10 Weight Loss Mistakes That Are Ruining Your Efforts

If you’re struggling to lose weight, the reason may be simple: you’re making one or more common mistakes in your weight loss strategy that are actually sabotaging your efforts and ensuring that you don’t see the results you want as quickly as possible. By avoiding these common mistakes when losing weight, you can dramatically increase your chances of losing the weight faster and being able to maintain it in the long term. Here are 10 common weight loss mistakes, how they hold people back from success, and how to avoid them so you can get better results more quickly.

1) Not keeping track of your calories

If you’re not keeping track of your calories, you won’t know if your diet is working for you. One of the best ways to make sure that your weight loss efforts are successful is to keep a food journal where you write down everything that you eat and drink throughout your day. This way, you’ll be able to look back at what has worked and what hasn’t.

2) Not exercising

The idea that all you need to do is cut calories has led many people to give up on exercise. Yet, as important as diet is for losing weight and keeping it off, exercise has been proven again and again to help people drop pounds. So if you’re not working out regularly—even if you’re sticking with your diet—you’re missing out on a key tool for weight loss success. If you want to lose weight, make sure regular exercise is part of your routine.

3) Overindulging on cheat days

While cheat days sound great in theory—who doesn’t want to give their body a break from healthy eating every once in a while?—they often lead to overindulging on unhealthy foods and disrupt your metabolism, causing you to feel sluggish and bloated. Remember: Having one treat or meal out of your normal routine is much better than several, so don’t break all of your healthy habits at once.

4) Giving up too soon

The worst thing you can do when trying to lose weight is give up before you’ve seen any results. It’s important to remember that your body has a lot of moving parts, including hormones and neurotransmitters, so it takes some time for everything to fall into place.

5) Skipping meals because you’re not hungry

Skipping meals because you’re not hungry or trying to shed extra weight fast is a recipe for disaster. You’ll end up ravenous at your next meal and likely eat everything in sight. Not only that, but skipping meals will actually slow down your metabolism, not speed it up as many people think.

6) Snacking between meals

Make sure you’re not snacking between meals. If you snack, make sure it’s with a healthy food, such as carrots and hummus or an apple and some peanut butter. Eating something that is high in fat or sugar will only encourage your body to store extra fat. Snacking also increases your cravings later on, which means it’s likely you’ll eat more calories at dinner time than if you hadn’t snacked at all.

7) Letting your emotions rule your actions

When trying to lose weight, your emotions can be your worst enemy. Whether you’re feeling tired, cranky, or just plain hungry, you have to rely on willpower and discipline to eat right and get active instead of allowing yourself to indulge in less-than-optimal food choices.

8) Calorie counting is too hard or time consuming

Calorie counting can be time consuming, if you’re trying to hit specific calorie limits every day. For example, to lose 1 pound per week you need to burn an extra 500 calories per day than you consume—that’s cutting back on 500 calories a day or burning off an extra 500 each day through exercise. So, doing it one day is good but doing it for 30 is too hard and very time consuming.

9) Allowing yourself cheat foods

Don’t set yourself up for failure. It’s hard to stick to a diet if you allow yourself cheat foods or days. If you do decide to incorporate cheat foods, you should only do so about once a week and only after losing 3-5 percent of your total body weight.

10) Over dieting

If you’re dieting to lose weight, beware of going overboard. Diets that severely restrict caloric intake can lower metabolic rate, causing your body to store more fat as a form of energy preservation. This type of dieting may lead to yo-yo dieting and weight gain in the long run.