Five Common Diet Mistakes (and How to Correct Them!)
By Judi Sheppard Missett
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. See if you recognize any of the following diet "no-no's" as your own. Then read about the way to do it right:
Common Diet Mistakes 1. Skipping breakfast. Eating the right breakfast is critical 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 midmorning hunger kicks in.
2. Overabundance of fat-free snack foods. They're everywhere you turn. 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.
3. "I only eat salads." Guess what? A salad can pack as large a calorie punch as a hamburger if the veggies are smothered in cheese, croutons and high-fat dressing, or served in a deep-fried tortilla shell.
4. Choosing juice over an apple or orange. Not only is juice packed with calories compared to its fresh counterpart, but it offers none of the fiber found in whole fruit.
5. Severe calorie restriction. The average body needs 1,200 to 1,500 calories a day to function. Throw in any type of physical activity, and that number goes up. When you severely restrict your daily calories, for example, eating just 600 to 800 calories a day, you actually slow your metabolism, not to mention increase your risk of health problems such as anemia, gout, gallstones and cardiac complications. Plus, when the diet is finally over, the pounds come back twice as fast.
Steps to Success 1. Keep a food diary. It's easy to lose track of what you've eaten throughout the day, which makes it that much easier to eat too much and to eat the wrong things. Writing everything down -- meals and snacks -- will help you make better choices and increase your chances of success.
2. Eat several small meals a day. In addition to preventing intense hunger (you know, the type that makes you eat three times what you normally would), eating often stabilizes your blood sugar.
3. Get your five fruits and vegetables a day. This may involve a bit of retraining and willpower, but try grabbing a piece of fruit or some cut-up vegetables for snacks, instead of chips, crackers or cookies. You'll get much-needed fiber and decrease your risk of a wealth of illnesses, including diabetes, certain cancers and heart disease. (It probably goes without saying, but your calorie consumption will go down, as well.)
4. Eat the right combinations of nutrients. Ignore the latest diet trend, and stick to the proven course: 15 percent to 30 percent fat; 50 percent to 55 percent carbohydrates; 20 percent to 25 percent protein.
Just keep in mind that your carbohydrates should come from whole grains, fruits and vegetables. Your protein should consist of lean meats, beans, legumes and low-fat dairy products; and fat should be of the mono-unsaturated variety, rather than saturated fats, which come from animals, and trans-fatty acids.
5. Add a serving of exercise. No weight-loss or weight-maintenance program is complete without physical activity. Try to get in at least 30 minutes of moderate activity a day. If that sounds daunting, break it into 10-minute intervals of walking, climbing stairs or biking to the park with your kids.
Judi Sheppard Missett is CEO of Jazzercise Inc., an international aerobic-dance instruction company.
