macro-Tracking
Strict calorie counting
Keto
intermittent fasting
Veganism / Plant-Based
3 meals a day
2 large meals a day
8 small meals a day
Eating less food
Eating the same amount of food while working out
Eating more food and working out harder
etc.
2000 calories are still 2000 calories.
The key to real results for you is finding what actions or habits feel most authentic to you and your life.
Experimenting is important because it helps you weed through all of the diet fluff and find what works for You. But if something just isn’t sticking, maybe it’s time to try something else!
How to fix this mistake: Be open-minded to experimenting but acknowledge that not everything that is claimed to “work” will work for you. Having a clear understanding of your goals will help you take clear aligned actions towards your goals.
Stopping Something You Enjoy & Works For You Because Someone Online Pressured You Into Believing It’s “Unsustainable”
Likewise, it can be really distracting to see a creator or coach share a discouraging post that says “[Insert Your Method Here] is unhealthy because it’s unsustainable”.
It may be unsustainable for them; but if it’s working for You (and you’re doing it safely), keep doing it!
For example, if you skip breakfast every morning simply because you are not hungry, that’s okay! While breakfast may help some people feel energized in the morning, force-feeding yourself food to “be healthy” is also unsustainable and can make the journey less enjoyable.
An example from my life is when I began working out with my Mom. At first, I was training her the way I enjoyed the training - a mix of strength training and HIIT. This did not stick simply because she didn’t enjoy it. When she brought up the idea of doing a YouTube video called “Reduction Of Belly Fat Quickly” I couldn’t help but want to identify the red flags and how unsustainable that is - but I thought I’d humor her so she can learn for herself. To my surprise, she did lose belly fat. It wasn’t quick, but because she enjoyed the dance/Zumba style workout, she showed up every day, we both got a great workout in, and overtime she did lose body fat!
How to fix this mistake: If something is working for you, keep doing it! Ignore the contradicting information - it can be distracting. Health should always be at the forefront of any dietary/fitness journey, so be sure to consult your doctor if you are not sure about certain advice!
