Health: "The Biggest Dieting Mistakes"

"The Biggest Dieting Mistakes"
by John Hill

"While working as a personal trainer one of the most important aspects of my job is preparing diets for my clients. This has prompted me to write this article on the biggest dieting mistakes most people commonly make. Being enthusiastic about losing weight and getting in shape is a vital part of the process since having a defeatist attitude from the get go will never allow you to realize your weight loss goals. However, many people start off with a little too much enthusiasm and set weight loss goals they could not possibly ever achieve and is one of the biggest dieting mistakes of all.

If you can avoid the biggest dieting mistakes you will have a much better chance of succeeding in your quest to lose weight and experience a lot less frustration along the way. There is no point setting a goal to climb Mt. Everest if you could not climb to the top of your street no matter how much you think you really want it. Maybe one day you could climb Everest but you will need to do all the preliminary work before hand, dieting is much the same process, you need to crawl before you can walk. Once you are on your way with a realistic goal and begin to notice some significant results it is at this stage you can up the tempo so to speak.

The following is a list of what I believe are the biggest dieting mistakes to avoid. Since we are all such different types of people, some of these dieting mistakes will be more difficult for some to overcome than others, while other people might find certain dieting mistakes quite easy to avoid. What ever the case may be, the more consistent you are on your diet the sooner you will see results.

   1. Like I just mentioned, one of the biggest dieting mistakes is setting an unrealistic goal that you would like to achieve but will not be able to stick to. The best way to avoid setting an unrealistic dieting goal is to start a new diet that is not drastically different from your old diet. Of course you will need to improve on your old diet especially if it was very poor, although the changes in your diet will need to be introduced gradually so you will be able to stick with it.

   2. Trying to eliminate all the fat from your diet entirely is a step in the wrong direction. Many people think that it is just by eating fat that makes them fat and by cutting out all fat and eating whatever else they like is ok. This is incorrect for two main reasons. Firstly your body needs at least some natural fat from certain foods to remain healthy and allow proper digestion of proteins and secondly, it is usually too many carbohydrates that causes someone to gain excess weight, not necessarily from eating too much fat.

   3. If you expect to see results almost immediately you are setting yourself up for failure. Take into account that it will take time for your body to adjust to your new diet and for you to notice a change in your body.

  4. Another one of the biggest dieting mistakes so many people fall prey to is weighing themselves too often. This does not work since you will never notice a significant drop in your bodyweight on a day to day basis and the more often you check the scales the more disheartened you will be in your diet and this may even cause you to give up. Ideally you want to aim to lose about 1-2 pounds of bodyweight per week. This is a healthy amount of weight to lose regularly as you work towards your optimum bodyweight.

   5. Believe it or not, not eating enough is one of the biggest dieting mistakes of all and one of the main reasons why diets don’t work. By not eating enough, your metabolism slows down and this can actually lead to a loss of muscle tissue without a loss of fat. In most cases where people eat too little, it is usually followed by binge eating and we all know where that leads.

   6. Dieting goes hand in hand with exercise and without planning an appropriate and adequate amount of exercise into your schedule when you prepare your diet you will have much more difficulty losing weight. The exercise helps to speed up your metabolism as well as burning fat and will accelerate your weight loss faster than anything else. You should enjoy your exercise if it is going to work for you. If you don’t enjoy the exercise you are doing, choose another form of exercise you do enjoy, you might as well make this dieting journey as easy as possible.

   7. Rewarding yourself after exercising is another of the biggest dieting mistakes and one that I see far too often. On too many occasions to remember I have seen my personal training clients have a great fat burning workout and then head straight for the coffee shop and load up on sugar filled coffee and cakes and all manner of bad foods because they feel they deserved it after a grueling workout. If you do this I really don’t think there was much point, if any, training in the first place. Also it is important to mention that drinking alcohol has absolutely no benefit to your body and won’t help with the dieting process but you need to figure this one out for yourself.

   8. Beware of fat free foods, they might be fat free but are usually laden with sugar and sugar will make you gain fat faster than any other food. Also be aware that too many slimming shakes are not the answer to losing fat, even if the label says they are better than a real meal. These slimming shakes are a supplement to real food and do not contain the essential nutrients you body needs to stay healthy. Solid food has a much better effect of speeding up your metabolism than liquid food ever will.

   9. Of all the biggest dieting mistakes, overeating has got to be up there as one of the main reasons why diets don’t work for most people. Eat the meal you have planned that is within your diet parameter but if you feel full, stop eating. Never ever eat beyond the point where you feel full. Feeling full is a signal your body has had enough and continuing to eat more will not help you to lose weight. This seems quite obvious but overeating is a big problem especially overeating carbohydrates like bread and potatoes. If you want to lose fat, eat small portions of food, there is never any need to eat to the point you are full and never eat beyond the full point.

  10. There is a reason why it is said that breakfast is the most important meal of the day. Firstly it gives you energy to perform your daily functions but most importantly for the dieter is it gives a much needed kick start to your metabolism after waking up each day. Your metabolism comes almost to a standstill after you have been asleep all night and eating breakfast gets it moving again.

  11. Missing scheduled meals is another of the biggest dieting mistakes since people think if they miss a planned meal it will mean a loss of more bodyweight. Unfortunately this is incorrect thinking and by missing a meal you only serve to slow down the metabolism which only serves to promote fat storage.

  12. The human body is 70% water so not drinking enough water can have an avalanche effect of not allowing the body to process foods properly, slow the metabolism, make you tired and lethargic and has numerous detrimental effects when exercising which is a necessary part of your diet plan.

  13. Drinking too many sweet drinks like soda, fruit juice or after sport thirst quenchers like Gatorade. These drinks are very high in sugar and should be drunk in moderation.

  14. Relying on diet pills to lose weight has countless negative consequences for the dieter. Firstly, it is important to know there is no magic diet pill, sorry, it simply doesn’t exist. Yes there are pills available by prescription and in some countries you can buy them without a prescription but they contain harmful chemicals that might initially help speed up your metabolism but many of them contain chemicals similar to amphetamines and often lead to depreesion, mood swings or violent behavior. Yon need to use your better judgment on this one but my advice is to avoid the temptation as there are no free rides in this life. Exercise and a good diet are the only effective solutions to losing weight and keeping it off.

  15. One more important point to keep in mind and another of the biggest dieting mistakes is to keep a positive attitude in relation to your dieting goal. If you start thinking you are genetically predestined to be fat or it is just too hard for you and you want to give up you need to give yourself a kick in the pants and stay focused on your goal. No matter how fat you are, know that there has in all possibility been someone much fatter than you who has overcome their weight problem with just as many if not more stresses in their life as what you have and successfully kept the weight off. Yes, it will take some will power on your part but look at it as a great opportunity for you to not only kick this weight problem once and for all but to learn a life changing lesson in self discipline.”

- http://www.universeofsuccess.com/

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