11 Diet Mistakes You Should Avoid At All Costs
Working Out Alone
Working out alone makes you lazy, you set limits without covering them. When you share your weight loss mission with your close friends and family, it will help you to build a support system and you’ll have people who can keep you accountable to your goals. It’s easy to mindlessly scoop another spoonful of ice cream into a bowl, but you might think twice if you have to justify this extra portion to your family as you eat dessert together at the dinner table.
Obsessed With Losing Weight
There’s a difference between being committed to a weight loss plan and being obsessed with it. If you start planning your entire life around your diet—like avoiding birthday parties so you don’t feel tempted by cake or miss out on seeing your old friend who’s in town briefly because you don’t want to get a drink—it will make your diet hard to stick to in the long run. A sustainable diet is one that leaves some wiggle room and doesn’t hinder you from living a fun and a fulfilling life.
Not Drinking Enough Water
“Not drinking enough water can have a negative impact on the metabolism as well as your appetite,” says Alexandra Miller, RDN, LDN. Research has shown that people often respond to their thirst inappropriately by eating instead of drinking since the same part of our brain controls both responses. When you’re hydrated, it also helps to make your stomach feel full, which can fend off the feeling of hunger.
Starving Yourself
You don’t have to on hunger strike to lose weight. Here’s why: research published in the journals Appetite and Eating Behaviors supports the notion that giving into a guilty pleasure is more effective at keeping weight off long term than trying to suppress it. Why is that? Well, both studies demonstrated that when participants gave into a craving (rather than fighting it off), it actually helped to reduce binge eating and decreased subsequent cravings.
Eating More of Frozen Meals
Frozen meals once in awhile: approved. But for every meal? Skip it. Not only are these cold concoctions typically loaded with bloat-inducing, blood-pressure-raising sodium. If sustainable weight loss is your goal, kick the shortcuts to the curb and make your meals at home from scratch. Doing so can help you banish these nasty additives as well as cut calorie consumption by an average of 200 calories a day, according to Johns Hopkins researchers.
Avoiding the scale
The scale keeps you mindful of your diet, and it will quickly tip you off to regained pounds. In fact, dieters who weigh themselves daily can lose twice as much weight as those who weigh themselves less frequently, according to University of Minnesota researchers.
Eatin While Watching TV
Experts find that when your mind is distracted by other things while eating, such as watching TV or listening to loud music, it can block certain satiety cues from alerting your brain that you’ve eaten your fill. As a result, you consume more calories than your body needs, which will likely be stored as fat.
Eating Late
Eating late does more harm to weight loss goals than slowing down your metabolism. When you eat a large meal too close to your bedtime, you may have trouble falling asleep, thanks to your body working to digest that meal. And when you don’t get a good night’s rest, studies show you’re more likely to have higher levels of the hunger hormone ghrelin the next day, which can cause you to overeat. “Research also shows that when we’re sleep-deprived, our brains respond more strongly to junk food and have less of an ability to practice portion control,” Alissa Rumsey, RD, and Spokesperson for the Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics tells us.
Not Getting Enough Sleep
Sleep helps your body recover from those heart-thumping workouts, allowing for cell regeneration and muscle building. That’s not all. Sleep also keeps your metabolism humming, your hunger hormones in check and your stress levels low. When you don’t sleep enough (experts recommend seven to eight hours a night), your cortisol levels skyrocket, which can slow down your metabolism and lead to excess production of belly fat.
Running from Fat
In fact, when you don’t eat enough fat, you may suffer from feeling constant hunger, could develop adult acne, and may constantly feel like your brain is in a fog. Fats are necessary to feed the brain and help mitigate cravings. Incorporate more healthy fats like those from avocados, nuts, seeds, coconut oil, olive oil, and grass-fed butter.
Drinking Much Diet Drink
They may tout “zero calories,” but a 2017 review published in the journal PLOS One concluded that diet drinks are not helpful for weight loss and that they may even cause people to pile on the pounds because they can dull your sweet receptors, causing you to consume more of traditionally sweet foods, and thus, consume more calories.
Focusing on workout alone
A 2012 review published in the journal Obesity Reviews found that people tend to overestimate how many calories they burn when they workout. As a result, people will not only overcompensate for their workout by eating more calories than they burned, but they may also think they can now indulge in junk food as a “reward” for exercise.