You might think you’re doing everything you need to do to slim down. But if despite your best efforts the pounds have stopped budging, something is wrong. Diet experts suggest you take a closer look at your eating and exercise habits: You may, in fact, be doing things you’re not even aware of that have you stuck in a diet rut.
Here’s how to avoid some of the common pitfalls that trip dieters up on the road to success:
- Knock food off its pedestal.
If you want to keep calories down you’ve got to pay strict attention to everything you put in your mouth and avoid situations that lead to unconscious eating. Unfortunately, when you’ve use food to celebrate life’s happy events and to soothe the bad ones, mindless eating can result.
Case in point: You go out with others an get caught up in the revelry, forgetting that you don’t really want an order of nachos, fired ice cream and another round of frozen margaritas. On the other hand, when you’re stressed out and operating on autopilot, you may find yourself reaching into a bag of chips or dipping into a carton of ice cream without thinking.
In such situations, you may be eating for deeply rooted psychological reasons – after all, your mother may have comforted and rewarded you with food when you were a child. But it’s time to consider this habit a problem if it leads to weight gain.
The good news is that there are healthier ways of dealing with life’s ups and downs.
“Find a substitution for food,” suggests Audrey Cross, Ph.D., Professor of nutrition at Columbia University. Instead of eating, you might get together with friends and family over coffee instead of going to a restaurant. Or do something active, such as going for a walk with your husband or playing with your kids.
- Don’t mistreat your taste buds.
If you think sticking to a rigid routine of low-fat “diet” meals is a good way to ensure that you don’t eat too much, you’re wrong: Consuming the same things over and over again can get mighty boring, and the monotony may set you up for a binge. For a better shot at long-term weight success, keep your taste buds satisfied by including interesting new foods in your repertoire. For example, you might buy some low-fat cookbooks featuring spicy ethnic cuisines, such as Indian, Thai or Middle Eastern.
Another great way to beat deprivation: Find foods you like that you can use to replace some of the higher-fat items you’ve grown accustomed to eating, suggests Fran Grossman, R.D., a nutritionist at Mount Sinai Medical Center in New York City. For starters, you might switch from whole milk to skim, full-fat cheese and yogurt to low-fat dairy products, and regular hamburgers to veggie burgers.
- Get off the couch and start moving.
“Exercise is the single activity most clearly associated with long-term weight maintenance,” according to David Allison, Ph.D., a research at the Obesity Research Center at St. Luke’s Roosevelt Hospital in New York City. One reason is when you lose weight your body needs fewer calories to maintain your new weight than it did when you were heavier. Consequently, you have to eat less.
One way to enable yourself to eat a little more without gaining pounds is by exercising regularly.
- Don’t let your guard down.
What’s a dieter to do when faced with doughnuts at the office, chocolate cake at a friend’s house and cheese curls in the kids’ room? Avoid unplanned, environmentally induced eating like this by never letting your guard down and recognizing it as a potential trap for you, suggests Dan Stettner, Ph.D., director of psychology at William Beaumont Hospital in Birmingham, Michigan. This way, you’ll be less likely to eat something that you’ll feel guilty about later.
- Stop starving yourself.
As a general rule, “no one should eat fewer than 800 calories a day in an effort to lose weight,” says Grossman. If you consume too few calories, deprivation is bound to set in, which often leads to bingeing. More important, eating too little puts you at risk for falling short on important vitamins and minerals, such as iron and calcium.
On such a diet, you’ll also lose more muscle mass than you would on a higher-calorie diet, and when you go back to eating regularly, you’ll regain the weight – and then some.
Don’t go down this rocky road. Figure out how many calories you really need to lose weight. That figure will depend upon your frame size and activity level.
Here’s a rough estimate: Consult height/weight charts and determine your ideal body weight, then add a zero to that figure. For example, if the chart says you should weigh 135, consider 1350 your lowest daily caloric limit.
Next, match that number of calories you’re actually consuming. Do this by keeping a daily food log, and record everything you eat for at least two weeks. AT each day’s end, tally the number of calories you’re consuming, with the help of a calorie counting book. If you find you’re eating too few calories, eat more. And if you’re eating too many, cut back.
Once you start consuming the number of calories that you’ve determined you should be eating, it’s a good idea to continue using the food diary to help you stay honest. There’s nothing like keeping track of every morsel to illuminate unexpected sources of calories.
“Dieters who keep food logs tend to have better results,” says Grossman. In fact, according to one study of 685 participants in the Freedom From Fat program at Kaiser Permanente in Portland, Oregon, those who kept food diaries lost 33 percent more weight than those who didn’t.
Keep your workout from becoming boring.
If the thrill of your regular workout is gone, break through the monotony by doing it a little differently. For example, if you usually go for a walk, you might decide to change your route, or instead ride a bike or take an aerobics class. If you usually work out alone, consider joining a friend for a game of tennis or racquetball.
Also, be sure to take advantage of the seasons. In summer, get relief from the heat by going for a swim. The benefits you’ll derive go way beyond novelty, according to Michael Scholtz, an exercise physiologist at the Duke University Diet and Fitness Center in Durham, North Carolina.
Adding variety to your workout will also increase the number of muscles you’re working and reduce your risk of developing joint and muscle overuse injuries.
Author: Sandra Gordon
