Diet mistakes even clever women make

Frozen yoghurt’s lower in calories and fat than ice cream - how can that be bad? That’s exactly how we get lured into the new frozen yogurt bars that have sprouted up recently, offering dozens of flavours and toppings, cautions New York City registered dietitian Sharon Richter. 'Usually, the calorie amounts on display at these places are for a small (16g/3 oz) serving of plain vanilla yoghurt,' she explains. However, if you believe you’ve got extra calories to play with and fill a container to the brim then top it off with crushed cookies and chocolate syrup, you can actually end up with a lot more calories than anticipated.

Fast Fix: Stick with a small portion, even a kid’s cup of vanilla or 'original' unflavoured yoghurt, Richter advises. 'This will keep the calories close to what’s usually displayed for a 3 oz serving,' she says. 'Then, if you want toppings, just add fresh - not syrupy - fruit, like berries, which are lower in sugar and calories than [sweets as] toppings.'

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Where the small, frequent meal advice becomes a trap is the size of the meal, says Reyna Franco, MS, a registered dietitian and personal trainer in New York City. Rather than divvy up the calories of three regular meals into six smaller portions about 250 to 350 calories apiece, 'some people actually consume six full-size meals and end up overeating,' says Franco.

Fast Fix: 'Use a calorie-tracking app so you can see how many calories you’re actually eating,' suggests Franco. For instance, try MyFitnessPal, a free app that works on iPhone, Android and Blackberry.

Snack packs are tempting because they seem like a guilt-free way to indulge in junk food. After all, 100 calories is nothing. But with these snack packs you really do get 'nothing' because they’re absolutely devoid of nutrition, says Chicago-based personal trainer Stephanie Mansour.'We’ve come to think of snacks as sugary, salty treats, but they’re actually meant to help us fit in all of the recommended servings of produce, dairy and grains - things we don’t get at meals,' says Mansour. 'That’s why you want to choose snacks that contribute to your nutritional needs and don’t just provide sugar and sodium. Those kinds of foods can cause wild swings in blood sugar that can leave you feeling hungry again fairly quickly. That leads to even more snacking, which can end up sabotaging your weight loss efforts.'

Fast Fix: Create your own healthier portable snacks - two a day are ideal - from fresh whole foods, suggests Mansour. Good choices: Peanut butter on celery or a hard-boiled egg.

Alcohol can be triply damaging when you’re trying to lose weight. Why? First off, it’s basically liquid sugar, and the calories (240 in a dirty martini!) tend to go right to your belly, says Lisa DeFazio, MS, a registered dietitian in Los Angeles. Plus, some kinds of alcohol, particularly, red wine and beer, can actually increase your appetite while all kinds of drinks will relax your resolve so you can end up eating the kinds of high-calorie foods - crisps, chips - you’d typically resist.

Fast Fix: Pick a drink, like white wine, that doesn’t stimulate appetite, but 'limit yourself to one, and skip dessert and other fatty foods to compensate for the extra calories in that cocktail,' suggests DeFazio.

See also: 10 post workout treats

See also: 95 snacks under 200 calories

It sounds like the perfect diet beverage. But new research from the University of Texas suggests that diet drinks don’t actually help with weight loss. In the study, guzzlers of two or more diet fizzy drinks a day saw waistline increases over 10 years that were 500 percent greater than nondrinkers. How’s that possible? For starters, when we believe we’re saving calories with a drink, we tend to allow ourselves to eat a little more, explains Jackie Keller, creator of the Los Angeles-based meal delivery service NutriFit. Plus, diet drinks may actually also spur our appetites for junky foods. 'The sodium in diet sodas can make us thirsty, but since we often mistake hunger for thirst, we eat more,' says Keller.

Fast Fix: Replace diet drinks with non-fat milk. Because it’s packed with protein, 'it’s more satisfying than other beverages, helps build muscle and aids in weight maintenance,' explains Keller. Don’t enjoy moo juice? Try green tea. Beyond its antioxidants and other phytonutrients, says Keller, green tea has also been shown to 'slightly heat up your metabolism,' which also contributes to weight loss.

See also: 10 post workout treats

See also: 95 snacks under 200 calories

Starting out with a plate of dark, leafy greens is a good first step. But how healthy (not to mention waist-friendly) your salad ultimately ends up being depends on what you add on top, cautions Dina Khader, MS, a registered dietitian in Mount Kisco in New York. 'After the bacon bits, sunflower seeds and chunks of meat and cheese,' she says, 'you could end up with the equivalent, or worse, of a McDonald’s cheeseburger in terms of fat and calories.'

Fast Fix: Top your salad greens with brightly colored raw vegetables. But steer away from mayo-based salads (tuna, pasta, potato) along with anything crispy (noodles and croutons) or marinated in oil. Balsamic vinegar is still the best dressing if you’ve got a light hand. But if you need something creamier, opt for low-fat dressings over fat-free since they don’t have as much sugar.

We pride ourselves on being able to juggle several things at once, but treating meal time like one more thing to cross off the To Do list can lead to overeating. Why? 'There’s no satisfaction,' explains Jamie Dougherty, a San Francisco health and lifestyle coach. 'We end up mowing through whatever is on our plate, but we don’t remember eating so we tend to eat more.'

Fast Fix: Disconnect from the electronics when you’re ready to eat. 'Even if you have to stay at your desk, shift your chair so you’re not looking at your email,' says Dougherty. 'Our bodies want to have a sense of acknowledgement and satisfaction, and we don’t get that when we don’t use all of our senses to engage with our food.'

See also: 10 post workout treats

See also: 95 snacks under 200 calories

Eating fresh vegetables that you find at the farmer’s market may theoretically get you the most nutritional bang for your buck, but if they wilt in the fridge before you get around to eating them, you may end up missing out on your veggies altogether, says DeFazio.

Fast Fix: Stock your freezer with ready-to-steam bags of frozen vegetables so you don’t miss a serving. 'There’s a lot of misconceptions about frozen veggies, but they’re frozen immediately after being harvested, so they retain a lot of their nutrients,' says DeFazio. 'You can keep them in the freezer for weeks, then pop a bag in the microwave and in four minutes, you’re downing some figure-friendly fibre, which will help you stay trim.'

See also: 10 post workout treats

See also: 95 snacks under 200 calories

It’s harder to resist calorie-rich comfort foods when you’re tired, according to a new Harvard study. In the study, scientists used MRIs to scan the brains of 12 people while they viewed images of both high-calorie and low-calorie foods. The result: The sleepier people felt when they saw fattening foods, the less activity there was in their prefrontal cortex, the area of the brain responsible for impulse control. 'The lower the prefrontal activity the more likely the person was to report that they tended to overeat,' explains study author William D. S. Killgore, PhD.

Fast Fix: Strive to get more sleep. We’re better at resisting temptation when we’re well-rested because activity levels are higher in the prefrontal cortex. How much more sleep should you get? It really depends on what you need to feel fully alert and awake, says Killgore. For some people that may be five hours a night; for others it’s eight. 'Basically any amount of sleepiness increased the risk of reducing prefrontal activation and consequently a greater tendency to overeat.'

See also: 10 post workout treats

See also: 95 snacks under 200 calories