If you eat a healthy diet on your own, avoid these 10 mistakes

Many popular runners make the decision to start a supposedly healthy diet on their own and, generally, they tend to make different mistakes.

Starting to take care of yourself to improve your quality of life and even to have a healthier appearance (body) is very good and should be applauded. But experience has shown me that most people who start a healthy diet on their own they end up making different mistakes because they lack the necessary training to know the what, how and when of a healthy diet.

Some of the mistakes that are often made when starting a healthy diet without the supervision or advice of a nutrition professional can be harmful to health and end up interfering with the achievement of the objective of improving the general state of health and even not achieving the desired change in physical appearance.

10 common mistakes when eating a healthy diet without professional advice

Nowadays social reds are full of 'nutritional influencers', 'nutritional coaches' or 'nutritional therapists'; These people, many of whom lack the necessary qualifications, earn money by generating content on nutrition, among which there are many recommendations/tips/advice on healthy diets (some dare to go even further by talking about "miracle diets"). which can be dangerous to health because they can cause serious nutritional imbalances.

The only health professional authorized to carry out dietary plans is the dietitian-nutritionist.

Based on my experience in consultation, I am going to list the main mistakes that are usually committed by people who decide to start a healthy diet (or what these people consider to be a healthy diet) without the advice, supervision of a  dietitian-nutritionist.

These would be the 10 most common mistakes that are committed when starting a supposed or supposed healthy diet that has not been planned by a nutrition professional:

1. Reduce intake.
2. Reduce social life.
3. Buy only atlimelight type lenses.
4. Excess physical activity.
5. Absence of physical activity.
6. Carrying out prolonged fasts.
7. Obsession with weight.
8. Removelimentos by false myths.
9. Falling into “miracle diets.”
10. Do not resort to a nutrition professional.

A healthy diet is not eating less or eating only 'light'

Reduce intake

It is clear that the quantities will probably have to be cut a bit, but The problem is not 'how much' but 'what'. I'm going to give an example: a donut is small, but its caloric value is very high and the nutrients it provides are not healthy. However, a salad is a larger amount of food but with low caloric value and a wide variety of nutrients. Therefore, a suitable option to start a healthy diet.

Decrease social life

"I'm not going to dinner with my friends because I'm on a diet.". Mistake! In one tolimeBalanced ntation there is room for whims, of course.

If you have to spend 4 months losing weight and you are not going to try chocolate in that period of time, you will probably abandon your goal and not achieve the expected results. One has to enable 2-3 free intakes per week “for mental health”, for example, going out to dinner with your partner on Friday, family dinner on Sunday and lunch with co-workers, of course, without abuse and compensating for it with good nutritional behavior the rest of the week.

buy fromlimelight type nts

Focus your shopping list on takinglimeReal ingredients, natural and quality ingredients. To follow a healthy diet you have to know how to choose foods in the supermarket.limeadequate foods and for this it is highly recommended to know how to read labels or nutritional information; If you have questions, you can consult the article that also appears in this blog about labeling to make an appropriate purchase. Example: light mayonnaise is still unhealthy, but a natural tomato and basil sauce is magnificent.

It could be said, therefore, that a healthy diet begins with the purchase we make. at the supermarket.

Healthy diet and well-planned exercise

Excess physical activity

“I'm going to run for a long time, super fast and when it's hottest” o “I'm going to go to the gym 2 times a day”. If you are cutting out food and training like an elite athlete, I'll probably give you a 'bird'.

Furthermore there is also the phenomenon of overtraining, which in extreme cases can be chronic. Start with short walks and gradually gain shape to gradually increase the hardness of your sessions. Ask the gym monitor for help and he will guide you little by little. Don't start the house on the roof!

Lack of physical activity

The opposite is also the case, doing nothing and entrusting everything to the diet. At first it works, but you will stagnate before or after. The trick is not to reduce and reduce the kilocalories we consume, but to increase our caloric expenditure with physical activity.

Additionally, with diet alone you will probably lose muscle mass. The key to success: add diet and exercise.

Performing long fasts

This dangerous fashion, so to speak, is not not at all recommended in what we would understand as a healthy diet.

Carrying out prolonged fasts triggers the hormone cortisol and represents a protein depletion which leads to a loss of muscle mass and body fat. Furthermore, when we eat again we will be very hungry so it is likely that we will overeat which will activate the excessive secretion of the hormone insulin, which it will create fatty tissue.

Weight obsession

What the scale says is not the most important thing. Sometimes weighing the same is not a problem because you can lose 2kg of fat and have gained 2kg of muscle mass because you have started training. At that moment you will overwhelm, but your body composition is much better. Look in a mirror and check your clothes, you will see that your volume is much smaller!

In addition, weighing yourself daily is a mistake, because it is possible to appreciate that in one or several days you do not go down anything and even go up ... do not panic! You may have to go to the bathroom, that you have weighed at different times, that you are in the menstrual period (in the case of women) and many other factors that influence body weight.

Removeliments for false myths

"I follow a healthy diet and I don't eat bananas because I've been told it makes you fat"; "water in food is very bad" o "bread, pasta and rice outside, carbohydrates are very bad"… These are phrases that are frequently heard (there are many more of these popular statements circulating out there among popular runners when talking about a healthy diet). There are many false myths in relation to thelimentation and let alone when it comes to talking about a healthy diet.

There is nothing wrong with, for example, some oil and salt toast for breakfast; There is also no problem in having a banana for lunch or eating a plate of rice with chicken and vegetables. Please, Don't believe everything you read on social media!

There are too many false myths in relation to what a healthy diet should be and, for some time now, it is very worrying to observe that many of these false myths are spread uncontrollably.

Be very careful with miracle diets because they are the opposite of a healthy diet

Falling for miracle diets

«I have stagnated in weight so I am going to do the artichoke diet» o "I'm going to live on juices and smoothies for a month": They may seem like unrealistic atrocities, but they are crazy things that some people do who believe in the miraculous effects of some diets (which is why they are called 'miracle diets'). These diet They promise great weight loss quickly and effortlessly, something that some of these diets can fulfill but paying a very high cost for health.

Miracle diets They are an error due to excess restriction, so there will be important shortcomings, but above all because the lost weight is usually regained. Why is this happening? Because they don't teach you how to eat well; There is no nutritional education, so when you are at your weight you won't know what to do to maintain it.

Remember: any miracle diet is just the opposite of a healthy diet.

Not turning to a nutrition professional

Generally, all the patients who come to my office have already decided to start a healthy diet for themselves, or they either fail to achieve their goals or they quickly stagnate. The only health professional authorized to carry out dietary plans is the dietitian-nutritionist, as stated in art 7 section g of the Law 44/2003, of November 21, on the organization of health professions:

g) Dietitians-nutritionists: University Diplomas in Human Nutrition and Dietetics develop activities aimed atlimentation of the person or groups of people, appropriate to their physiological and, where appropriate, pathological needs, and in accordance with the principles of prevention and public health.

The alimentation is a very important aspect of health, so a bad onelimentation (a bad diet) can put health at risk, so it is essential to entrust these matters to the appropriate healthcare professional. I would like to finish by leaving a question for any runner to answer: when you suffer a muscle problem while running, do you go to the pharmacist to get the solution? If you suffer from a muscle pull, do you ask a dietitian-nutritionist to give you a massage? It's weird, right?

Indeed, when you have a muscle problem you go to the physiotherapist, who has studied how to solve or treat these problems in the correct and appropriate way for your health. Well, when it comes to following a healthy diet you should put yourself in the hands of a dietician-nutritionist and not trainers, pharmacists, traumatologists or physiotherapists.

Text to 42K of :

Ismael Martinez Garcia

Dietitian-nutritionist

Dietitian - Nutritionist from the University of Valencia. Master in Nutrition in performance in endurance/ultra-resistance sports from the Spanish Academy of Nutrition. Collegiate number CV00678 in the College of Dietitians and Nutritionists of the Valencian Community
Diet Valencia

Other entries by Ismael Martínez García

• Eating correctly, key to improving as a runner
• What to eat before a race
• What to eat after a race