Today, I’m talking about five weight loss mistakes you might be making.

1. Don’t: Extreme diet

I see them all around these huge promises like cabbage soup diet where you can lose tons and tons of pounds and kgs in a really short amount of time.

And I know that sounds so appealing because you know you really might want to slim down for a particular wedding or a date you’ve got coming up in your diary. But these are not longtime weight-loss goals because what’s gonna happen is you might share that way but you’re gonna immediately pull it back on again because you’re going to go back to your old eating habits.

So don’t believe these extreme diets, they’re not long-term, they don’t have your best interest at heart. It’s really about starting to eat in a really long time sustainable way that satisfies you, that makes you feel good, and will then give you a slower but sustainable and long-term weight loss.

2. Don’t focus on the scales

I think that’s the immediate thing you’re trying to lose weight, you get those scales out, and you have a target weight. But we’re all built really differently. Muscle weighs more than fat.

So if you’re quite a muscly person you might not necessarily lose a lot of weight. You might be going to the gym at the same time, so you are actually gaining more muscle mass while you’re doing it.

Try not to focus on the scales; kind of focus on eating well, feeling good, and I promise you; you will lose weight slowly.

3. Don’t get hooked up on ‘diet’ Foods

Avoid diet food, low-fat food, anything low-calorie food, anything that has a kind of gimmicky diet tagline on it, on the whole, these foods although in calories, however, that often very processed. They’ll take out the fat that added a lot of sugar to it because that means it tastes good you often eat more of it and you’ll end up eating like three really low-fat diet yogurts versus one part of like good-quality Greek yogurt.

Fat doesn’t necessarily make you fat. When it’s in a natural form like in yogurt that’s the way you’re meant to eat it and there are some really good fat-soluble vitamins that will not get absorbed into your body and less fat is present. It’s really important not to be completely low fat. Obviously, that’s not either like all the butter and olive oil in the world I wish we could do that but I really think that we should be avoiding these diet products because they often don’t satisfy you. They’re not whole foods so skip them and eat fresh Whole Foods.

4. Don’t think cardio is the only way

When we think about weight loss, we just think, you have to run every day, you have to do these awful workouts that feel you know to punish to your body. I think that it’s good to really mix it up.

Don’t just focus on cardio, also focus on doing resistance training, weight training, they’re really good for increasing your metabolism. And if you’re someone that finds exercise a real pain and you don’t feel motivated then really figure out what exercise you love doing. Maybe it’s dancing, rock climbing, walks with your boyfriend and your dog. You know whatever it is. It doesn’t matter what exercise it is just as long as you’re moving.

5. You Can’t Outrun Your Bad Diet

It doesn’t matter how many times you go to the gym. You’ve probably consumed way more calories than you actually burn it. When you consume the bad type of foods, junk foods, garbage foods, you won’t see the result. It doesn’t matter how much a workout. You gonna actually get so demotivated. Remember exercise sustains weight loss but a healthy diet is what drives it.

6. Not drinking enough water

I don’t care if you’re trying to lose weight, if you’re trying to be healthy, if you’re trying to survive as a human, you need to drink water. Our body is composed of 60 percent water and that helps with our digestion, circulation, and many other benefits.

Drinking water helps to boost your metabolism and helps your body to get rid of waste. If you consume the proper amount of water. Your body won’t retain water. So you’re gonna lose that water weight that a lot of people carry. So drinking water is super important.

7. Not eating enough

A lot of us have this idea that if we stop eating we’re gonna lose weight. The problem is when you start starving your body it goes into this cannibalizing mode, it starts retaining everything holds on to everything because it scares to starve itself.

If you don’t supply your body with the right amount of calories. You’re actually sabotaging your weight-loss goal. Making sure that we consume the right amount of calorie and the right foods are what’s going to make sure that our body works properly doesn’t retain anything and everything’s moving as it should.

8. Not eating breakfast

I know that there are people that just like don’t feel this whole idea of breakfast in the morning like eating the minute they wake up which you shouldn’t. Instead, you should drink a glass of water with some lemon maybe.

There are a lot of scientific studies out there trying to debunk the whole idea that eating breakfast will help you lose weight. Others say that breakfast does help you lose weight.

For me, it’s very simple, when I give my body something to eat that is good and filling enough. I feel like I’m getting energy and that energy translate into me actually going and doing things that go into the gym.

You don’t like to have a big huge meal even having like a little bit of yogurt with some fruits or smoothie. You are keeping your blood sugar stable, you’ll notice that throughout the day, you’ll actually opt for better choices with food for lunch and for snacks and you won’t have any blood sugar crash.

9. Drinking empty calories

Drinking products like soda, sugar pad juices, alcohol, etc. These products have so many discussing ingredients and literally zero nutrition in there. And you are just putting your body in like this “sugar-crazed mode” and it actually makes you get addicted to these products.

10. Your portion sizes

I personally don’t count calories and I usually don’t recommend people to count calories and it’s just like not a sustainable lifestyle. Learning what a proper portion size is so important for you and it will really make eating healthy and better and right into an easier and accessible lifestyle.

Do you see the portion sizes we get when we go to the restaurant or even when we make food at home and put it on our plate, it’s ridiculous, I think that it’s very important for us to learn how much and what we should consume.

Some hacks to follow that will make easier to eat healthier:

• Use your hand as a guide: It’s really easy to measure the proper portion size for you; for protein, carb, fat. Using your hand will really show you how much you should have of that specific food.
• Use smaller plates: It’s a visual and psychological thing. A lot of us are using huge plates and we actually have to put so much more food to signal to our brain that this will fill us up. When you put a little portion on a big plate, it actually tells your brain that this is not enough I have to go get more. That’s what we want to avoid. So using smaller plates is totally a game-changer. If you put the same amount of food on a small plate or a big plate you will see how filling your meal actually is.
• Knowing what should be on your plate: You want to make sure that half of that plate is greens as a salad, vegetables and the other one will be your starch and protein. This is a great kind of rule of thumb to follow and just keep in mind. So when you are in a buffet, when you are in restaurants, when you are an event you know what will energize you and supply you with enough nutrients.

11. Eating out  a lot

The problem is when we eat out you don’t know how much sugar, how many sauces, how much all these additives they put in your meal to make it taste delicious. Making sure that you are also eating at home as much as you can. This will really help to monitor and control what you put into your body.