5 weight loss pitfalls and how to fix them

If your diet just isn't cutting it, time to rethink! Could you be falling victim to one of these black holes of dieting?

Thou shalt not eat (insert long list of "bad" foods here).  Creating a list of food commandments generates a pass/fail environment. It tends to make people feel that if only they had more willpower or control, success would be theirs. Focusing on what you can't eat tends to make those items even more tempting, which triggers an eventual slip up and a downward spiral of guilt, followed by a renewed a vow to be better. Over and over and over.

Solution: Try making small, sustainable changes one at a time. Do you mindlessly snack as soon as you put the kids to bed and hit the couch? Maybe you set an eating deadline (nothing after 9pm). Or possibly plate pre-determined portions of your favorite snack food so you don't accidentally eat a whole sleeve of cookies before the next commercial break.

There is no such thing as "good" and "bad" food. There is more healthful and less healthful, for sure. But the quality of our diet does not translate into individual self-worth. A laundry list of off-limits foods makes it difficult to enjoy the fun of eating – the excitement of trying something new, the delicious tastes and the great company around the table!

Solution: Rather than cutting out your favorite "bad" foods, consider how to modify their existence in your meal plan. Do you love bread? Try switching to whole wheat. Can't get by without cookies before bed? Fine! Just stick to a couple and maybe not every night. Dying for fried chicken? OK – really, deeply enjoy a small portion, but fill the rest of your plate with colorful fruits and veggies.

Lots of diets demonize and eliminate entire food groups, which can cause micronutrient deficiencies. For those who cut out dairy, you may be missing out on vitamin D and calcium, which are essential for bone health. Low carb diets will leave you short on B vitamins, which control metabolism, immune function and hormone activity. Meat-free diets may be low in iron (important for oxygen delivery) and zinc (wound healing and immune function).

Solution: Variety and moderation! Choosing foods from all the different food groups pretty much guarantees that you'll see a nice variety of important vitamins, minerals and macronutrients. Don't be fooled into thinking that a multivitamin or supplement is a fair trade for a well-balanced diet.

We thought fat was bad for a really long time. Fat has more than double the calories per gram of carbohydrate or protein. Makes sense that if we are cutting calories, out goes the highest calorie things and then we can eat more, right? Not so much. Fat is great at making you stay full. It's an incredibly important energy source and helps your body absorb vitamins A, D, E and K. When fat is removed from a product recipe, it is often replaced with added sugar or processed trans fat in order to improve taste and/or shelf-life of foods. These processing tricks are linked with increased risk of cardiovascular disease - so not ideal.

Solution: The 2015-2020 Dietary Guidelines does not recommend a low fat diet, suggesting that up to 35% of your total calories each day should come from fat. The Guidelines do encourage you to choose unsaturated fat over saturated fat - nuts, vegetable oils, fish, avocados and olives are all outstanding choices! Avoid partially hydrogenated oils (PHOs), the major source of trans fats, whenever possible. This may be easier now that food manufacturers have until 2019 to remove PHOs from their products.

The notion that certain foods are so wonderfully healthful that they deserve an angelic halo can cause an unintentional calorie overload. Granola can pack up to 600 calories in one cup. Half an avocado has 160 calories and one tablespoon of coconut oil has 120 calories. "Healthier" versions of things, like baked veggie chips, diet soda and fat-free ice are often enhanced with salt, sugar, non-caloric sweeteners, chemicals or other additives so that they taste more like the real thing. Research has shown that you're more likely to indulge in a larger portion of a food if you perceive it as healthy.

Solution: Just because it looks or sounds healthy, doesn't mean it is. And just because it does have healthy attributes, does not mean you can eat limitless amounts. Be conscious of portion sizes and don't be fooled by the fancy health promises splattered across food packaging ("natural" has no definition according to the FDA).

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