According to the Obesity Reviews Journal, roughly 15 percent of dieters fail to reach their goals. If you've been unhappy with your own weight loss plan, it may not be for lack of trying. Weight loss plans can be foiled in all sorts or unexpected ways. The reasons for your own failure may surprise you.
Skipping Meals
If you tend to skip meals, you may be slowing your metabolism and preventing yourself from losing weight. While you may expect to lose body fat, you can actually hurt your long-term progress. When you skip meals, your metabolism slows down to prevent itself from starving. Missing meals, especially breakfast, also makes you hungrier, causing you to overeat. Keep cravings and hunger at bay by eating small, nutritious meals and snacks throughout the day.
"Low Fat" Snacks
Countless well-meaning dieters turn to cookies and snack foods marked "low fat" to avoid weight gain. Unfortunately, even though a food may be low in fat, it can still be a poor choice for weight loss. Fat-free snack foods are often loaded with sugar or refined carbohydrates to improve their taste. To make matters more confusing, serving sizes are often deceptively small to make the foods appear lower in calories. What seems like one serving may in fact be two or three. Stick to healthy natural snacks like fruit and nuts, which offer more nutrition and help fight hunger.
Muscle Loss
Not all weight loss is desirable. Muscle loss is a common side effect of dieting that can bring your progress to a halt. Muscle is usually lost when you drop your calories too drastically or over-exercise. It's impossible to tell if you're losing muscle by the scale alone. You can get your body fat checked at your local fitness center. Avoid muscle loss by making conservative adjustments to your caloric consumption. Start with a 500 calorie per day reduction, which will keep you on track to lose a pound of fat each week. Take the advice of the American Council on Exercise and use resistance training to fight muscle wasting.
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