Misleading weight loss practices can be the thief of your weight loss progress. Some of us have experienced this a few times and understand how frustrating it can be. Maybe you have found your perfect diet, followed everything it says you should do, lost some weight or even reached your weight loss goal and changed your wardrobe…

Then things start working in reverse. You are desperately trying to hold on but you know you are heading back to the starting line. Before you know it your clothes start feeling tighter and tighter….

Unfortunately this is a common story. There is a lot of junk, half truths and misleading weight loss information out there shouting for your attention and your wallet. You fall for it but only part of the promise gets delivered. Or, something gets delivered but your celebration is short lived because it does’t last. There is no weight loss progress.

To help you out, here are 3 misleading weight loss practices that can stop you from reaching or maintaining your weight loss goal.

1. Calories are all that matter.

When it comes to weight loss progress, there is one simple fact that if you follow, gives you a solid starting point. You must be in a calorie deficit to lose weight. That said, my firm belief in successful weight loss is not just in any calorie deficit, but in a calorie deficit with a healthy context.

Getting fixated on just counting calories while ignoring your body’s nutritional needs is a misleading weight loss practice that is rarely successful. Healthy and sustainable weight loss progress goes much further than calories in vs calories out.

Your body needs all 3 macronutrients as well as micronutrients to function at its best. These are Carbohydrates, protein and fats, plus minerals and vitamins. No one food group provides you with all the nutrition you need.

They all play different roles to make your body function efficiently and effectively. Of course there are people who can not take certain food types for health reasons. That is why weight loss is not a one size fits all.

So, does including all 3 macros in your diet make it healthy?

Not necessarily. It is possible to hit your macro requirements on an unhealthy diet. The quality of the macros are part of what determines whether your diet is healthy or not.

For example, whole unprocessed foods such as fruits, vegetables, whole grains, beans and healthy fats do not only give you energy, but also provide you with essential vitamins and minerals. This is not so with less healthy foods such as doughnuts, muffins, processed meats and crisps.

An important point to remember is that these unhealthy foods are not only highly enjoyable but also highly addictive. The more of them you have the more you want. A large full bag of crisps can go down in minutes but will not count as food.

Yes, you still need food after the crisps and large amounts of alcohol. Consistently doing this can make it difficult to stay within your calorie budget long term. This is not to say you shouldn’t have them. Real life is not like that. You need to figure out how they can be part of your life without taking over your diet and affecting your weight loss progress in a negative way.

2. Portion control.

This is one misleading weight loss practice that you must watch out for. The volume of the food never tells you the number of calories in it. For example, a small portion of pasta loaded with cheese and cream will contain more calories than the same amount of pasta served with a variety of vegetables making the portion larger.

This is not to say you can not lose weight by controlling your portions. The point I am making is that there is much more to portion control that just size, just like there is much more to weight loss than counting calories. You at least got to have an idea of the stories behind these portions.

You still must have some knowledge about calories to be able to choose which foods you can have in large portions and which ones to have in small portions.

Choosing more of healthy but high calorie foods will not fill your stomach because you empty your calorie bank before you get full. Sooner or later you may start feeling deprived because it means you pay more calories for less food. This is not a good thing if you are looking for adherence and sustenance.

These healthy high calorie foods include nuts, avocadoes and olive oil. No need to have a lot of these unless for some reason you are not eating carbohydrates. The good news is that you only need a little of them to benefit from them.

Instead, have more of the healthy foods that have less calories but more nutrients. I understand this may sound complicated but it is easier that it sounds. Practice this often enough and you will soon get the hang of it.

Whatever weight loss diet plan you choose, take time to go deeper than the surface to understand whether it will take you to your goal. Also, there must be a way of periodically assessing whether things are going in the intended direction. This is a way of checking how much or how far you have gone with your weight loss progress.

3. Fads and gimmicks.

This is one of the biggest, most common misleading weight loss practice that many people fall for. There are so many crazy unsustainable diets out there. They all have very convincing and persuasive voices but overpromise and underdeliver. They are advertised everywhere from books, the internet to magazines and all compete for your attention.

They find you at a time you are most vulnerable and desperate to make weight loss permanent this time.They know that there are people out there who can do anything to lose a lot of weight in a short time with little to no effort. Before you know it you have signed up because it all looks straight forward and hassle free.

Detox diet, grapefruit diet, cabbage soup diet, carnivore diet and many others are some that people have fallen for and parted with their hard earned cash. As soon as one diet dies, another one pops up.

Several years ago my friend and I fell for the egg diet. I didn’t last long on it but my friend persevered for a bit.  We did lose significant amount of weight but looking back, here is why….

5-6 medium sized boiled eggs will give you 300-360 calories. That is one meal. Have these 3 times a day and and your total daily calories come up to 900-1060 calories. So, no, the eggs were not performing any magic in our bodies. The huge but unsustainable calorie deficit was. We would have lost weight on the same calories on any food.

When it comes to weight loss, there is no magic bullet, no quick fixes and no miracle cure. If it were that easy no one would be struggling to lose weight.

Detox, fat burners and cleansers are the most common gimmicks that appear on the internet and in magazines. The sad thing is that, there are some celebrities and even health professionals who promote these useless things and swear by them. Some look up to these people, believe in them and trust whatever it is they are promoting.

Sometimes we treat our pets better than we treat ourselves. No one would put their overweight cat or dog on a detox diet, shakes, fat burners or feed them apple cider vinegar to “melt” the fat away. So why do this to ourselves? We tend to overthink and complicate things in search of magic solutions which involve little or no hard work.

This may sound a bit harsh but unfortunately this only happens in dreams. You will soon wake up and realise that the only true part of the dream was that your money is gone!

Your body is a self cleaning machine. It has got a team of efficient workers who include Liver, Kidneys, Intestines, Lungs, and Skin to name a few. They work day and night to “cleanse and detox you”. All you have to do is look after them and they will not disappoint you. Give them adequate nutrition, water and rest and they will serve you for many years.

You can not live without them. That is why people end up needing liver, lung or kidney transplant.. Read this article to help you spot this misleading weight loss practice that can damage you weight loss progress.

In conclusion, learning and practising the basics of weight loss will help you steer clear of misleading weight loss practices. Learn and adopt healthy eating habits and monitor your weight loss progress to see where things are going. Give your body the nutrients it needs so that it functions at its best. Once you do this consistently, your weight progress will start heading in the right direction. Check out these nutrients…

Good luck!