One of the biggest challenges when you're trying to lose weight is to eat well without gaining weight. You need to eat enough to stay healthy without putting on the pounds while you're trying to slim down.
Fortunately, you can eat well and still lose weight by avoiding the following six mistakes:
Failing to measure out portion sizes
If you're not measuring out portion sizes when preparing meals, then you really have no idea of how many calories you're consuming.
Counting calories is important to making sure you lose weight rather than gain weight. To stay on track with your dieting, you should measure out every food including vegetables and other foods that are typically low in calories.
Eating the same things over and over
You can't be too hard on yourself when dieting or you're not going to succeed. One thing you can do to avoid being overly spartan is vary your diet to keep things interesting rather than eating the same things over and over again.
Create a menu for yourself and make sure that your menu makes it easy for you to stay interested in your weight loss program.
Not eating in the morning
Eating a healthy breakfast in the morning will jump-start your metabolism. If you don't eat a good meal early in the day, you're probably going to overeat once you finally do start eating because you're going to feel very hungry. Also, your metabolism will be sluggish, so you will put on more weight from consuming those calories.
Ignoring the presence of added sugar in foods
You need to understand how bad added sugar is for your diet. Any sugar added to your foods is empty calories. These calories will cause you to gain weight without contributing to your health in any way.
Having no low calorie snacks in stock
Inevitably, you're going to experience pangs of hunger now and then when you're eating to try to lose weight. If you have some healthy snacks around, you can satisfy cravings with minimum caloric intake.
If you aren't stocked up on healthy snacks, you'll be tempted to grab whatever is available, and this could cause you to gain some weight.
Not consuming enough protein or fiber
Protein and fiber aren't just important components of any well-balanced diet. They're also highly effective at giving you a feeling a fullness.
When you eat protein and fiber, you feel satisfied more quickly and therefore consume fewer calories. This makes losing weight easier.