The quest to lose a few extra pounds can take us to extraordinary places. Some people will try any experimental – or potentially dangerous–diet just to lose a few pounds, but dieting shouldn’t be a big hassle.

Most fad diets fall for many nutritional myths, so here are our 5 biggest mistakes people make when dieting for weight loss.

COUNTING CALORIES FOR WEIGHT LOSS

Nearly every diet will have you keeping track of your calorie intake, but this can be a mistake. A calorie is just a way of classifying the energy content in your food and every person's body metabolizes calories in a different way. In addition, the nutritional information printed on packaged food can be legally under-reported by up to 20%.

Studies show that if dieters count carbohydrates instead of calories, they’ll see a greater result in their weight loss program. The body burns more fat when you reduce carbohydrates and increase calorie count because of the way your body burns these nutrients.

FAT-FREE EVERYTHING

Another one of our go-to diet trends is fat-free or low-fat foods. Dietary fat is not inherently fattening, and shouldn’t be thought of as a negative for your weight loss program. Foods that are naturally high in fat are usually very nutrient dense.

Low-fat or Fat-free products from the store will likely be full of unhealthy, processed or refined sugars. When you remove the fat from foods it will end up tasting terrible so, what do you do? Add as much processed sugar as you like.

There are certain fats that you should avoid such as vegetable oil, margarine and vegetable shortening which are all manufactured fats and can easily promote inflammation.

BURNING CALORIES IN ORDER TO LOSE WEIGHT

Yet again, more typical advice that you should be ignoring. Exercise is an important part of losing weight; however, it is no replacement for a healthy diet. You simply cannot eat whatever you want, exercise and then expect to lose the weight.

Truthfully, you need to balance your diet and exercise for your overall health. Your body shape is determined by the energy you intake–namely, your food.

CUTTING OUT SUGAR BUT KEEPING THE CARBS

When you want to lose weight it is important to cut out all refined carbohydrates, not only sugar.

Starchy foods such as bread or pasta breakdown into glucose the same way that refined sugars do. High glucose levels will eventually lead to a rise in weight gain so, it's important to balance your diet and not just cut out the foods you believe you “bad.”

"CHEAT" DAY

Sometimes, people want to have their cake and eat it too. But a cheat day isn’t always good for weight loss. If you’re serious about your weight loss goals then you shouldn’t see dieting as something that you need relief from.

In terms of healthy living, your whole diet–every single day–should be based around eating nutritious foods. There are hundreds of great, delicious and healthy recipes out there and when you stop eating processed foods you can start to appreciate the taste of real food more.

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