When it comes to losing weight, there’s plenty of information available at your fingertips – but not all of it is the best advice. And, the road to reaching your weight loss and fitness goals isn’t always a smooth one. Sometimes, you may notice that your progress has slowed down or even stopped completely – and the reason may not always be clear.
If you’re working hard to lose weight and aren’t getting the results that you need, you may be making one of these common diet mistakes.
Skipping Meals
If you are counting calories, you may have fallen into the common trap of skipping meals in order to save them. Breakfast is the most popular meal that people are tempted to skip, however, this is a big mistake.
Breakfast kick-starts your metabolism after it’s lain dormant during the night, and boosting your metabolism every morning with a healthy breakfast will make it more efficient when it comes to processing the food that you eat. As a result, your body will need to store less fat and you’ll begin to see better weight loss results.
Sticking to the Same Foods
When you know that certain foods work for you and you like them, it can be tempting to stick to them all the time. But, whilst this can make things easier especially if you’re trying to eat healthily, it can also lead to you quickly becoming very bored with your diet and craving unhealthy foods.
As a result, you may find that you’re more tempted to break your monotonous diet routine by eating something high in calories. Instead, understand that eating healthy doesn’t have to be boring! Try different recipes and incorporate foods that you wouldn’t normally choose into your meals. Check out this post for healthy food ideas.
Too Many Healthy Fats
Healthy fats are essential for your diet, but a common mistake is to over-do it. For example, many people switch unhealthy snacks throughout the day for healthier ones, such as nuts and seeds. However, nuts and seeds have a very high-fat content, so it’s important to make sure that you are practicing good portion control.
There are many other ways in which you could be consuming too much fat in your diet, like overdoing it with oil when you are cooking – a little olive oil or vegetable oil is good for you, but measure it out instead of free-pouring so you know just how much you are consuming.
Forgetting About Your Drinks
If you tend to stick to tea, coffee, water, and sugar-free beverages then you don’t really have to worry about these if you’re keeping to a calorie-controlled diet. However, it can be all too easy to forget about the calories in other drinks, such as fruit juices or milky lattes, which can have a much higher calorie count than you think.
Also read: The Female Fitness Model Diet Plan
Don’t forget alcohol, either – even if you only drink one small glass of wine with your dinner in the evening, this can quickly add up the calories over the course of the week.
Not Counting Portion Sizes
If you’ve been sticking to a healthy diet for a while, it can be tempting to stop measuring out your portion sizes – especially if you’re used to it and have a good idea of how much you normally eat.
But when you’re not measuring your food, it can be easy to guess incorrectly, and this could lead to you counting the wrong amount of calories – getting both more or less than the amount that you need every day could lead to a stall in your weight loss. This article covers measuring food without a scale.
Which of these diet mistakes have you been making? And what did you do to fix it? We’d love to hear from you in the comments.