5 Mistakes People Make When Changing Their Diet

and How You Can Avoid Them

We all make mistakes — and sometimes, they can be great learning opportunities. But when you’re trying to change your diet in order to be a better you, mistakes are better avoided. Diet mishaps can make us feel ashamed, embarrassed, and angry at ourselves. Getting healthy should be a positive experience, so here are some tips to help you avoid those common downfalls and help you on your way to a healthier life!

1. Not Setting a Goal

Experts agree that setting a goal is imperative to achieving success. Without a goal, you don’t know what you’re aiming for and you won’t know when you get there.

To set a goal, ask yourself: “Why do I want this?” Here are some examples:

Next, write your goal down and put it somewhere you can see it.

2. Not Creating a Plan

Goals are important, but without a plan, you may never achieve your goals. A plan acts as a roadmap to get to your destination. How exactly are you going to get there? What milestones will you pass along the way? Here’s an example of a plan that might give you some ideas:

Now that you have a plan, you can move forward! Find a way to keep track of your success. For example, if you drank a gallon of water that day, put a blue check on the calendar! Celebrating little successes can motivate us to keep going.

3. Not Taking Baby Steps

We often fall into the trap of making our plans unrealistic. If your goal is to lose fifteen pounds, understand that realistically, it might not be a linear process. That’s okay! Make a plan that allows you to gradually improve, instead of getting frustrated, giving in, and then giving up. Start with little changes until those become comfortable, and then try another small change!

For example, if giving up sweets is hard for you, decide that for just one night a week, you’ll eat fruit for dessert. A couple of weeks later, eat fruit two nights of the week. These changes may seem too small to be effective, but by easing your mind into the challenge it won’t feel like such a hard thing.

4. Doing It Alone

This mistake can be the hardest to fix, because we may be the only person we know trying to change our diet! Many people try to change on their own because none of their friends and family are interested. This is hard because we are social beings — we like to hang out, go out to eat, and say, “Are you going to finish that?” It becomes very easy to munch a few unplanned fries or order a coke because everyone else did.

But hold on: there’s good news! Thanks to modern technology, we can connect with people all over the world. There are Facebook groups for every topic under the sun, from “broke vegans” to diets for those with Crohn’s Disease. You can also find support and inspiration from people on Instagram and Twitter.

5. Making It Complicated (and Spending Too Much)

This is a trap most of us fall into at some point. You find a new diet plan to follow, but it needs uses fancy recipes and foods you’ve never used. At first that sounds exciting, so you buy a hi-tech blender, multi-packs of supplements, pounds of produce, a veggie-noodle-maker, and lots of new mediterranean grains you’ve never tried before — only to realize that you forget to take the supplements, smoothies make a mess, you miss spaghetti, and your produce has gone bad!

We love to dive head first into new projects, convinced that with the new stuff we’ll be a new person. Unfortunately, that new person is usually frustrated and broke. So what should you do instead? Try to keep track of what you normally eat. If you’re a PB&J kind of person, see if there’s a healthier bread out there with lots of yummy whole grains. Look for a natural (peanuts and salt only) peanut butter, and maybe even try real fruit instead of jelly, like apples, raspberries, and strawberries, which will have more fiber and fewer calories.

By swapping a few ingredients, you can easily transform your favorites into healthier favorites. Instead of thinking you need to make fancy recipes or use expensive appliances, see what changes you can make to what you already eat, so that you keep up with the change (and your wallet).

People all over the world have changed their diets and changed their lives because of it. The same potential for change is there for everyone! From making goals, plans, and like-minded friends, to taking baby steps and simple changes, these five tips should help you focus your effort on what really matters. Remember though: even when you do make a mistake, get back up and give it another go. You can do it.

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