It's time to stop sabotaging your diet!
You stick to your diet all day, when suddenly there's no way you can stop yourself from eating a brownie, or a burrito as big as your head. You even come up with healthy-sounding excuses: "Chocolate contains antioxidants." "Cheese and salsa equal calcium and vegetables." So, here are the diet lies that can trip you up, and how to fix them:
- First diet fib: "As long as I walk while I eat, the calories won't have a chance to turn to fat." The truth is: even if you jogged while you ate, you'd ingest calories faster than you could use them. For example, it'd take 3 hours of walking to burn off the calories in a large Baskin-Robbins Cappuccino Blast. So, if you must eat on the move, make it small and nutritious. Like a cereal bar with at least 3 grams of fiber. And those calories do count toward your daily total!
- The next diet fib you might tell yourself: "As long as my salad has lots of lettuce and fresh veggies, it's healthy." Well innocent-looking toppers like sautéed peppers, pasta, tuna salad, and croutons can be soaked in oil or mayonnaise, making your salad the fat-and-calorie equivalent of fried chicken. Bottom line: if any salad fixing is shiny or breaded, proceed with caution. And just FYI: a Caesar salad has more calories than a burger Combo with fries!
- And the final diet fib: "I don't have to measure portions if I just grab a handful from the bag." The fact is: if the TV or anything else distracts you, it's easy to lose track of how much you've eaten. But visual cues help tell us to stop noshing. So put a serving in a bowl, and hide the bag. And remember: a one-ounce serving of chips is about 17 pieces. And a single serving of ice cream is half a cup or 1/3 the size of a can of soda.
