Trying to lose weight? Avoid these traps

Despite dieting, are you still not losing weight? These common mistakes could be tripping you up.

You’d be surprised how quickly kilojoules add up. An extra tablespoon of salad dressing can add 313 to 418 kilojoules (75 to 100 calories), an extra tablespoon of butter adds 427 kilojoules (102 calories), and that tiny bag of chips adds 4.6 kilojoules (162 calories). Eating while cooking, starting each day with a mug of coffee with milk and sugar, finishing the food on your kids’ plates or having one too many glasses of wine are just a few sneaky habits that sabotage weight loss.

Weight loss warnings

- Adopt a leisurely, European-style of eating. Savour your food, taste every bite and stop when you’ve had enough.

- Strive for three meals a day. Always start your day with a healthy breakfast that contains both protein and fibre. An egg, a piece of whole wheat toast, and half a grapefruit will keep you feeling satisfied until lunch.

- Avoid drinks such as alcohol, smoothies, coffee and tea with milk and sugar, sweetened juices and sodas that can contribute to weight gain. You don’t eat less because most beverages satisfy thirst not hunger.

- Eat smaller portions. Leave a few bites on your plate or use smaller plates and bowls.

- Refuse high-fat salad toppings, such as bacon, cheese, croutons and creamy dressings.

- Don’t eat crackers, dry cereal, bread, or rice cakes that only contain carbs. Your body converts the carbs to simple sugars leaving you with low blood sugar and the same hunger pangs.

- Skip frozen meals. Food manufacturers often load frozen meals with sodium, a natural preservative. Sodium makes you retain water, which bloats you up.

- Ditch fibre snack bars. Rather include fibre-rich produce like fruit and veggies in every snack and meal.

- Shun “low-fat” foods. When manufacturers remove fat from food, they inevitably remove some of the flavour. To compensate, they often add sugar, which makes the product even worse for you. Research has shown that eating artificially-sweetened foods would eventually lead to greater weight gain than eating foods sweetened with regular sugar would.

- Forgo fruit juice. Even 100% juice is just empty kilojoules and another blood sugar spike. Also, fructose, the natural fruit sugar that makes fruit and fruit juice taste sweet, tricks your body into gaining weight by blunting your body’s ability to recognize when it’s full.

- Say “goodbye” to diet soda and every other sweet-tasting drink that mysteriously contains “zero calories”! “Diet” doesn’t mean kilojoule-free and the “no calorie” claim doesn’t actually mean “zero”. Artificial sweeteners can also produce cravings.

- Bounce the booze. It contains empty kilojoules that don’t fill you up or provide any nutrients, softens your resolve so you’re more likely to overeat and impairs your judgement regardless of your weight loss goals.

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