Nutritionist Reveals America's Most Common Dieting Mistakes

Do your weight loss attempts ever feel like Groundhog Day? You wake up one morning, annoyed with yourself that you've been living on junk food, and then you discover some new approach to dieting that you never heard of before that sounds super easy. All you have to do is cut out a whole food group, like carbs. Possibly, some protein powders, diet foods, or membership in some Facebook "accountability" group are part of the program. At first, you're all in, and the pounds start slipping off. But after a few months, pizza or cookies get the better of you, and you'd rather eat sharp glass than down another detox smoothies. And then, you wake up again, frustrated that you've slipped up — but, you're convinced that with the next diet, everything will be different.

Just... stop. This is the advice of Emily Wunder, MSCN, RD, LDN. In an interview with The List, this registered dietitian said she sees this pattern time and time again, and, it never works. "One very common mistake I encounter is falling for any sort of quick fix," Wunder said. "With making diet changes, you want them to be beneficial and sustainable to make it more of a healthy lifestyle." And not only is it deflating and a waste of time and often money to be a serial dieter, "these quick fixes are often extreme and can even be harmful to the body," Wunder added.

We get it: schemes like "The Soup Diet" and "The Snake Diet" and even popular trends like keto and intermittent fasting might be hard to stick to for the long haul. But what is your alternative? Do you just resign yourself to putting on weight and retreat back to your couch and bag of Cheetos? Nope. Wunder said that if you find yourself in a perpetual revolving door of diet plans, it might be time to bring in an objective trained professional — as in, a registered dietician.

"As a registered dietitian, I obviously support our field," Wunder admitted. "But, in all fairness, we have gone to school for nutrition, completed a dietetic internship, passed our boards, and are completing yearly continuing education to stay current on researched health and nutrition practices," she explained. Registered dietitians are compensated for providing objective expertise, and will provide each client with a custom recommendation based on their individual needs — they don't get paid for adding you to some kind of weight loss powder pyramid scheme. "This is someone to get diet information from, not a salesperson or influencer trying to make a profit," Wunder said.