When embarking on a new diet we all set out with good intentions to achieve the best results. We read all the relevant information given to us regarding the diet, making sure we fully understand how it works. Understanding the rules of the diet and implementing it is two different things. Because if we don’t implement what we read we can seriously damage our efforts, this article will demonstrate strategies to avoid sabotaging your diet.
Taken from Courant.Com experts Sara Bliech, a professor of health policy and Diana Sugiuchi a registered dietitian offers solutions for those diet busters.
Strategies You Can Use To Avoid Sabotaging Your Diet
The diet-buster: Drinking too many calories
A glass of orange juice for breakfast, a midday nonfat latte, a sports drink with your workout and a glass of wine at dinner: That’s close to 600 calories in liquids — and you haven’t even had a bite to eat.
Sara Bleich, a professor of health policy at the Bloomberg School of Public Health at the Johns Hopkins University, says dieters are generally bad at compensating for calories they consume in liquid form. Dieters might remember to opt out of an appetizer in anticipation of dessert, but it’s unlikely they will remember to skip the fries in substitution for the beer or soda.
The solution: Bleich recommends reaching for a diet soda when the craving to drink anything but water kicks in — it won’t add any nutrients to your day, but it won’t add any calories, either. Diana Sugiuchi, owner of Nourish Family Nutrition and a registered dietitian, agrees, adding that dieters regularly ignore the calories in fruit juices and sports drinks because they’re advertised to be healthy alternatives to soda. They may add more nutrients, but they are far from calorie-free.
The diet-buster: The restaurant salad
Eating out is always dangerous when it comes to losing weight, so it’s common for dieters to order a salad for an entree. But often, the salads are packing as many or more calories than the pastas, steaks or sandwiches.
The solution: Bleich said when looking at a salad, note the dressing, the starch and the amount of added fat. You’re certain to find creamy dressings, croutons, cheese, nuts and avocado. “If it’s not strictly a vegetable, ask them to take it off or put it on the side,” she says. Also, substitute vinaigrette for the creamy ranch, blue cheese or caesar dressing. Sugiuchi agrees, adding that there’s a reason salads at restaurants taste so good. “Salads can be high calories when you take into account the shredded cheese, the dressing, bacon and egg,” she says. “Substitute dressings, and remove the extras.”
The diet-buster: Stress eating
“We naturally crave fat, sugar and salt when we’re stressed,” Bleich says. “We live in a stressful society, so be conscious of that.”
The solution: Look for weeks on your calendar when there’s a lot to do, and recognize that you’ll need to find ways to handle the stress. Book a massage or a pedicure, or plan extra morning walks with your children or animals. For more diet buster solutions go here.
Its so easy to undo a hard days work of eating healthy simple but finishing off the kids tea instead of binning it or eating the last biscuit in the biscuit tin because you wanted to wash it out.
You all know what I’m talking about as we have all had a day or two of thinking that little bit wont make a difference. It sure makes a difference when we step on the scales and see a gain. We get disappointed and think to ourselves I’ve been really good.
Keeping a food diary and being real honest with ourselves is the only way we can truly say we have been good with what we ate. And it’s these weeks when we see a good result on the scales, we are happy.
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