Here are 5 biggest diet mistakes that can keep you in a perpetual lifelong dieting cycle with no end in sight. This can be demotivating and set you backwards leading to giving up altogether. Follow this simple but effective guide on how you can avoid these mistakes.

1. Not keeping track of what you are eating. The mother of all diet mistakes.

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This is one diet mistake you must avoid if you are serious about losing weight, aim to reach your weight loss goal and maintain it. Whatever method you choose to monitor what you are eating must be effective enough to allow you to move forward. Make sure this will not be another diet failure.

To lose weight, you must be consistently in a calorie deficit (eating less calories than your body is burning). So, how do you know you are consistently in a calorie deficit? By keeping track not only of what you are eating, but what is in these foods as well. This ensures you stay in a deficit and can monitor progress. Let’s look at how you can keep track….

Portion control. Although this works for a few, eyeballing food portions even if the food is healthy often turns out to be a common diet mistake that has set many backwards for two reasons. Firstly, small portion does not mean less calories. And secondly, it is difficult to correct or make changes when progress stalls.

I am not saying it does not work. My point is that you cannot just eat anything or everything you want in small portions and expect to lose weight. If you have no idea of how the food was prepared and what else was added in there, you are leaving everything to chance. Sooner or later, you will start losing control, and it can be a slippery slope from there onwards that will end up as another diet failure.

Also, portion size is subjective, and the sizes can vary depending on how hungry you are at that time. So, if you have struggled to lose weight like I did, or portion control has turned out to be a diet mistake, It’s time to step up your game…..

Track your calories! This is what gave me control, worked for me and is still working for me 5 years after achieving my goal. There are many apps available that you can use to keep track of your calories. If you don’t know of any apps, check out these ones. They all have their pros and cons and you do not always need everything they provide.

Therefore, there is no need to go broke over a calorie counting app. All you need are the basics. I use MyFitnessPal and have used it for many years. While I do not necessarily use or need everything on there, or agree with some stuff they promote, the app has more positives and has helped me for many years. I personalise it for my needs.

Whatever tracking method you decide to use is your choice if it keeps you in a moderate deficit and allows you to monitor progress. There must be a way of tracking what you are eating.

2. Not planning your meals. A diet mistake that can threaten healthy eating.

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Have you ever come from work or from the gym feeling so hungry that the first thing you do is open the fridge/cupboard and grab anything edible? This is one diet mistake you must avoid because of the high calorie price attached to it. Lack of planning and impulsive eating go together and always result in diet failure.

What tends to happen is that, when we are hungry, we usually go for highly palatable foods loaded with refined cabs and unhealthy fats because they give us an instant but temporary fix. The combination of high sugar and fats is loved by our taste buds but pushes calories though the ceiling without providing us with the nutrients we need. This can easily descent into a mindless eating session.

Why? because you will find it difficult to stop at a handful of nuts or 2 pieces of chocolate. Do this often enough and it will be yo-yo dieting in the making.

To avoid falling for this diet mistake, you must prepare or at least plan your meals in advance. This not only ensures you have the portions with calories required all set up, It also saves time and money. It may sound complicated in theory, but it is simple and convenient once you get used to it.

Advance meal prep is an important habit to learn and practice. Go give it a try.

3. Restrictive diet. A diet mistake that brings unnecessary misery.

Always start as you mean to carry on. Using unsustainable methods to lose weight will bring you back to starting point when you go back to normal eating. Instead, focus on investing your time in learning healthy, eating habits and improving your relationship with food.

A monitored, moderate calorie deficit on a healthy balanced diet is sustainable to take you to your goal. Severe food restriction and cutting out entire food groups from your diet can only go on for so long. Willpower can only take you so far. This is one diet mistake that is a ticket to diet failure.

Learning things like nutrient density (number of nutrients per given weight) and calorie density (number of calories per given weight) will help you use your calories wisely and not unnecessarily restrict yourself. You will then be able to have less of high calorie foods and more of low calorie but nutrient dense foods.

One of the benefits of losing weight using a healthy balanced diet is that the only thing that changes when you reach your weight loss goal is coming out of calorie deficit. You will then increase your calories to maintenance.

The habits you would have learnt while losing weight, and which are now part of your life, continue into maintenance and beyond. If you use bad habits and quick fixes to reach your goal, maintaining the weight will be problematic. Let not this be another diet failure.

Isn’t it better to consistently lose a small amount of weight over a longer period that lose it all within a short period only for it to come back? Choose a healthy diet that you can adhere to and keeps you in a moderate calorie deficit.  Trust the process, be consistent and patient to give your body time to respond. No need to go extreme!

The all or nothing deprivation mentality is both unnecessary and unsustainable for weight loss. The high calorie highly processed foods have got their place in your diet. They have a place in mine too, but they are kept to a minimum.

4. Focussing on things that don’t matter. A diet mistake that causes unnecessary stress.

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This one is a common diet mistake that can add unnecessary stress. Weight loss is simple but can get complicated and confusing if you allow yourself to be in that situation. Stay in calorie deficit consistently, keep it healthy, simple, real, and practical for sustenance.

I understand changing lifelong habits is not easy. That’s why you should take it slow and not try to overhaul your whole life. Changing every bit of your life is not possible, neither is it necessary. You will hate it. There still must be “You” left in there.

Focus on your calories and nutrients in those calories, moving more and learning and adopting healthy eating lifelong habits.

The one that has been preached about a lot and that some people are still falling for is the “rule” of not eating after 8pm. This is one myth that should be put to rest. Your body works day and night just to keep you alive! And this work requires the use of calories. Just focus on staying within your calorie limit and you will be fine.

Things don’t stop functioning because the clock has struck 8pm, or we have fallen asleep. If everything stopped because have fallen asleep, we would all be dead within 4 minutes!

It’s also important to remember that what works for one person may not work for you. We all have different needs and lead different lifestyles. The options we have and the choices we make should support that lifestyle. That is why you have to tailor everything according to your needs and lifestyle. It’s not everyone who works a 9-5 job and is settled in front of the telly by 8pm.

I work 12 hour shifts which can be days or nights. I have all my three main meals any time of the day or night. Sometimes I save my calories for something nice when there is a good film on Netflix. It could be anything and anytime, if my calorie bank balance says I can. I lost 6 stone doing that. I don’t feel pressured or dictated to. I am in charge and in control.

But if eating within a certain timeframe is how you prefer to eat, and it suits you and your lifestyle that is fine. There is nothing wrong with that. The point I am making is you have options and choices.

There are so many-weight loss myths to watch out for out there. Let’s make it a blog for another day.

5. Consistently using food as a reward. A diet mistake that can cut off the legs of all your hard work!

If this is what you do, you are not the only one. I too was guilty of this diet mistake at one point but quickly learnt my lesson. This is a habit that must be nipped in the bud as soon as possible for many reasons.

Firstly, there is usually an overestimation of calories we burn during exercises. Therefore, the reward may end up costing you more in calories than the calories you burned during your workout. Secondly, this habit will undo all the healthy eating habits you are trying to form.

And thirdly, when we reward ourselves with food, we usually go for those highly processed, sugar and fat loaded foods that taste amazing. Who in their right mind would say “Phew! That was a workout from hell! When I get home, I am going to reward myself with some broccoli, tomatoes and carrot sticks!” I wouldn’t.

That is why excessive punishing exercises are not necessary for weight loss. They will do you more harm than good. Let’s say you have run your lungs out on the treadmill or outside and your treadmill or app tells you that you have just torched 800 calories. Or perhaps you have cycled your legs off the stationary bike you invested in. It would make sense to reward yourself with a 400-calorie muffin and still bank a cool 400 calories. Right?

It turns out it does not always work that way. At the beginning of weight loss, our weight falls off easily for many reasons which we will discuss in other posts. But, as time goes on, we burn less calories.

Therefore to burn the same number of calories you were burning when you started, you will either need to run faster, further, or both. It will be very difficult to keep up with this without crushing and burning out. Let me repeat this to make it clear….

Over a period, you burn less calories performing the same exercises at the same intensity because our bodies will have found out how to deal with the situation. You will need to do more to burn the same number of calories or change your game plan. Your App will not reflect this.

With MyFitnessPal app, you can eat back your exercise calories. That is something I never took up for the above reasons. Avoid this diet mistake by maintaining a moderate calorie deficit. Going too restrictive may result in intermittent food binges which can set you back.

Shall we wrap it up?

Simply put, weight loss is a game of maths with a few add-ons. Stay in a moderate calorie deficit and keep track of what you are eating. Begin as you mean to carry on. This means your diet should be healthy and balanced, simple, real, practical, and personalised. Move more, learn healthy eating habits, and adopt them as part of your life not just for weight loss.

There are so many myths and big weight loss mistakes out there that can drown you. Watch out and steer clear of them! You have so much to learn and adjust to. Therefore, it is important to cut the fluff out of your journey and focus on things that matter.

Ready to start your weight loss? Then have a look at “The framework for your weight loss plan“ if you haven’t done so.