Surprising Reasons Your Diet’s Not Working

I just read an article in the April issue of Prevention magazine about the unexpected reasons why you might not be able to drop those extra pounds. I found it interesting, and am sharing the main points (and my own 2 cents!) because I think you will too:

7 Common Mistakes that Dieters Make 

#1 – You aren’t eating enough: Dipping below 1,200 calories a day and/or skipping meals causes your metabolism to slow in order to hold on to precious calories. You may need to bump up your calorie intake to stoke metabolism.

#2- You celebrate your workout accomplishments…with food: A lot of times people overestimate how many calories they burn during a workout, and underestimate how much they’re eating. Rewarding yourself for exercising by eating a high-calorie treat doesn’t add up to weight loss. I don’t really do this, but if you’re like me, you sometimes get home from a workout feeling famished. That’s why I think it’s important to plan out your meals. That way, you know exactly what you need to do to make a healthy meal once you get home… without staring into the cabinet or fridge for 10 minutes trying to figure out what to eat while scarfing down handfuls of cereal and unconsciously taking in too many calories (I’m guilty of this on more than one occasion!).

#3 – You slurp diet drinks: Now that artificial sweeteners have been on the market long enough for researchers to do long-term studies, the dark suspicion about them is starting to be confirmed… diet drinks may backfire and cause your body to hold on to calories as fat. Here’s how it seems to work: the taste of something sweet without the calories can actually raise your insulin levels and lower your blood sugar, which may stimulate hunger and move existing calories into storage in your fat cells. Although it’s probably best to totally avoid artificial sweeteners for this reason, it might not seem realistic to a lot of people (I definitely know a bunch of Diet Coke fanatics!), especially since they’re in so many foods and beverages these days. With this one, I think the key is to at least try to limit your intake and enjoy sweeteners in moderation.

#4- Your friends are fat: With every friend in your network who is obese, your chances of being heavy increases. This may be because being around overweight people causes your perceptions to change, and makes living larger seem more acceptable. It may also be partly due to a person’s lifestyle and behaviors subconsciously rubbing off on those in their inner circle. As my father says, you get like who you hang with. If you surround yourself with people who are active and eat healthy, you’ll be more motivated to live the same way.

#5- You’ve eliminated wine: (I think this is my favorite reason!) New research found that women who drank 1-2 glasses of wine daily gained less weight over 13 years, compared to those who did not drink alcohol. I’m curious to know more details about this research – how many women was the study conducted on? What about all the other decisions the women made throughout those years? How did other behaviors and choices affect their lifestyle and weight loss/gain? Oh hell, I’ll just take this one as golden and enjoy a glass of wine often. 🙂

#6- Your diet isn’t digitally enhanced: Simply writing down everything you eat has been proven to yield better results. But did you know that studies have shown that using a digitized program with positive feedback to monitor diet and exercise can help you lose even more? My app. of choice is MyFitnessPal.

#7- You’ve gone no-carb or fat-free: Drastically cutting back on any one food group – does the low-carb trend ring a bell? – can leave you short on nutrients and energy. While it might work as a short-term fix, the biggest reason low-carb diets fail is because most people can’t pass up birthday cake or a slice of pizza their entire lives, and so they tend to regain all of the weight back. Ideally, you should be eating a varied diet that includes healthy fats (hello avocado! nuts! dark chocolate!) and good carbs such as fruits and veggies. The biggest way to succeed is to make your diet a lifestyle. I think the only way to do that is to not be too extreme, and to be able to treat yourself sometimes (and hopefully allow yourself to do that without feeling guilty afterwards!).