We often talk about creating new healthy habits, but have we ever challenged what’s holding us back now? What if half of the battle was axing our old habits so that we can make the time and room for new habits? Well, I am telling you right now that your bad habits are the ones that are keeping you unhappy and uncomfortable with your current health!
Let’s dissect and make this make sense!
If you’ve been struggling to lose weight and one or more of these 5 bad habits are holding you back; we can kick it together!
Here’s a list of the most common “bad” dieting habits list, simplified:
1. Staying in a Calorie Deficit
Severely restricting your calories can decrease your metabolism and cause you to lose muscle mass. Muscle mass that is lost is hard to recover as we age. This makes it more difficult to support your weight loss in the long term. A chronic calorie deficit is a no-go.
2. Dropping entire food groups (without MD directions)
Cutting out an entire food group for weight loss means limiting fiber, vitamins, minerals, and antioxidants that all supply important health benefits. So, while you may be cutting out calories, you are cutting out other important nutrients. Keep your diet inclusive!
3. Skipping meals entirely
Though there might be a good reason for skipping meals, like a medical or religious fast, try not to make this a consistent pattern. There are many mental and physical complications resulting from not getting regular nutrition. Eating regularly will keep your energy and morale up!
4. Regularly consuming processed foods or takeout (can look like…)
- Minimally processed foods are ones that have been pre-prepped for quick eating.Think washed and bagged salad, cleaned and sliced fruits, roasted nuts, and hard-boiled eggs, etc.
- Foods with ingredients added for flavor and texture, such as sweeteners, spices, oils, colors, and preservatives. These are foods such as jarred pasta sauce, bottled salad dressing, yogurt, and cake mixes.
- Ready-to-eat foods. Some examples of these more heavily processed foods are crackers, potato chips, similar snacks, granola, and deli meat.
- Heavily processed foods. These often are pre-made meals like frozen pizza and microwaveable dinners. This category also includes manufactured concoctions such as soda, donuts, cookies, other baked goods, and candy. Heavily processed foods often have artificial ingredients such as preservatives, colorants, fake flavorings, and chemicals designed to give them a particular texture.
It’s important to know that not all processed foods are bad, though we should aim to consume whole foods, and organic when possible. Doing this will remove the hidden ingredients and flavorings! Just the simple act of knowing the level at which something has been processed will help you keep down inflammation, and up your energy.
5. Is the weekend your “weak end”? Restrictive/bingeing
We all know what stereotypical bingeing and eating restrictions look like. Restrictive eating is the act of not allowing yourself to eat or not allowing yourself to eat enough, it causes the dangerous chronic calorie deficit that brings on adaptation and fat storage issues.
On the other hand, binge eating is consuming above and beyond, often until you feel uncomfortable and physically and mentally exhausted. Bingeing is a very easy way to gain weight which will be even more difficult to remove.
I think my ultimate advice, which could combat all 5 of these situations, would be to get active in meal planning and visiting your local farmer’s markets. Meal planning, especially if you’re a penny pincher like me, means you buy just what you need and you don’t like to waste it. And when it comes to long-term weight loss, patience is key. It’s best to steer clear of diets that require you to severely restrict your calories. Instead, why not opt for diets that are focused on quality and encourage you to make sustainable lifestyle changes.
For more information on healthy eating vs diet culture and adaptation, feel free to reach out! You can also check out my FB ➝ here