Weight Loss Mistakes
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Even with the best of
intentions and the strongest of wills, loosing weight
can be a minefield. There are so many different diets
out there, some endorsed by celebrities, some ‘proven’
by science and even more which have absolutely no
foundation at all!
However, no matter what
diet program you choose there are several common dieting
mistakes which are easy to spot and avoid once you know
what they are.
Eating Out
Just because you are trying to loose weight doesn’t mean
you have to give up your social life. If you stop
enjoying yourself and seeing friends you will simply
become de-motivated and give up altogether. You may
need to think a bit more about what you eat and drink,
but with practise choosing the right dishes and drinks
will become second nature and you will still be able to
have a good night out.
Some eating out tips that really make a difference are:
Ø
Don’t starve yourself throughout the day to ‘save up
calories’ for the evening ahead as this is likely to
result in a big binge. Eat normally and, if you can get
a little more exercise than usual in on the day or
throughout the rest of that week. Also eating a light,
healthy snack before you go will help you avoid rushing
into inappropriate menu choices. Eat something like a
piece of wholemeal toast with a small amount of crunchy
peanut butter, or a couple of oatcakes or some fruit and
a handful of unsalted nuts such as almonds or walnuts.
Ø
Drinks, whether alcoholic or not contain hidden calories
so be careful in your choices. For an aperitif, choose
something like a gin and tonic with low calorie tonic
(approx 50 cals) or if you must have a glass of white
wine mix it with low calorie lemonade or soda to make it
a longer drink. Avoid fruit juices, as these have high
sugar content and can be high in calories and try to
drink a glass of plain water for every alcoholic drink
you have. Not only does this half your alcohol calories
but it also means less of a hangover the next day!
Ø
When choosing food, in general go for dishes that have
been broiled, braised or baked. Avoid fried or sautéed.
Choose fruit or clear soup for starters and avoid things
like pate, ‘cream of soups’ and anything in batter or
butter. For main dishes choose sauces which are
vegetable or tomato based rather than cheesy or creamy
sauces. Grilled fish is a good choice as is lean chicken
or meat cuts. When ordering vegetables ask the waiter if
they are glazed (which means butter) and if so request
simple boiled or steamed vegetables. Go for the baked
potato or rice option and remember, despite the rumour,
eating fries off somebody else’s plate does count!!
Ø
Take a pause. When you have finished you main meal do
not be hurried into ordering desert straight away.
Allow your brain time to register that your stomach is
full. This really works. Sip your wine/water and enjoy
the company and atmosphere and you’ll find after about
15 minutes you may not even want desert at all.
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Eating out should be a pleasurable experience and
dieting does not have to impact harshly on this.
Remember to eat slowly, putting down your knife and fork
every now and again and pausing for a moment. If you are
unsure what’s in a dish ask the waiter and remember you
can always ask for any dressings or sauces to be served
separately.
Importantly, you don’t have to eat everything on your
plate. Restaurant portions are often oversized and it is
tempting to try and manage it all, especially as we’re
paying for it! Don’t be fooled by this – change your
mindset and stop when you’re full.
DRINKING CALORIES
It
is easy to consume hundreds of extra calories by simply
drinking them. Despite the fact that we don’t chew
them, most drinks contain a significant number of
calories and when dieting all these calories should be
taken into account. Changing your daily habits a little
when trying to loose weight can make a huge difference
to your overall weight loss. Some good tips are:
Fruit juices – Fruit juices contain a lot of sugar and
consequently can be high in calories. A cup of fruit
juice contains about 100/20 calories depending on the
type of juice so drinking a few glasses during the day
can add up to a lot. Try watering juice down, half juice
to half water especially first thing in the morning and
if you tend to go for the juice bottle during the day
experiment with fruit teas or sugar free fruit cordial.
Tea and coffee – By themselves there are no calories in
a black tea or coffee, it’s what we add to them that can
have an effect. Opt for skimmed milk (or lemon in tea)
and definitely cut out any sugar you take. Try
substituting some of your tea/coffee intake during the
day with plain water, herbal or fruit teas or green tea.
Soda – There is no excuse for drinking a full sugar soda
when you are on a diet. Most brands now come in sugar
free varieties and they taste just as good. A couple of
‘full sugar’ sodas a day add up to 400 calories (more if
you go large). This is a complete waste of calories and
not recommended.
Alcohol – Alcohol contains sugar and this makes it
fattening. If you like a drink try to stick to the lower
calorie options. Beer or stout are higher in calories
than shorts and one small glass of white wine has around
100 calories in it! For dieters spirits such as gin and
vodka are the best choices – with low calorie mixers of
course!
Water – Drinking water is very important but if you like
fruit flavoured types check out the calorie content.
Some fruit flavoured waters contain a lot of sugar,
making them higher in calories.
NOT EATING ENOUGH
Surprised! Well actually eating too little on a diet can
in fact slow down weight loss considerably. Your body
needs about 1200 cals (women) or 1500 cals (men) a day
to function normally. Any less than this and you risk
loosing muscle instead of fat and damaging your health
in the longer term. When you east too little your body
reacts by going into ‘famine mode’. In a nutshell, it
conserves fat stores, slows down it’s metabolism and
learns to cope with less calories. The important thing
is to eat the correct amount of calories but made up of
the right foods – good quality protein, complex
carbohydrates and plenty of vegetables and fruit. This
will keep your metabolism ticking over at a normal rate
and your body functioning properly. If you want to
increase your metabolic rate take some exercise. Muscle
burns more energy than fat, so the fitter you get the
more calories you’ll burn even whilst sitting still!!
EATING WHILST DISTRACTED
It
is important to allow your brain to focus on your meal
and what you are eating. This allows the ‘fullness’
mechanism to kick in and makes you stop when you have
eaten a sufficient amount for your body. Make mealtimes
occasions. Sit down, don’t turn the TV and think about
your food and how it tastes. Savour it rather than
shovelling it into your mouth until your plate is clear.
Eating quickly whilst watching TV or reading or eating
on the run is fatal. Your brain will not register the
meal properly and you will still feel hungry
afterwards.
LACK OF SLEEP
Insufficient sleep causes the hormones which regulate
the hunger patterns in the body to alter causing a
craving for calorie dense, high carbohydrate foods.
Leptin, the hormone which is responsible for telling the
body it does not need to eat any more food, decreases
and the hormone ghrelin which is responsible for hunger
increases when we have had a couple of nights of bad or
no sleep. The result is a binge on cakes, bread,
biscuits, potato chips etc. Try to get into a regular
sleep pattern and if you anticipate a few late nights be
prepared. Make up a big pan of homemade vegetable soup
and get some wholemeal rolls, stock up with whole-wheat
pasta and tomato based sauces. This is the kind of food
you will feel like eating so if you have healthy
alternatives in your kitchen you are less likely to
reach for the bag of chips and the dial-a-pizza guy!
STRESS
If
you suffer from prolonged stress, this can significantly
inhibit your chances of loosing weight. Aside from the
lack of sleep and the associated weight problems this
causes, stress affects the body in other ways which can
lead to weight gain. When under stress, the body
releases a chemical called cortisol, which in turn
lowers the metabolism. This means loosing weight is more
difficult and putting it on is easier. Stress also
increases your appetite for the wrong foods. People
under chronic stress often crave fatty sugary foods and
these are usually very unhealthy and full of useless
calories. Victims of prolonged stress can find that
their blood sugar becomes affected and also that the
distribution of fat becomes more concentrated around the
abdomen. This is not only bad from a loosing weight
point of view, but abdominal or trunk fat is linked with
heart disease.
Part of the vicious cycle of stress and weight is down
to being too busy. Usually if your too busy, you’re
stressed, you’re too busy to take regular exercise or
prepare healthy food and far too busy to sit down and
eat it. You can’t sleep because you’re so wound up and
you have trouble with digestion because you eat bad food
on the run!
It’s important to realise the affect stress has, not
just on those pounds you’ve been trying to shift, but
also on your life as a whole.
SKIPPING MEALS
Your metabolism works better if you feed your body with
healthy food regularly. Skipping meals doesn’t work
simply because it will make you binge later on.
Your body will become too hungry and your blood sugars
will drop and you will crave sugary fatty foods to
compensate. Eating healthy meals or snacks every three
to four hours will allow you to maintain a steady blood
sugar and keep your metabolism running at a steady rate.
Eat sensibly (or according to what ever diet plan your
following) at each meal and in between meals choose
healthy snacks such as fruit, low fat/sugar yoghurt, oat
cakes or a handful of nuts such as almonds or walnuts.
If you decide to follow a diet plan then it’s advisable
to stick to the meals and snacks suggested. Skipping
these meals or snacks may cause you to eat too little
and that can slow weight loss down also (See point 3!)
ELIMINATING ALL FAT
The trend for ‘no fat diets’ is well and truly over. Our
bodies and brains need certain types of fats to function
well and it is unwise to eliminate all fat from our
diets. It is, however wise to be choosy about the type
of fats we eat as just because a fat is a good doesn’t
mean it’s low in calories. The types fats we need and
which are beneficial are monounsaturated and
polyunsaturated fats. These are found in olives,
avocados, oily fish, nuts. Bad fats are saturated fats,
usually found in red meat and dairy products and the
worst kind of fats are trans-fats which are most often
found in processed foods. (Trans-fats happen when the
cooking process alters the fats used and causes a
trans-fat to occur).
To
maintain a healthy diet and help you loose weight,
replace unhealthy snacks with a handful of nuts and
seeds (not salted or processed!) and only eat very lean
cuts of meat. Opt for low fat dairy, although watch out
for the sugar content in these and check out soya
alternatives – sometimes they’re even nicer than the
real thing! Try to eat oily fish at least twice a week
and avoid ‘made up dressings’ on salads. There are
loads of delicious, healthy oils on the market which you
can sprinkle over salads. As well as olive oil, try
flax, hemp and rape. But remember, although these oils
are good for you they do contain a lot of calories so
don’t go overboard.
DIETING WITHOUT EXERCISE
Whilst it’s fair to say that you will loose weight by
watching calories, you have a much better chance of
getting it off and keeping it off if you take up or
increase your weekly exercise. When you exercise you use
more calories, raise your metabolism, build muscle and
convert fat into energy.
If
you decide to loose some weight think seriously about
what kind of exercise suits you. Imagine how it will fit
into your lifestyle and how you will feel at the end of
the day when it’s time to go and put on your trainers.
There is not point paying an expensive gym subscription
if you only go three times because it’s too far away, or
you’re too busy to go for a couple of hours. Exercise
works best when (a) you enjoy what you’re doing and (b)
when it slots easily into your normal routine. Do you
enjoy team sports or the support of other people? If
so, find out about clubs or exercise classes in your
local area. Walking is excellent and simply taking a
walk at lunch time or leaving earlier in the morning and
walking a few extra bus stops can really make a
difference. Remember that muscle uses more energy than
fat so by getting fitter you will not only feel better
but help yourself to loose weight even when you are
sitting still!
Also, if you have reached a plateau in your weigh loss
program, i.e. come to a point where you have done well
and lost quite a bit of weight but can’t shift the next
bit, increase your exercise – this usually works and the
weight starts moving off again.
ALL OR NOTHING
This is a classic mistake and one most people are guilty
of. When you start your weight loss program you’re full
of good intentions and you’re never going to eat
chocolate/chips/ice-cream etc., again. For the first few
days or even few weeks all goes well and then you fall
off the wagon. This is a dangerous time for dieters as
it’s the time when you’re likely to give up completely.
Try to remember that just because you have a bad day (or
even a bad week) doesn’t mean all your good work has
been undone. Enjoy the blow out for what it was, a
treat and carry on with the diet as if it had never
happened. If you develop this attitude to weight loss
then you have a much better chance of staying slim
longer term. People who have no weight problem are not
too hard on themselves, they allow themselves the
occasional treat and don’t beat themselves up about it.
However, after the treat is over the go back to eating
and exercising normally and their weight stays
relatively stable. Having an all or nothing attitude to
weight loss is bound to end in failure, so allow
yourself to be human and if you break your diet, don’t
panic – tomorrow is another day.
BEING TOO RIGID
Setting too high standards can often lead to a feeling
of failure. This is true in all walks of life, not just
where weight loss is concerned. If you commit yourself
to following a very strict diet and exercise regime your
body will rebel and you will crave fatty sugary foods.
This then leads into a download spiral of feeling
inadequate, unsuccessful, weak etc and potentially leads
to even more comfort eating. In order to loose weight
successfully, your body needs to feel nourished and
fuelled properly. Starving it of essential foods will do
no good either in the short or long term. Aim for a
varied diet of in or around 1200 cals daily and drink
plenty of fluids as well. If you are well fed and
energetic you will begin to feel great and although the
pounds will come off slowly (ideally at about 1-2lbs a
week) you will be less likely to binge and feel bad
about yourself and what’s more you’ll be encouraged to
keep going when you see and feel the weight coming off
even though you are not being too strict.
MATCH EXERCISE TO AGE
Exercise is really important, not just in terms of weigh
loss but also in general health terms. Human beings were
meant to move around and our bodies work better and last
longer when we keep them fit. However, there is not
point taking up something like squash as 50 if you have
never played it before. If you are fit and have always
had a vigorous exercise regime then there is not reason
why you shouldn’t keep it for as long as you can. If you
have never exercised before it is advisable to start off
with gentle exercise like walking, easy cycling or
swimming and build up to a level which is appropriate
for your age and physical condition. If you have health
problems and are very overweight it is a good idea to
talk to your health care professional before embarking
on any sort of physical exercise regime. People who
exercise regularly age more slowly and stay slimmer into
old age and as you get into middle age exercise is
excellent at helping to prevent conditions such as
osteoporosis, heart disease and a host of other
illnesses associated with aging.
INVISIBLE CALORIES
This can be a minefield. You may think you have been
very good, only to weigh yourself and find that you
gained a pound! Watch out for hidden calories. Some
sauces for example, whilst low in fat can be very high
in sugar and therefore in calories.
This in turn can be hidden under ‘carbohydrates’ on the
food label so even if you do read the ingredients it may
not be immediately visible. The best thing is to check
out the overall calories per 100g. However, remember
that you may be eating more than 100g per portion so
adjust the calories accordingly. I once had a friend
who was really excited because she found a really low
calorie beer. She stocked up lots of it and felt really
virtuous but wasn’t loosing any weight. When I checked
out the label, it turns out that the calorie count was
100 cals per 100 mls but there were 500ml in the tin –
so every beer she drank gave her not 100 but 500
calories!
It’s easy to so this so be very careful. Generally
speaking creamy or cheesy sauces have more calories than
tomato or vegetable based ones. Soup can have lots of
hidden calories especially if it’s ‘cream of’. Baked
potatoes can be smothered in oil or butter before
cooking which makes them as bad as fries and fruit
juices and fruit drinks can be high in calories too.
Always choose diet based soda and even check out fruit
flavoured mineral water as sometimes this can have extra
calories. You need to become calorie savvy. When you are
dieting, every calorie is precious and you don’t want to
waste it unnecessarily. So make your choices carefully
both when eating out and cooking in and if there is a
lower calorie option – go for it!
PORTION CONTROL
Again this is an easy mistake to make. You probably
don’t need as much as you think you do and if you put a
big portion on your plate you may feel obliged to eat
it. Portion control is one of the easiest ways to loose
weight whilst still eating what you want. Reduce the
amount you put on your plate every day and eat more
slowly and you’ll be amazed at just how full you feel on
a lot less. A good trick is to use a smaller plate or to
fill up the space with more vegetables. Learn to leave
food on your plate if you feel full – a lot of us have
been brought up to believe that we must finish what is
put in front of us. Loose that mentality and stop eating
when your brain registers that full feeling.
Roughly speaking portion sizes should be as follows:
1
portion of carbohydrate (rice, pasta, potato) - size of
your two hands cupped.
1
meat/fish portion – size and thickness of your palm.
1
portion of butter – size of your thumbnail.
1
portion of cheese – size and thickness or your thumb.
Generally speaking you can eat as many vegetables as you
like as long as they are not covered in butter or sauce.
However the aim of portion control is to remind your
body to stop when it’s naturally full. When you allow
this mechanism to kick in again, instead of eating
what’s on your plate just for the sake of it, your
weight will more or less control itself.
FOOLED BY FATS
It’s easy to get lulled into a false sense of security
with ‘good’ fats. There is no doubt that we need these
friendly fats and they are good for us but they are
still calorie heavy. Remember just because it’s heart
healthy doesn’t mean it’s not going to make you put on
weight. Avocados are super for your health, but the oil
in them makes them high in calories so one quarter to a
half an avocado a day is ample (less if you’re watching
calories). The same goes for oily nuts such as almonds,
brazils etc. A small handful will really help you loose
weight if you replace an unhealthy snack with these, but
eating a whole bag will make you put on weight even if
they are very good for you! Whilst for your health, you
need to read the saturated fat content on labels
carefully, for weight loss it’s important to understand
that you must eat healthy fats but in limited
quantities.
This is also true of dairy products. Low fat generally
means that is has less than 3grams of fat per 100 grams
of product. Dairy most often contains saturated fat so
if you can go for the low fat or soya option then do but
check out the sugar content. Some dairy products
advertise themselves as low fat but make up for lack of
taste with a generous helping of sugar.
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