When you think of a diet, what do you think of? You may immediately imagine low-calorie salads, cutting out sweets, and feeling, frankly, starved all the time. However, health experts agree that a proper diet (even if you’re trying to lose weight!) should never leave you hungry. In fact, some of the most common habits associated with dieting and weight loss can actually be detrimental to your fitness goals.
To get down to the bottom of things and put an end to these diet misconceptions, we spoke to Dietitians Blanca Garcia, Kimberly Gomer, and Miranda Galati. They told us that it’s time to kick habits like skipping meals, restricting calories, and ignoring hunger cues to the curb!
1. Skipping Meals
If you're trying to slim down, you may think that skipping breakfast, lunch, or even dinner can help you by significantly cutting down your daily calorie intake. However, it can actually have the opposite effect. The truth is that your body needs the nutrients from those meals! And not only that, but when you deny yourself a full meal, you're more likely to cave and overeat later in the day—which is completely counterproductive if you're trying to lose weight. "The problem with skipping meals is that you may overeat at the next meal and include the calories you avoided and maybe, more." Garcia confirms. So, take this as your sign to eat a full three meals tomorrow. Just make sure they have ample amounts of protein and fiber, and the food you eat will give you all the energy you need to burn more calories and lose weight at a steady rate!
2. Restricting Calories
Even if you're eating three meals a day, making sure those meals are filled with all the nutrients your body needs to thrive is essential—and that means you shouldn't be skimping on the calories. Gomer says one major pitfall many women fall into is highly restrictive diets and calorie counts. According to her, this habit "encourages binge eating (you get so starving that you overeat when you can't take it anymore)" and "messes up hormones (weight loss isn't just about food and calories - there are hormones that need to be happy and those hormones get very messed up when the body feels starved)" both of which will negate your weight loss efforts. Over time, denying your body of the calories and nutrients it needs can ruin your metabolism and make it impossible to lose weight, not to mention a whole range of serious health risks.
3. Ignoring Hunger Cues
In addition to your three solid meals per day, you may get hungry for snacks from time to time. While some of us might think that skipping out on those snacks is essential to weight loss, Galati tells us it's actually quite the opposite. "Skipping snacks and ignoring hunger is a common weight loss mistake that could actually be working against you," she warns. "While it's true that weight loss requires a calorie deficit, ignoring genuine hunger or skipping your afternoon snack takes it too far." If you ignore your hunger cues between meals, you're more likely to show up to dinner with so much hunger you end up bingeing, which will set you back in your weight loss progress.
So, there you have it: even if you're trying to lose weight, experts seem to agree that eating enough food rather than restricting calories, skipping meals, and practically yourself is crucial. At the end of the day, your weight loss plan should be all about sustainability, which means maintaining a healthy, balanced diet that provides your body with everything it needs to function properly and blast fat.
