5 Diet Traps and How To Avoid Them

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Something going wrong?

Are you planning to get into a diet? What are the diet traps that you might get into - have you ever thought of that?

This page concentrates on the basic diet traps plus much more info.

This page is also included in DietFacts.

Medicine 

Did you start gaining weight soon after you took a particular medication?

Some types of medication simply stimulate appetite and others alter metabolism. Many antidepressants, like tricyclics, have caused weight gain in numerous patients.

Other examples of medications that can plateau your weight:

1. Prescription antihistamines

2. Blood pressure medications, and

3. Corticosteroids


Break-free strategy: Before blaming your prescription drug, make sure that your weight gain wasn't due to eating more and exercising less! Then ask your doctor for a different drug. Don't forget that drug reactions differ dramatically from one person to other.

Anger 

Do you stifle your anger?

Or, do you let it explode?

Whichever the case, this might be the reason for your dieting problems.

According to Dr. Redford Williams, co-author of Anger Kills, up to 20 percent of us carry harmful levels of hostility. In one study, people with high levels of hostility averaged 500 more calories a day than those with low levels of hostility.

If you smile when a co-worker steals your ideas- then spend the evening digging into a bag of chips- you're not really fat and happy. You're secretly angry.


Break-free strategy: Anger needs to be evaluated. If you find that the reason behind your anger is relatively unimportant and there's nothing you can do about it, learn to let it go! This might save you some unwanted kilos. Take a break for few minutes whenever you feel ravenous. Review what happened in the past 10 to 12 hours on what made you angry? Did your spouse hurt your feelings? Were you playing martyr again?

Express your needs directly. If you are craving for sympathy or you just want to spend some time alone, say so. Don't keep it within you. Don't get angry when people can't read your mind.

You can save yourself from a lot of tension by just saying no. Don't let others ask too much of you. Practice letting anger go by pedaling an exercise bike fast or by taking a long walk. You can even try punching a pillow!

If you are chronically angry, learn to forgive. Life can be unjust at times. But it's even more unfair when you punish yourself by eating to stifle anger. Don't do this to yourself because of another person's insensitivity towards your feelings.

Anger Kills - A recommended read by Dr. Redford Williams 

Having trouble managing your anger? Let Dr. Redford Williams guide you.

Anger Kills: Seventeen Strategies for Controlling the Hostility That Can Harm Your Health

Amazon Price: $7.99 (as of 12/04/2009)Buy Now
List Price: $7.99

Customer Reviews

Steven says - ""Getting angry is like taking a small dose of some slow-acting poison, arsenic...every day of your life (Page XV).

This books explains that hostility is at the root of our anger.
One cannot get rid of anger with a wish and a prayer or even a commitment not to do it again. I tried this dozens of times and it never works. This books tells me I must chip anger away a little bit at a time (until the day I die). The author states that "three aspects of hostility that are harmful to health are cynicism, anger, and aggression."

Cynicism: a mistrusting attitude,
Anger: the emotion that we show when confronted with unacceptable behavior, and
Aggression: the behavior to which hostile people are driven.

I will never cured of this habit since I had since six years old.
I must treat anger like someone keep away from any other addiction.

Avg. Customer Rating: Amazon Rating

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Alcohol 

Most of us are tempted to have a good glass of white wine while having a low-fat dinner.

But according to the New England Journal of Medicine, if roughly of your one-fourth of your daily caloric intake comes from wine, beer or liquor, the alcohol can slow your fat metabolism by about 30 percent!

In other words, while your body is burning alcohol, it is not burning fat. To make matters worse, that unmetabolized fat may head straight to your abdomen. Other studies show that moderate consumption of alcohol before meals can enhance your appetite.


Break-free strategy: If your weight loss has been stalled, eliminating alcohol altogether could jump start it again.

Diet Posters 

Keep Yourself Motivated Using These Posters

Fear of Success 

Do you find your motivation coming to a halt?

Ask yourself these questions:

- What do you dislike about being svelte?
- Do you secretly miss hogging food?

"If you come from a family plagued with weight problems, you may even feel guilty about succeeding where others have failed," says Carla Perez, author of Getting Off the Merry-Go-Round.

Other signs that you don't feel you deserve to be thin:

1. Comparing yourself unfavourably to others("Sure, I lost 20 kilos, but she lost 35")

2. Discounting your victories ("The first 15 kilos mean nothing, only the last three count"); or,

3. Attributing your success to good luck instead of hard work. Seriously, don't do that!


Break-free strategy: Acknowledge your own success. If others can't, that's their problem. Remember you had worked really hard to lose those kilos. They didn't just melt away nor will they magically come back.

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Stress 

Stress causes fat to be deposited around the abdomen. No one knows exactly how the body dissects fat in response to stress, but the hormone cortisol may play a role.

In one Yale University study, overweight women who carried fat around their middles secreted more cortisol when subjected to uncontrollable stress than did pear-shaped women.

Now, what is uncontrollable stress? Feeling you're bound to fail, no matter how hard you try. Dreading a situation because you're unsure what will happen, and believing you won't measure up. Overeating at such times provides comfort, but it deadens the angst only temporarily.

Break-free strategy: Learn to meditate. It not only calms you but some studies show that the cortisol levels can be lowered too. Identify your stress triggers. Find ways other than eating to cope stress.

If everything else fails, there's always more exercising to look forward to.

The Answer Lies Within Us... 

An extensive study conducted by the Journal of the American Medical Association falsifies the fact that for staying fit and healthy one has to eat a low-fat diet.

In this study many women aged between 50 to 79 were tracked for eight years. It was found that those people who were on low-fat diets had the same rates of cancer as compared to those who ate according to their own whims and fancies!

For more information, read this article from Fox News.

Fitness Truths 

Reasons on why you shouldn't give up on your health regimes


1. Muscles don't turn to fat when you stop exercising - Muscle and fat are different types of tissue and one cannot turn into the other. Both muscle consumes more calories even when you're not exercising. So if you allowed your muscle mass to drop but ate the same amount you'd store the excess calories as fat.

2. Weight training won't build unsightly bulk on women - Women don't have enough testosterone to develop Popeye sized bulges. Only serious body builders can get serious bulk!

3. Eating less won't make me lose weight - If you eat more than you burn off you'll get fat, but increasing your activity level is actually a better way to balance the equation than eating less. On a very low-calorie diet your body goes into survival mode, slowing your metabolism and burning lean muscle.

Weight Gain Issues For Pregnant Women 

Too much weight gain can be dangerous for obese women.

According to revised guidelines issued by the American College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists (ACOG), overweight women should gain not more than 15 pounds during pregnancy.

Read more from here.

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