Packing on the Pounds: Avoid These 4 Eating Mistakes

Are you trying to lose weight but failing miserably? It may not be your fault! You may think you are putting in all the hard work necessary to reach and maintain a healthy weight. But the truth is, sometimes, you should be dieting smarter, not harder!

You could be sabotaging your diet without even knowing it.

What does this mean? For example, you may think that you are just fine snacking on that healthy carrot, but undoing the benefit by adding calorie laden blue cheese dip to every bite.

Here are 4 more common examples of the ways that we can unknowingly ruin our diets.

• Ease up on the olive oil - It contains about 954 calories and 108 grams of fat per 1/2 cup.
• The solution - don't use more than you need. When grilling or broiling food, use a tool such as a pastry brush to lightly dab the food with oil. And, don't just splash on the salad dressing: measure out a tablespoon or two, and you'll be able to calculate the amount of calories and fat you're adding.


• Coffee can be more fattening than you realize - Regular coffee without any add-ons isn't the problem; the dietary damage occurs when you add sugary ingredients like honey, whipped cream, syrups, and fats from whole milk, half and half or cream.
• The solution - try flavored coffee beans flavors, such as hazel nut or white chocolate, instead of using sugary additives. Apply the same advice to tea drinks.


• Avoiding fat like the plague - This is usually a mistake. Your body needs healthy fats, and if you try to cut out all fat, you'll end up with cravings that could lead you back toward unhealthful eating habits. Worse, removing fats from foods almost always means replacing them with something else (usually hidden salt or sugars). Research has shown that abandoning all fat can lead to an increase in obesity, producing the opposite effect intended!Fat doesn't make people fat, but sugar does.


• You don't need to think in terms of 3 meals a day - breakfast, lunch, and dinner. Actually, to keep your metabolism at its peak, you should eat a smaller every three to four hours. However, don't let adding small meals increase your total food consumption.

There are many more ways we can sabotage our diets. Hopefully this short list will get you thinking more about how you could be undermining your best intentions, and overeating by accident.