Common Dieting Mistakes
It seems that when it comes to dieting, there are a few mistakes with lasting implications that are repeatedly made by people hoping to lead a healthier lifestyle. Hopefully by reading about these mistakes here you will learn to recognize them in advance and avoid them while striving for your own weight loss goals.
The first and most common mistake made when starting a new weight loss plan is not setting a goal. While you do not want to set a goal that will be impossible to achieve, you should also avoid setting a goal that is too small or not setting a goal at all. In fact, it is perfectly acceptable to set multiple goals. An initial goal of ten percent is a common practice among successful dieters. Making your goals known by your friends and loved ones will help to keep you motivated and on track for success.
The second most common dieting mistake is also the one that probably leads to the most failures. That would be having an all or nothing attitude. These are the people that rid there home of all temptation. They embark on a diet that is nearly impossible to maintain and the moment that they stray from their self imposed guidelines they believe that all is lost.
While this may work for some in the short term, they have set themselves up for long term failure, frustration and ill will towards all things ‘diet’. Remember, the long term goal of any diet is to lose weight. There are many ways in which this can be accomplished that do not involve starving yourself or punishing yourself in the process.
This brings us to the next big dieting mistake, depriving yourself of the comfort foods and other foods that you enjoy. When done in moderation, there should be no food that is off limits. Satisfy your hunger with fruits and vegetables but don’t be afraid to indulge occasionally just for the sake of your sanity. Remember, the first bite of chocolate tastes the same as the tenth bite…so just take one bite! There is no law that says that you cannot enjoy eating while on a diet. The problem lies in enjoying too much of the wrong foods.
Another common error is limiting yourself to only a handful of items that you eat on a daily basis. Although humans by nature crave structure and routine in our lives, we do enjoy having variety in our daily menu. Be sure that your diet allows you to enjoy a variety of foods to help prevent boredom and ensure continued success.
The final mistake which is made far too often is throwing in the towel. There will be weeks that you do not lose weight. There will probably even be weeks that you gain a pound or two. Even those that have achieved monumental success in their weight loss goals have had these set backs, the key is that they did not give up. They got past those road bumps, reevaluated their goals and got back on track. Do not let the set backs defeat your personal desire to become healthier.
Instead, you must learn to overcome those set backs and move on. Learn from your mistakes as much as you would from your successes and you will be well on your way to the healthier person that you strive to be. Whether your goal is 10 pounds or 100 pounds, your dedication and determination will be the driving factor that determines your success on the road to a healthier you. You will learn that a healthy you has healthy eating habits that don’t involve starving yourself or binging on things that are not healthy for you. Learn to enjoy your food in moderation and you will be well on your way to the success you seek.
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Thanks for the compliment Cyra, and thanks for visiting the site. Hope you found what you were looking for and good luck with your goals.
Thank you so much for this site! I am going to start Weight Watchers this week after hearing so many successful stories from others, it helps me feel that I am not alone when I come to your site. Keep up the great work!
Hi Angie, thanks for the nice comment! You are definitely not alone and there are lots of great people that visit here that can help with pretty much any question that you have. If you haven’t already found it, there is also a forum where you can go if you ever have any questions or suggestions for the site. The link is in the right hand column. Best wishes!!
I found your site after googling a points value for a restaurant. What a find! You are doing an awesome job and this website has just been added to my favorites! I have been on your site for several hours now and there are still things I would like to read. Congratulations on your success so far with WW and keep up the good, no make that GREAT, work! Take care.
Thanks Nichole, you just made my day!! Good luck to you and thanks for stopping in 🙂
Great site, I also think one major big mistake some dieters make is skipping meals, thinking that it will help them lose weight, thinking well If I dont have breakfast I can eat more lunch etc. I have favourited this site, AWESOME!!
I’ve been trying to lose weight for a while now. I’ve been researching weight watchers all day today and I am going to try it! I hope this works for me! Your site is great and super informative, I’m going to get a lot of use out of it that’s for sure! Thanks for all your hard work in putting this together!
Great point, Danielle. Most people don’t realize that you will lose more weight eating a healthy diet than you will by barely eating at all. Weird how so many people feel the need to starve themselves…
Thanks for visiting Danielle, and thanks for the great comment!
My pleasure, Kelsey. Glad you found the site and thanks for the the kind words. Good luck to you!
Hi dan im looking for a restraunt called butterbees i eat there alot on weekend and would love to see the points for what im eating? do you have it or am i missing it?
Hi Megan, welcome to the site. I never heard of butterbees so I looked them up…is it butterbees american grill? If so, they don’t have any info on their website. I sent a message to them on their ‘contact us’ page but I rarely get a response when I do that. I will let you know here if I do here anything back. Thanks for visiting
Hi Dan,
You are a life saver. I had pretty much accepted that I was going to have to spend a load of money on ordering the Weight Watchers pack; money that I really don’t have.
Your site is so informative; I have just spent about 2 hours looking at points information.
Thank you so much and if you ever manage to find a Big Mac substitute with about 2 points in it…please do let me know!
Louise
LOL, if I ever find a Big Mac substitute with only 2 points there would be no more need for this site, everyone would be eating 2 point big macs non-stop everyday!! 😉
Glad you finally found the site and I hope you found every thing that you were looking for!
Just wanted to let everyone know that I may not be able to check the site much over the next week or so. There may be a delay in new comments appearing on the site after submission. Sorry for the inconvenience!
Hi Dan, My daughter and her boyfriend are trying to lose weight with the help of the weight watchers site. My daughter has lost 4lb and i have decided to give it go with them. I suffer from Arthritis so spend most of my time sitting around as most forms of exercise are impossible and very painful. Unfortunately, since I had to give up work because of the illness i have piled on the weight and because i don’t have a great deal to occupy my time, i do nibble a lot. Can you tell me if a certain fruit is 0 points, will it still be 0 points if i was to eat say 4 or 5 of them a day? I need to find something that can take the place of the wrong foods that i have been eating.
Great site and hope to be posting soon that i have lost some weight, thanks 🙂
Hi Sally, thanks for visiting.
That’s a good question about the fruit and seems to be kind of a grey area. My meeting leader could not give us a definite answer how to deal with similar situations. Basically, as long as you are not eating them all at the same time they would count as one serving each time and still be 0 points. But don’t forget that WW only allows for five servings of 0 point items per day and after that you have to start counting them as points.
Thanks for the kind words about the site and we hope to here from ya soon! 🙂
Thanks for the speedy reply Dan. That is a big help 🙂
Hi Dan, it’s me again. Just been talking to my daughter about your reply to my post and we now need to know if you mean we can only have five 0 point items a day across the board or can we say have five 0 point fruits and five 0 point veg and say five 0 point drinks per day.
If i have a salad, I will have cucumber, tomatoes and lettuce that is three 0 points already, then i will probably have a cup of 10 cal soup which is 0 points. Does this mean that i can only have one more 0 point item in that day?
Thanks in advance
Sally 🙂
Hi Sally! In general, even though some of the ingredients of your salad are 0 points, the salad as a dish will still be points. When talking 0 point food, that only refers to an item that you ate that you counted as zero points (not just ingredients). You are only allowed to eat 5 ‘free’ items per day…after that they start to add up. If your salad adds up to 0 points for everything, count that as 1 item.
The whole idea of limiting 0 point items is that everything has calories. If you go overboard trying to fill up on only 0 point items you still have eaten some calories and depending on what you are eating, multiple servings can turn into point quite quickly
Hope this helps and thanks for visiting.
Hi Dan,
I think your site is great. I am 39 years old and have made it a goal to be 200 lbs by my 40th birthday. (11 months from now) I have 85 more lbs to lose and your site has beena big help.
Thank you for all of the hard work creating and maintaining a website that provides answers to so many of my questions.
Warm regards,
John
Hi John, welcome aboard and thanks for visiting! You should think about joining us in the forum. There are only a few of us using it at this point but there is lots of support and motivation. Good luck with your goals 🙂
Hi Dan,
I hope that all is well. I stumbled upon your site a few days ago after researching how to lose weight on my own. I have been counting calories and exercising for the past 4 months and have only lost 9pounds I have another 40- 45pounds to go so i think than 9 pounds in 4 months is very slow. So i have decided to do WW im not working at this time and cannot afford it. But I would like to thank you for this info. Its a really BIG help. Is there anyway for me to have a copy of this info i like to have manual so if i dont have access to the internet. Once Again THANK YOU and may God bless you in your efforts to help others
Hello Chrissy and welcome to the site, I’m glad you found it! Nine pounds in two months is a great accomplishment and you should be proud of that number. Even when doing weight watchers you should only expect to lose between 1/2 a pound to two pounds max per week (slow and steady wins the race), which would put you pretty close to where you are.
As for having access to the materials offline, the only option I can think of is buying the weight watchers starter set. I have some for sale on the site here (please do not feel obligated to buy from me), and they are also available on ebay and amazon. The set comes with the Dining Out Guide which has points for different restaurants and the Complete Food Companion which has points for things you would buy at a grocery store. When looking for the books online make sure they are not the older versions (2008 or 2009) so that you are sure to have the latest information (2010).
Thanks for the great comment and best wishes with Weight Watchers. There are a couple of us that post our weekly weigh ins in the forums and offer each other encouragment and advice if that is something that you think would help keep you motivated. Feel free to join us if you like.
Dear Dan,
Thank you for your quick response. Im sorry but i wont be able to purchase one because as mentioned before i am not working, I live in the caribbean and because of a few debts my credit cards were cancelled. But this site is great I will visit often and probably just write down the foods that i eat most to keep them on hand. I have a question for you would you have any idea of how much points peas and rice is the ingredients are peas (pigeon or grean peas) rice tomatoes paste (about two tbsp) oil (about two table spoon) and onion (about a half)This is the caribbean way. Once again thank you and God bless. Also where do i go to become apart of the forum. 🙂
Sorry I missed your reply, Chrissy. I would put the points for what you described at 2-4 points, but a lot of it depends on how much peas, what kind of oil and what kind of onion. I would go with the 4 points just to be safe. I see you already found the link for the forums so we hope to hear from you soon 🙂