There are more than 64% of Americans who are overweight. The majority of those people are on some sort of diet or plan to be on a diet in the near future. Unfortunately, most of these dieters will fail and give up in a matter of weeks. If you are planning to begin a new diet plan you may be interested to learn about the ten reasons that a diet fails.
1)Support- Having a support system is a big deal when you are embarking on a weight loss journey. If you do not have support you will ultimately fail. Having support means that you will have people around you who understand what you are going through and vow to help you get through it all. Support people are people that you can talk to when you are less than happy with your weight loss results, talk to when you need ideas on how to spice up your routine, talk to when you need meal ideas and just talk to when you need a little boost to your self-esteem. Don’t forget that your support people are there to cheer you on when you have great results to show off. If you don’t have support from friends and/or family then who will you talk to when you slip and eat half of a cheesecake? Who will tell you that it’s alright and just move on? Who will take you out for a celebratory chicken salad when you lose those first ten pounds? Everyone needs a support system when they are on a diet plan…..including you.
2)Mentality & Willpower- Your mentality going into a new diet plan is just as important as having a support system. If you go into it thinking that you will fail then you will fail. You must go into a diet with the mentality that you will succeed, you will lose weight and you will accomplish your weight loss goals. Your uplifting mentality will go hand in hand with your willpower. Willpower is a common word when you think of dieting. You’ve probably heard people say that they have no willpower when they describe eating something that they shouldn’t or overeating. When you go into a diet with the right mentality your willpower will follow. Don’t look at it like you must force yourself to diet, look at it like you will feel better about yourself on the days that you stick to your diet plan.
3)Scales Aren’t Moving Fast Enough- We all know that seeing the numbers on the scales go down is the top reason that we all diet. You may have steady losses for several weeks after you start your diet plan and you will feel great about them, but what happens when the scales stop moving downhill for you? Many people get very frustrated when their weight loss hits a plateau, myself included. A lot of those frustrated people will end up giving up and going back to their old lifestyle, therefore their diet plan fails. When the scales just aren’t moving fast enough it can be very discouraging. You eat right, exercise, drink your water and do everything right but week after week the numbers refuse to go down but then one day you step on the scales and you are three pounds lighter. So what happened? Nothing really. The body has to have time to adjust to all of the previous weight loss. It has to become accustom to the new you before it can allow you to lose mmore weight. A plateau can last anywhere from a few days to several weeks to a few months. It all depends on your body’s plan for you and how well it can adapt to your previous weight loss. Give it time, spice up your workout routine and makke sure that you are eating your fruits and veggies and drinking your water. The weight loss will pick back up when your body is ready to let it.
4)Starving Yourself- When most people think of dieting they think of cutting their food intake down to as little food as possible. This is a bad idea and this route can cause your diet to fail. Dieters that start a diet plan this way are just beginning a vicious cycle of starving themselves to the point that they just can’t help but to over indulge and then they feel so bad that they go right back to starving themselves. This cycle can go around and around many times before the dieter finally just gives up. Food is your body’s fuel and when you deprive your body of it’s precious fuel it holds on to everything that it can in order to conserve energy. So when you starve your body it will refuse to give up it’s hold on the fat that you are trying to so hard to get rid of. If you do end up losing weight by starving yourself the weight will creep back on as soon as you start to eat the right way again. The best way to lose weight and keep it off is to eat smaller portions of healthier foods. Do not starve your hardworking body.
5)Overeating- Have you ever looked at the actual serving sizes on the foods that you eat regularly? If not, it’s definitely time to do so. The portion sizes in America are huge and getting larger with each passing year. How can a regular person not over eat when they aren’t paying attention to actual serving sizes? When you are dieting you really need to pay close attention to your portion sizes. You need to weigh and measure as many of your foods as you possibly can. You need to read labels and packaging in order to determine the correct serving size and you need to stick to them. For instance, if you are eating a meal of large hotdogs and the packaging states that a serving size is actually half a hotdog but all you pay attention to are the amount of calories in the hotdog then you will end up eating more than one serving and not even knowing it. Overeating, and not even knowing it, will backfire and prevent you from losing weight. When you are on a diet you will need to pay close attention to portion size because you can actually end up overeating without know it.
6)Wrong Foods- Eating the wrong foods is a common mistake when dieting. You can cut calories and watch your portion control and still sabatoge your diet by eating the wrong foods. Eating double portions of veggies is so much better than half a serving of cheesecake. Unfortunately, a lot of people don’t understand that and it causes them to have trouble with their diets and stumped as to why they aren’t losing weight fast enough or at all. Yes, cutting your portion size is fantastic especially if you are eating the right foods when you are doing it.
7)Not Counting Bites, Licks, Tastes- Bites, licks and tastes are those little things that you do when you are cooking, helping someone else cook or just sampling someone else’s food. I’ll just taste this and see if it’s perfect. Just one lick of that icecream won’t hurt. A small bite of chocolate cake can’t do any harm. When you combine all of the bites, licks and tastes the calories can really add up. When you are dieting you need to count every single morsel of food and/or drink that pass your lips in order to have an accurate picture of what you are putting into your body and what you may need to cut back on or eliminate from your diet
8)Not Enough Water- Everyone’s body is made predominately of water so it’s no wonder that drinking your water can help you lose weight while dieting. Your body needs to have it’s water replenished continuously throughout the day. Many people mistaken their body’s thirst signal for hunger so they end up eating when all their body wants is a nice big glass of water. The next time that you have that hungry feeling drink down a big glass of water and see what happens. True hunger will not go away. If it does, your body was thirsty and all it needed was a big glass of water. The recommended daily water consumption is 8-10 glasses of water. It is also suggested that if you are dieting then you should aim for half your body weight in water. For example, if you weight 190 pounds, divide that by half ….80….and that it how many ounces of water you should drink every day. Eighty ounces of water is equal to ten cups of water. The more you weigh then the more water that you need to drink daily.
9)Not Enough Exercise- When you first start your diet it is a good idea to think of a workout routine to accompany the diet. Exercise is important for your body to burn off the calories that you put into it. You need to burn more calories than you consume in order to lose weight. It’s great to start off slowly when you are beginning a new workout routine but in general you will need to increase your exercise in order to burn more calories and so that your body won’t get use to your workout routine. Not getting enough exercise will definitely mess with your weight loss and possibly cause your diet plan to fail.
10)Too Much Exercise- You’re probably thinking that too much exercise is a moronic idea but it’s a very real problem with some people. I, myself, have had this problem. If you take in a lower amount of calories and workout too hard your body could think that something bad is happening and it will hold on to the weight as tight as it can. Too much exercise can have the same effect as if you are starving yourself to lose weight. That’s why some diet plans, like Weight Watchers, have ways for you to eat more food when you have a heavy workout planned for that day. If you are planning a heavy workout day then you should eat more because your body needs the food to fuel the workout. Just don’t overdo it. You need at least 30 minutes per day of exercise to stay healthy.
If you keep these ten diet killers in mind, when you decide to start a new diet plan, you will be better prepared for the trials and tribulations that go hand in hand with dieting. Take it slow and easy and one day at a time. We all wish that weight loss was quick and easy but weight is never as easy to take off as it was to put on. Weight loss takes time, patience and energy from you. Don’t use your scales as you only means to measure you weight loss success. Take body measurements, pay attention to how you physically feel and how look at how your clothes are fitting you. All of these things will help you better appreciate all of the hard work that you are doing. Your well-being is the most important thing.
