By Kelly Taylor, BDO Contributing Writer (BlackDoctor.org) –
– There are so many pieces of advice and tools with claims to help you fight the fat. With so much information flying around, dieters with good intentions end up relying on their own strategies and tips that seem to be common sense. Unfortunately, these well-intentioned approaches to weight loss end up sabotaging your efforts to drop the pounds.
1. You “Save Up” Calories
Cutting your total daily calories to cause a caloric deficiency leads to weight loss. But if you’re saving most of your daily calories for a large meal or an after dinner splurge, you are doing yourself and your diet a disservice. When you eat a large amount of calories at the end of the day, your hunger hormones will go into overload and cause you to eat more. Eating too much at night will kill your appetite in the morning, which causes a vicious cycle where you’re starving by dinner.
Do this instead: Balance your calories throughout the day. Never skip a meal, particularly breakfast, in order to use more calories on another meal. A good breakfast should be about 450 calories. Try eating a scrambled egg with low fat cheese, a piece of whole wheat toast, and a piece of fruit or cup of fruit juice for breakfast. That way you stay satisfied until lunch and don’t end up overeating.
2. You Eat Randomly
Grazing throughout the day may contribute to weight gain. A study published in 2005 in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition found that women who planned their meal times burned more calories in the 3 hours following eating than did women who ate sporadically at unplanned times. You’re also more likely to nibble on small portions of calories that add up quickly.
Do this instead: Everyone is different. If you know you need to eat five times a day, plan out your calories, set a schedule for your meals and stick to it.
3. You Miscount Count Calories
Without fail, people underestimate the number of calories in nutritious foods such as baked chicken, apples, yogurt and other healthy foods. Just because a food is healthy does not mean its calories don’t count.
Do this instead: If you want to stay within a certain number of calories daily, count every calorie every time. That means you account for the cup of strawberries and the soda.
4. You Crash Diet
It sounds like a good idea. You want to lose weight so you drastically slash your calories in hopes of a fast weight loss. Nutrition experts, however, have found that if you crash diet for more than two weeks, your body will go into conservation mode and your metabolism slows down until it starts to get a decent amount of calories.
Do this instead: Experts recommended getting no less than 1,200 calories a day. In order to shed about one pound a week, you need to create a deficit of 500 calories. You can do this by removing 250 calories a day from your diet and burning 250 calories through exercise.
5. You Set Short-term Weight-loss Goals
According to the National Weight Control Registry, an estimated 20% of dieters successfully keep off lost weight for more than a year. The problem is that once most people reach their goals, they slowly but surely resort back to old eating habits.
Do this instead: Set a long term goal for yourself, and then break it down into smaller goals. As you reach each goal, think of the progress as another step toward a lifetime of health habits. By making your goals long term, you’re setting yourself up to continue your new healthy habits for the rest of your life and not just until you lose a few pounds.