Choosing to go on a diet can be a life changing decision that will set you up for a much healthier life. However, for every dieting success story there seems to be at least four to five more dieting failure stories. Seeing as how diets are a multibillion-dollar business, it can sometimes be easy to be caught up in flashy marketing and forget the actual scientific principles behind your body and its metabolism.
Many mistakes are often made by those who diet as a quick fix for their health woes and think that they’re just a month or two away from being able to go back to eating exactly how they used to before the diet. What you eat and how much of it has a huge effect on your overall health status. Poor dieting can wreak havoc on your metabolism and might end up doing you more harm than good, so it’s important to avoid some of the common dieting pitfalls.
Not too sure which ones I’m talking about? Let me explain:
Make Sure Diet Is Actually the Culprit
Weight gain isn’t always a simple matter of what you’re eating. Many people for instance gain weight due to the medication they’re on or because of untreated health issues. An improperly functioning thyroid is a very common reason for people to become overweight and it won’t be until you get a blood test that you’ll be able to know for sure. Before going on a crash diet and throwing out all of the “unhealthy” food in your home, get a checkup and a blood test to make sure that a diet is actually the next best step.
Not Having A Plan
Unfortunately, laziness is an extremely easy way to have to need to diet, but a very poor way to succeed at dieting. Some may simply read a review on the 3 week diet and think that they’re just 21 days away from never having to count calories and hit the gym ever again. This contributes heavily to the phenomenon of yo-yo dieting where an individual successfully loses weight with a diet but then immediately goes back to their old ways and goes right back to where they started. This starts a chain reaction of dieting and putting the weight back on that can go on forever if they allow it to. Each and every meal should be carefully planned out both during the diet and afterwards. You should also have a plan in place for when cravings strike so you’re insulated from the guilt and shame of breaking your diet, many people give up too easily after one minor slip up.
Using Willpower Instead of Science
Most people will struggle during their diets as they will begin to feel extreme amounts of hunger and think that they simply have to fight through it using willpower. Eventually, you will cave as your body cries out for the calories it has been so used to for so long. Satisfying your hunger can be exploited through a few scientific principles. For instance, drinking water throughout the day can help keep hunger at bay, and eating a breakfast high in protein will keep you energized and away from the pantry for much longer than a morning meal low in protein. Hunger is ultimately a survival instinct meant to keep our blood sugar and insulin levels at acceptable levels, so plan out your meals to keep your blood sugar steady throughout the day.
Last Remarks
Dieting can be extremely difficult, but it doesn’t have to be. Knowing what you’re up against and being as pragmatic and realistic as possible is a surefire way to see yourself on the road to success. A healthy mindset is essential, a diet should be seen as the first step in an entire lifestyle change and not as a band aid fix to be applied as needed. Whatever your goals are, I hope you can avoid these common mistakes and get the body you want.
