Summary: Don’t let these often repeated rules about weight loss destroy your efforts to lose weight.
Weight loss can be a really difficult thing for a lot of people to get a handle on. To make it easier, many of us seek out rules to follow that take out the guesswork. Unfortunately, setting certain rules can actually be detrimental to your weight loss as well as your physical and mental health in the long term. Here are a few common weight loss rules that could actually be working against you:
- Don’t eat carbs, dairy, sugar, fat, etc. Cutting out an entire food group from your diet purely for weight loss often isn’t the answer. First and foremost, our bodies need things like carbs and fats to function well, so cutting them out or cutting them down considerably can have a negative effect on your health. Secondly, everyone’s body is different, so choosing a rule like this just because it worked for Susie doesn’t mean it will work well for your body.
- Eat X many calories. Calorie counting is incredibly common when it comes to weight loss and can be helpful for a very short amount of time to get an idea of what you’re actually eating. However, making rules around how many calories you’re allowed can turn into an obsession with the numbers, rather than focusing on the nutrient value of foods. Additionally, many calorie counting plans have you eating far less than you should for a sustainable amount of time, leading to malnutrition or binge eating because your body is starving for more food.
- Eat X times per day. Have you ever just thought about eating when you’re hungry and stopping when you’re not? When you’re so focused on what time you’re allowed to eat, you often end up eating when you’re not even hungry or feeling incredibly hungry for certain periods of the day. Your body is a lot smarter than you are when it comes to fuel, so listen to it and eat when you’re actually hungry, not just when you think you’re supposed to eat.
- Choose one “cheat day” per week. Having a cheat day is detrimental because it makes you feel like you’re torturing yourself the other six days a week. Allowing yourself a certain number of treats per week or day will help to balance out both your social life and your mental health. Additionally, cheat days often lead to binge eating and eating foods or amounts you might not normally eat because you feel like you have to get it in during your one chance.