Bodypower Fitness Centre

5 Most Common Diet Mistakes

If you haven't been able to lose weight, you could be committing some (or all) of these typical blunders.

What we eat has a lasting impact on how we look and feel, but in our quest to slim down we often make crucial nutrition mistakes. Then we wonder why the number on the scale isn't going down, or why that favorite pair of jeans still doesn't zip up! See if any of the following diet blunders sound too familiar, then find out how to correct these bad habits once and for all.

1) Skipping breakfast. Eating the right breakfast is crucial for providing you with the energy to make it through a busy morning and keep you from reaching for high-fat/high-sugar snacks when mid-morning hunger kicks in.

2) Overeating fat-free snack foods. They're everywhere you turn in grocery store. Fat-reduced snack foods, from cookies to crackers to ice-cream, became a marketing bonanza for food companies and left many people feeling as though they could eat as much as they wanted. Unfortunately, fat-free does not mean low calorie. In addition, these snack foods perpetuate the problem by feeding into our habitual craving for processed foods. Turn to fruits and vegetables whenever you feel like snacking, and you'll be rewarded with long-lasting energy boosts as well as a leaner figure.

3) "I only eat salads". Yes, having a salad seems like a smart weight-loss move, but such a meal can actually be a diet disaster! That meal-in-a-bowl can pack as large a caloric punch as a burger if the veggies are smothered in cheese, croutons and high fat dressing or served in a deep-fried tortilla shell. One ladle of dressing at a salad bar contains four tablespoons of dressing, which can be over 500 calories! For a truly low-calorie salad, measure your portions of salad dressing - one tablespoonful of a regular dressing, two tablespoonfuls of a fat-free or low-fat variety - and skip the croutons and tortilla shell. Instead of the high-fat fare, add a tablespoonful of raisins to those greens for some welcome pizzazz.

4) Choosing juice over an apple or orange. Not only is it packed with calories compared to its fresh-off-the-tree counterpart, juice offers none of the fiber found in whole fruit. The act of eating that apple, skin and all, also fills your stomach far more effectively than a glass of apple juice ever could.

5) Going on low, low-calorie diets. The average body needs 1,200 to 1,500 calories a day just to function. Throw in any type of physical activity and that number goes up. When you severely restrict your daily calories, such as eating 600 to 800 calories a day, you actually slow your metabolism, not to mention increasing your risk of health problems such as anemia, gout, gall stones and cardiac complications. When the diet is finally over, the pounds seem to come back twice as fast because your body has become accustomed to functioning on a lower level of food-fuel than in the past.

(extracted from Diet & Exercise Spring 2006)