Top 10 Most Unrealistic Diet Expectations of All Time

What is the one thing you find the hardest to grasp with dieting?

Is it the type of food you eat, the amount of food you eat, the amount of exercise or is it the lack of freedom of food choices.

After overcoming my weight problem after spending 7 and a half years of my life yo-yo dieting, I thought it would be fun to write down on paper the things I struggled with most. These 10 factors are the ones that more likely than not, caused me to ruin my diet.

1. EATING SMALLER MEALS

This was extremely difficult for me. I like to feel content and full after a meal. I found I could only do this if I was really busy. However, if I had nothing else to do after finishing my diet meal, I would get irresistible cravings to splurge…and more often than not I did…in a big way!

2. EATING DISGUSTING FOOD

I found this the most difficult. Not only did I have to give up my favourite foods, I had to eat the most blend and tasteless food imaginable. Even if a diet did sound good to start with (the high fat diet) the lack of variety soon made me hate those foods. I still cringe thinking about how I used to force myself to eat tuna in spring water and egg whites. After a while I was dry reaching every time I put them in my mouth! To solve this problem, I would take a mouthful of tuna, then take a mouthful of water and drink it down! Yuck! After having this meal for lunch at work, I would get home and eat half a box of Nutri-Grain cereal…with nearly a litre of milk!

3. CUTTING CARBOHYDRATES

This drove me crazy! Whenever I did this I felt so drained and weak. I was always tired. I found it hard to string more than a few days of consistent dieting together without pigging out on cereal, pasta, juice and sandwiches. What I realize now is that whatever I wasn’t allowed to have, that’s what I craved.

4. CONSUMING LESS FOOD AT NIGHT

I don’t like to admit it, but one of my favourite things is to eat a large, almost challenging-to-finish meal for dinner that will leave me stuffed. I don’t know why but I love the feeling. Maybe I like the challenge and almost like to show off how much food I can eat. Also, night time is when I’m unwinding and I would like to have a snack or two while relaxing and watching T.V before going to bed. Many diets actually want you to eat very little from 5pm onwards and not eat for 3 hours before going to bed…I obviously struggled with this one. My most common time for pigging out and ruining my diet was (and still is) at night time.

5. EATING A TON OF PROTEIN

I found this the hardest in my day to day activities. Some diets won’t let you even have an apple without having a piece of protein with it. I couldn’t stand to eat so much meat…blend meat at that because it had to be lean. Do you know hard it is to get a lean piece of meat when you are out and about? I would have to carry tins of tuna with me because this was the only portable meat. I couldn’t always leave the house because I had to eat protein every 2-3 hours! (I know that’s a bit extreme but I felt like that some times!) This is where supplement companies must be loving it, because the most portable source of protein is…protein powder… which leads me to my next point…