If you are looking to shed a few pounds, you may be encountering some unexplained road blocks. If you have reached a plateau in your weight loss, you may need to look at how you are approaching this process. It could be that what you may think is working is actually hindering your efforts. Here are a few of the biggest mistakes that people make when they are attempting to lose weight.
 

Not Eating Carbs

While you definitely want to limit your intake of refined carbohydrates when trying to lose weight, complex carbohydrates should not be off limits. Simple carbohydrates such as sugar, white bread, noodles, and high fructose corn syrup will certainly pile on the pounds. However, the healthier carbs found in foods such as beans, vegetables, fruits, and whole grains deliver crucial nutrients while also supplying your body with plenty of energy.
 

Eliminating Fats

Like carbs, there is a place for a healthy amount of fats in every diet. You are doing yourself a disservice if you try to eliminate all fats from your diet. Research has shown that some types of omega-3 fats are instrumental in helping reduce cholesterol levels and harmful inflammation in the body. You can find these types of fats in foods such as fatty fish, flax seeds, walnuts, and eggs fortified with omega-3s. In general, you should always be skeptical of restrictive diets that ask you to eliminate some types of foods completely.
 

Rewarding Yourself with Too Many Cheat Meals

Most diet plans will allow you to indulge in the occasional cheat meal. Having this to look forward to often provides the motivation that you need to continue. The risk comes when the cheat meal turns into an entire day of overindulgence. In addition, labeling a food as an indulgence can often make you crave it even more. If you do decide to incorporate cheat meals into your diet plan, it is important to keep them in check and not use them as an excuse to head down a path of unhealthy eating.
 

Labeling Foods as Good or Bad

Many dieters make the mistake of labeling foods as either "good" or bad." This practice can create a host of unhealthy eating habits. Any sustainable nutritional plan will not place foods in categories that are stigmatized. Instead, you should aim to eat a wide variety of nutritious foods without putting them into a specific category. The last thing that you want is for your diet to dictate your social life, where you can go out to eat with friends, and other lifestyle decisions that can leave you feeling unhappy. This will make the eating plan too hard to maintain for the long haul.
 

Eating Too Much After a Workout

It can be tempting to reach for a big meal after working up a sweat. After a hard workout, you may believe that you have earned the right to eat what you want. Unfortunately, it is not uncommon for people to overestimate how many calories they burned during a workout session, leading them to overeat without feeling any guilt. Why ruin a hard workout by overindulging after you finish? Instead, you should reach for a nutritious snack that will support your weight loss goals.
 

Setting Unrealistic Goals

You are simply setting yourself up for failure if you set unrealistic goals. Rather than focusing on the number on the scale, try making it a goal to eat a certain amount of vegetables each day. By making longstanding lifestyle changes your goal, you will increase the chances that you create healthy habits that will last a lifetime as opposed to a cycle of yo-yo dieting.
 

Skipping Meals

Skipping meals in an effort to reduce overall caloric intake for your day may be sabotaging your weight loss efforts. Those who skip meals tend to overcompensate by the reduction in caloric intake by eating more later in the day. This creates the tendency to binge eat. Skipping meals will also leave you feeling tired and unable to exercise.

Avoiding these common mistakes will increase the odds that you are successful in your weight loss efforts.