The 5 Key Ingredients Missing from Every Weight-Loss Plan

The 5 Key Ingredients Missing from Every Weight-Loss Plan

Your goals have been set, you've removed all of your food temptations from the refrigerator, and now you're ready to achieve your target weight-loss goal. Regardless of whether you're planning a high-protein, low-fat diet or a low-carb and -sugar plan, there are a few key ingredient that might be missing from your weight-loss plans that could cause you to fail.

1. Attempting to deny yourself of your favorite foods already sets you at odds against yourself.

Without remembering that your primary goal to dieting is to improve your well-being, you'll quickly become your own worst critic. You are the most powerful force for changing your lifestyle and developing healthier patterns. Whenever you become too strict about which foods you can't have, you'll begin to feel deprived, and you'll become frustrated with yourself. This will establish a dangerous cycle in which you'll feel the need to binge even more, in an effort to make yourself feel better.

Instead of seeing yourself as your own worst enemy, start each day by looking in the mirror and developing a sense of partnership with yourself. Make a list of all the foods you're allowing yourself to eat throughout the day, count the calories of these foods (http://strongdaily.net/how-many-calories-in-an-egg/) and let that become your focus. Reward yourself periodically with a smaller portion of one of your favorite snacks. Intentionally celebrate each step of your journey, and you'll find the strength to keep moving forward.

2. Your dieting plan is centered around negativity, not positivity.

If you're a coffee addict and you attempt to completely cut caffeine out of your diet, you'll probably wake up on the first day and discover that you're obsessing about that glorious cup of Joe even more than usual. The denial route to dieting tends to only enhance the things you're missing out on rather than giving you a sense of empowerment about your eating habits.

If you're constantly focusing on the things you can't have, the end result will be a diminished sense of self-control. However, if you begin to meditate on the things you can have, you'll find that your entire outlook about dieting will shift, and you'll develop greater will-power.

Rather than making a list of foods you're not allowed to have any longer, focus on all of the things you'll be gaining by changing your eating habits. You'll have more energy, your health will drastically improve and you'll feel more confident about yourself. This is a healthy, self-loving approach to dieting.

3. You feel that unless you lose weight, you're not acceptable.

Every time you turn on the television or flip through magazine articles, you're most likely bombarded by images of healthy, sexy models who convey the message that unless you look exactly like them, something is wrong with you. Advertising is a powerful force to be reckoned with, but if you buy into the lie that you're not good enough, you won't feel the motivation to move forward with your weight-loss goals. Many dieters make the mistake of refusing to love themselves until they've changed their body image. The problem is that some of the biggest contributors to weight gain are stress, social unhappiness, and poor self-image.

If you refuse to love yourself exactly as you are, your diet will become more about an unattained future goal instead of a present, tangible one. Without taking the time to improve how you feel about yourself, you most likely won't succeed at dieting.

4. Your primary goal is centered on looking better rather than improving your health and quality of life.

If your purpose for dieting is to look better in your bikini during the summer instead of receiving long-term health benefits, your priorities are already out of order, and you might be at risk of gaining even more weight afterwards. If you've developed a mindset of deprivation, you may reach your target weight, return to your old eating habits, and probably overindulge. Weight loss should be a perk of living a healthier lifestyle. Focus on the advantages of reducing your blood pressure and improving your glucose and triglyceride levels, etc. You'll most likely discover that shedding a few extra pounds will be much easier than you initially realized.

5. You have unrealistic expectations or you're too impatient.

Just as the majority of "get rich quick" schemes are unproductive, "lose weight fast" ones are as well. According to Health.com contributor, Dr. Cynthia Sass on September 30, 2013, "A UK food company found that of those who diet regularly, two out of five quit within the first seven days, one out of five last a month, and the same number -- just 20% -- make it to the three-month mark."

Drastically changing your eating habits can produce a variety of major problems, including brain fog, irritability, mental exhaustion, and mood swings. Whenever your body is denied the foods it has become accustomed to, it's put into an immediate state of withdrawal. Many dieters return to their old eating patterns simply to avoid these unpleasant feelings.

Taking the gradual approach to eating healthier could be a better alternative. This will require much more patience and persistence, and you'll probably shed pounds more gradually rather than instantaneously. But it will be a more realistic approach to losing weight, and you'll probably experience healthier, longer-lasting results.