It is frustrating to restrict your food choices and not see a result on the scale. If your weight loss has stalled, you may need to take a closer look at your food intake, since people tend to underestimate the number of calories they consume. Losing weight requires a combination of eating fewer calories and burning more through exercise.
Monitor Calories
Even if you are eating low-calorie meals, your weight loss can stall if calories are sneaking up on you in the form of snacks and little bites here and there as you cook. Behaviors such as eating a few of your friend's french fries at a restaurant or licking the beaters after making brownies for your child's school can quickly add extra calories to your diet. Make a habit of writing down everything you eat -- no exceptions, no matter how small or seemingly insignificant. This can provide you with a reality check, says registered dietitian Anuli Umeojiako.
Measure Portions
Eyeballing portion sizes isn't always enough. Americans are accustomed to having lots of food on their plate; on average, people eat 500 more calories each day than they did in the 1970s, according to registered dietitian Lisa Young. What look like diet portions today may have been normal portions 30 years ago. Purchase a kitchen scale and weigh meat, cheese and other relatively high-calorie foods so that you recognize what 1 oz. of that food looks like. Weigh or measure your food before meals. Steer clear of foods such as lasagna that contain lots of added meat and cheese that you will not be able to measure.
Read Food Labels Carefully
Food manufacturers know that if they clearly state that a product contains lots of calories, not as many people will be likely to buy it. As a result, serving sizes can sometimes be ridiculously small. If you fail to realize this, you can consume enough extra calories to stall your weight loss. The next time you purchase a snack that appears to be one serving, look carefully at the label. It may state that each serving has 150 calories, for example, but that the package contains 2.5 servings, resulting in a total of 375 total calories. When eating prepackaged food, make sure you are eating the serving size recommended by the manufacturer to avoid doubling or tripling your calorie consumption.
Exercise
It can be difficult to lose weight without exercise. Even if you successfully cut 250 calories each day from your diet -- which is not always as easy as it sounds -- you lose only 1/2 lb. each week. To virtually ensure weight loss, aim to burn 500 calories a day through exercise. You can break your exercise into two or three sessions; you don't have to burn all the calories at the same time to get the benefits. Increasing activity frequently helps people break through a weight loss plateau.
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