10 Biggest Weight-Loss Mistakes

By Nicki Anderson, CPFT, AFP

Here you are again, ready to make a commitment to lose weight and stick to it! As you try to envision your success, suddenly all of the "what ifs" start running through your mind: "What if I don't lose all of the weight I want?" "What if I never get to eat ice cream again?" "What if I don't look as good as my neighbor who just lost a lot of weight?" and "What if I gain all of the weight back?"

Before even starting your weight-loss efforts, you see yourself as a failure. You figure you can try dieting for a couple of weeks just to see what happens. And when you begin to feel like it just isn't going to work, you stop and wait until the next miracle diet presents itself.

I don't know about you, but I'd like to see your weight-loss efforts succeed. As a woman who lost 50 pounds more than 20 years ago and has been dedicated to health and fitness -- with an occasional Haagen Dazs along the way -- I want you to know the ten biggest weight-loss mistakes I've made and how you can avoid them.

1. If I say I want to lose 50 pounds, I will! I know, I know, what's the point of dieting if you don't have a specific number in mind? Well, it's important to understand that as your body matures, it responds to exercise and reduced calorie consumption in different ways. I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but the older we get, the harder our weight-loss efforts become.

Remember when you were in your 20s and you could go a couple of days without eating and BINGO, suddenly the scale was back down where you wanted it? Well, as we lose muscle mass and go through the lovely changes of life, our body doesn't bounce back like that anymore. So set a goal of becoming more active while keeping an eye on nutrition. This is an attainable and realistic goal.

2. Diet is deprivation! Generally speaking, a diet will act as a jumpstart for your weight-loss efforts. The hope is that you will find certain aspects of your selected diet and apply those to your lifestyle permanently. The problem is, many people view diets as their last chance to lose weight, and they completely exempt any "fun food" from their diet. Granted, if you are serious about losing weight, you need to rid yourself of too much sugar and junk food, but a treat is fine once in a while.

3. I will look like a movie star! How often have we said to our kids, "If Johnny jumped off a bridge, would you?" OK, maybe the names have been changed, but you get the gist. Our bodies are uniquely ours and how they respond to exercise, stress, love, happiness and so on can vary greatly. We have to respect our bodies, our unique strengths and weaknesses and build upon the things we recognize as strengths.

Your friend, family member or neighbor may have lost a bunch of weight, but her body type and yours are probably very different. Sure, you can find out what she did to attain her goal, but it's more important that you find out what will help you achieve a realistic goal.

4. Once I'm finished with the diet, I can go back to what I did before! All too often, people view diets with a starting and ending point. The hope is that you will use the diet to shift what you're doing now, whether it's limiting your sugar intake, reducing your daily calorie consumption, increasing your water or whatever it may be. Your attempt should be to lose the bad habits you've grown accustomed to.

I remember a reader once wrote me, "A good friend of mine just lost 60 pounds on a diet. Does that mean he can go back to his old way of eating?"
I wasn't sure if the reader was serious or not, but let's think about that question. If he had 60 pounds to lose because his health was poor, why in the world would he want to go back to his old way of eating (which clearly got him into trouble)?

So when you begin a diet, look at the aspects that make sense to you and your current lifestyle. These are the pieces you want to apply to your lifestyle. If there are aspects of a diet that are not appealing, let them go and stick with what works for you!

5. I need someone to tell me what to eat! Here's the deal, we all know what we should be eating. However, because of the plethora of information available, we have become a society confused with which foods are good for us and which are not. We have become consumed with eating to lose weight versus eating to be healthy. When you eat well and are active, nine times out of 10, your weight will be where it needs to be. It might not match the weight charts, but eating well and exercising will give your body what it needs to be healthy.

In other words, daily activity and mindful nutrition results in an appropriate weight! You know you should be eating more fruits and veggies and less processed foods, right? Believe in yourself enough to know that you've got what it takes to make the right changes!

6. If I just exercise a couple of hours a day, I can eat whatever I want! Yeah, and if I just wish hard enough, I can sing like Barbra Streisand. The truth is that just exercising in an effort to lose weight won't cut the mustard. Your success will be short-lived and never become a regular part of your lifestyle.

Exercise needs to be embraced for all of the right reasons, including the following: more energy, improved quality of life, reduced risks of cancer, cardiovascular risks and osteoporosis. Find one of the hundreds of benefits that speak to you and go for it. If you exercise simply to keep your weight in check, it will never be enough to maintain weight loss.

7. I don't have time to exercise, so I'll just cut out more calories! Again, you need to focus on health. If we make decisions to alter our lifestyle simply for weight loss, "Fugheddaboudit!" -- it will never last. You must figure out incentives valuable enough to you that you'll exercise and eat well for all of the right reasons

8. Writing things down doesn't make a difference! Trust me, it does. Some of my greatest client success stories come from those who were committed to keeping track of what they put in their mouth. Come on, how many times do you pop something into your mouth and then say, "It was small, so it doesn't count"? We all have, but if you're writing things down, you can clearly see where your biggest struggles lie.

Additionally, if you are able to see where those struggles are, you can begin taking steps to change them, one at a time. And that, my friends, is the secret to long-term success -- baby steps!

9. You're bad! No, actually, murder is bad, YOU are not bad. Making an unhealthy food choice is NOT bad. As long as we continue to view our choices as bad or good, we will always struggle with change. When making choices about exercise or food, more often than not we try to make the best choices. Sometimes stress, time constraints and lifestyle change can have a huge impact on our choices. We all have challenging weeks, sometimes even challenging months.

Doing the best you can do is all you can do. I often pose this question to my clients when they tell me they've been bad: "What would you tell a friend who was struggling with good decisions?" Nine times out of 10, they end up answering that question with what they need to be telling themselves: "It will be OK, there's always tomorrow."

10. New Year's Resolutions! Let's just say here and now, that never again will you look to the New Year as your time to drop weight and get active. Why? Because you're going to do it today and tomorrow and the next day and the day after and so on. Waiting until a particular time of year because you believe it will be the key to your success just doesn't work.

Think about how many New Year's resolutions you have made to lose weight -- probably more than you'd like to count. Start taking baby steps toward healthy living. Start making small changes that will have a big impact on the quality of your life. Only you can make the decision to make changes in your lifestyle, and only you can decide which changes are reasonable and which are not.

After losing 50 pounds those years ago, I still try and figure out what was the turning point for me. Was it the constant fatigue? Was it the teasing by friends and family? Was it the fact that I couldn't wear the cool clothes my friends were wearing? I'm not really sure, maybe all of the above. But I do know one thing: Changing my lifestyle and seeing the impact healthy living had on my health was very important to me. I want it to be important to you, too.

Begin today by choosing a couple of things you'd like to start changing. Then, one at a time, you'll be laying the foundation for a life of healthy living. You can do it, I know you can!