10 Weight Loss Mistakes to Avoid 

Karen Bentley
Creator of The Sugar-Free Miracle Diet

The big secret that no one else will tell you is that weight loss does not need to be hard! There is hope, and it is real, but you have to muster up the energy to think outside the box and to try something different to experience it.

1. Eating minimal calories or very low food volume

Of course, the great appeal of this kind of extreme dieting is that it works, and it works quickly. So you get the pleasure of seeing a result right away. The problem with this approach is that it’s very hard to live with for an extended period of time. Maybe you can hold it for a month, maybe two. But after that, the likelihood of continued success dwindles dramatically. Even worse, this kind of eating regimen leaves you feeling constantly hungry and unsatisfied with food, which results in binge eating, over feeding of self, or pigging out the very moment the eating regimen is stopped. Unless you are a Hollywood starlet, there is nothing to be gained by starving yourself.

2. Losing weight too fast

The reason for going fast is fear. You’re afraid you can’t hold your intention for a long period of time, and so you want to get the experience over with as quickly as possible, while the "iron is hot," so to speak. Going fast with weight loss is the same as speeding in your car. It sets you up for accidents. It gets you in trouble with the police. It can be a scary experience. And enjoyment of the journey is sacrificed for speed. When you speed through your weight loss you are likewise setting yourself up for eating mistakes, which lead to troubling feelings about self. It can be a scary experience because you think that you must deny yourself pleasure with food. And there is no enjoyment in the weight loss process.

3. Cutting out too much fat

Fat has taken the rap for all your problems with weight gain. As it turns out, however, fat through the lips does not necessarily result in fat on the hips. Here’s the deal with fat. It makes food taste good, and it fills you up. These are two critically important features of any eating regimen. When you start squeezing out every ounce of fat from your diet, you set yourself up for failure. Why? For one, it’s not enjoyable to eat foods that have been stripped of fat. Two, it’s very hard to sustain a low fat diet. And most importantly, fat is an essential dietary substance. You need it! The only really bad fats are trans fats. These are the kinds of fats found in margarine, shortening and fried fast foods.

4. Eating foods that are "good for you" but that you hate

Your top priority is to satisfy yourself with food. You must do this at every meal and every snack. There has to be something on your plate that you love. It is your duty to yourself. If you’re eating foods that are "nutritionally correct" but that you hate, then it will not be possible for you to endure for long on the program. In our zest to lose weight, many of us quickly sacrifice our own satisfaction because we think it doesn’t matter. But it does, it matters a lot.

5. Focusing on scale weight and weighing yourself multiple times each day

When your scale weight is the most important goal, everything else becomes secondary. It doesn’t matter how you feel about yourself. It doesn’t matter whether or not you are treating yourself in a harmless, loving way. It doesn’t matter if you’re making decisions that enable you to enjoy your life along the way. All that matters is getting on the scale and seeing your weight go down. This puts all your attention on "getting" and no emphasis on "being." Your goal is not to get something; rather, it’s to be a person who is not out-of-control with food or who does not over feed or abuse self with food. This will be hard for you to believe right now, but your scale weight really doesn’t matter. You will eat a certain way before you achieve your scale weight. You will eat the same way when you achieve your scale weight. And you will eat the same way after you achieve your scale weight. So, as you can see, your scale weight is not what’s important. What’s important is eating in the same disciplined way, day after day, no matter what your scale says. Can you see how this seemingly simple change in focus can be of help to you?

6. Inconsistency in following your weight loss strategy

Most weight loss programs will work for you if you choose to follow the program consistently. Consistency is a fundamental principle of success. Right now, however, it’s very popular to orchestrate "time off" into weight loss regimes. So, for example, maybe you take a day off each week or a meal off each week or some other regular time off period. This is okay, but you need to keep in mind that there are several challenges with the application of taking "time off."

The first one is that you will be tempted to extend the time off period to another meal or another day or another week. A day or more of pigging out can undo a lot of hard-earned work. Also, because the time off breaks your momentum, it can feel like there is resistance or difficulty getting right back on track as quickly as possible. Another challenge is that you are apt to find more and more reasons for time off. Every visit to a restaurant can become a reason for a time off. Every invitation to dinner at a friend’s house can become a reason for a time off. Every special occasion can become a reason. Every business trip. And on and on. Pretty soon, you are fooling yourself about being on a disciplined food regime.

If you choose to use the time off methodology, the time out periods must be strictly contained or the program won’t work.

7. Eating low-fat foods that are made with sugar or high fructose corn syrup

We’ve all been duped into thinking that anything with a low-fat or no-fat label on it is healthy and good for us and will automatically lead to weight loss. Not true. Many, many low-fat and no-fat foods are calorically sweetened with either sugar, high fructose corn syrup or both. The presence of a lot of sugar in your food results in a lot of sugar in your bloodstream. Insulin is the naturally occurring hormone that removes the excess sugar from the blood stream and puts it into storage elsewhere in your body. Mostly, insulin stores the excess sugar as fat. In fact, insulin is known as the "fat saving" hormone. The more sugar you eat, the more insulin your produce, the fatter you get. It’s as simple as that. This is why it’s tremendously difficult to lose weight when you eat foods that contain a lot of caloric sweeteners.

8. Talking about your weight loss regime with others

Everybody has an opinion about weight loss. Everybody! Even little kids. When you start talking about your new weight loss regime, you open yourself to the opinions and judgments of others about the goodness or badness of what you are doing. With the best possible intentions, people may try to persuade you to stop the program or do something else. They may be sick of hearing about your weight loss attempts, and tell you that it’s no use what you do. They may be jealous that you are doing something to help yourself, and find a reason for you to quit. Why deal with all this static, confusion and interference? It’s much easier and more efficient to keep your own counsel - at least at the start of the program. Once you start losing weight, you will automatically become the center of attention. Then you can talk about it all you want because you have already demonstrated the power of what you are doing.

9. Complaining about your weight

Whining about your weight does not solve your problem or make the condition go away. Therefore, it’s a colossal waste of time and exceedingly boring for others to listen to. Even more, it’s a way of drawing your attention and your energy to a condition that you don’t want. Since you always get what you pay attention to, these behaviors are a way of asking for more hardship with your weight. Stop it right now and refuse to complain about your weight every again. It’s much more useful to envision the solution, ask for the solution, and talk about the solution. Let it become a kind of prayer for you. This puts your attention and energy on what you want instead of what you don’t want. Do the work of "seeing" yourself as you want to be. This is the hard part. Once you see the solution, magic happens. Try it and see what happens.

10. Having a mindset for a sprint instead of a marathon

If you’re reading this article, you probably have a life-long or at least long-term weight problem. Unfortunately, the weight problem doesn’t get fixed by the diet, which is a sprint. It only gets fixed by making the decision to eat in a different way for a very long time, maybe even the rest of your life, which is a marathon. Go into it with the idea that you’re in a marathon. The trick is to make food decisions that enable you to last and go the distance. Don’t do anything that you can't "hold." That’s the secret.

About Karen Bentley:
Because of her life-long weight issue, she has been studying weight loss practices most of her adult life. She has also been teaching and writing about weight loss and out-of-control eating for the past ten years.
www.sugarfreemiracle.com

Additional Resources
Emotional Eating: Feeding Your Feelings
Weight Control for Life Free report
Is Your Metabolism in Sugar Shock?
Weight Control Self-Hypnosis CD Series

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