Three Errors That Can Kill Your Diet Plan

October 9, 2010

Even though is a ton of information out there about weight loss, people seem to be making three basic mistakes regarding their weight loss plan. These are not small errors that set you back a bit in your plan, these are big mistakes that threaten the success of your plan altogether! If you make these mistakes you are likely to not only only lose weight temporarily, but you will probably gain back even more and be worse off than when you started your plan!

Mistake number one is adopting an all or nothing mindset regarding your diet plan. If a person starts with this attitude it usually means that they have failed at losing weight before and are this time determined to achieve their weight goal by the force of their will no matter what gets in their way. This attitude is understandable since these people are so frustrated with their failure to lose weight with previous attempts. Unfortunately in their zeal they usually pick a particularly complicated plan that can be very difficult to maintain. To assure their success some will even throw out any food that is not on the plan! Even so, the most likely outcome is yet another failure.

At the start these plans often seem successful but inevitably something happens that interrupts the plan. Many things could cause this, but often is is their work forcing them to be away from home where they can’t prepare their planned meal. Often they find that their body just can not take any more and cravings take over, causing them to make a quick trip to the grocery store to find some food they are used to eating. Either way, this throws them off their carefully laid out Plan and they end up feeling like complete failures. Ironically, this feeling of failure is often the last straw and they end up never going back to the plan, gaining back all of their lost weight and more.

If you have been through this situation it is time that you ask yourself a couple hard questions. First of all, do you really want to lose weight permanently, or deep down do you really just want a temporary fix so you can go back to the lifestyle that got you here in the first place? This endless cycle of losing and gaining back weight is worse for you than just carrying around extra pounds, so you need to get off the roller coaster and seriously address the problem. You need to acknowledge to yourself that the only way you will ever be successful over the long term is to make PERMANENT gradual changes to your lifestyle, not temporary fixes.

The second mistake is to start with an attitude of sacrifice, where you view your diet plan as period of sacrifice where you are not eating normally. This type of dieter believes that they must give up all the foods they enjoy while they are trying to reach their goal weight. Sometimes these dieters reach their goal and seem to have mastered the weight problem. However, they soon go back to what they think is normal eating and gain all the weight right back.

The key thing these people don not realize is that they gained weight in the first place because their normal food habits cause them to eat too much for their activity level and body size. Instead of a time of sacrifice they need a permanent change to their food and exercise habits. People do not gain 20 or 30 pounds overnight, they typical get too little exercise or consume too much food and this produces a gain of a few ounces a week. This may not sound like much but, over time, it becomes many extra unwanted pounds. People need to realize that they must lose weight the same way, by creating small, permanent lifestyle changes that will cause a small loss each week, without having to give up all the foods they love!

Third on our list of common dieting errors is starting a weight loss plan with unrealistic goals. Having realistic, achievable goals is critical for any plan to be successful. But most dieters just have one goal when they start, their ideal weight. The problem is that this can’t provide motivation since the final target weight is usually a long ways from their current weight. When a few pounds are lost successfully, the dieter often feels that the loss does not amount to much compared to how much they have to lose to reach the ultimate goal. This may cause them to feel that the weight loss plan is failing, even if good progress is being made!

An example of a plan that is much more likely to succeed is a plan that has a weekly goal of losing two pounds for the first five weeks then 1 pound per week after that. This method allows you to have an opportunity for success every week. Even if you miss a goal one week, you can continue to work on losing the two pounds the next week. By breaking the plan down into weekly goals like this and putting the goals in writing, the objectives of the plan are clear and realistic and much more likely to be achieved. Furthermore, if the weight loss is tracked on a graph it will soon become obvious that ups and downs are natural but the overall trend is towards the major goal.

If you have been making these mistakes, don’t worry. The most important point in dieting as in so many other things could be to move on. Learn from your failures as well as your success and do not use a mistake as an excuse for giving up. The only method to achieve your goal permanently will be to make a commitment to become a healthier person. Remember that eating normally includes eating more a few days and much less others. Learn to appreciate food in moderation and you’ve each chance of avoiding these bad diet plan mistakes.

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