1. If the diet omits certain foods, you may fall short of your nutritional requirements. An example of this is the Atkins diet, which is big on protein and veggies but low on carbs and fruit. If you’re active on a diet such as this, you need to be sure to take a good multivitamin to help make up where the diet is falling short. The best multivitamins are whole food vitamins, which can be found at your local health store.

2. Be careful not to cut back your calorie intake too fast. Cutting the amount of food you’re used to eating each day too quickly can leave you tired and lightheaded. It’s much better to scale back slowly. Besides, you won’t feel as hungry if you take it a little bit at a time.

3. Always consult your doctor before starting a diet plan. It may sound contradictory, but you need to be relatively healthy before starting a major weight loss program. Be sure to get a checkup from your physician first, and get his or her opinion on the diet program you’re planning on following.

Dieting doesn’t have to be difficult, but you want to make sure that you lose weight in a natural, healthy way. With many of today’s modern weight loss programs, the emphasis is on speed rather than health. Be careful and plan ahead if you want to lose weight the right way.

Amos Murray has been writing articles online for over 5 years now. He lost 45 lbs in six months and has kept it off, so he knows what he’s talking about when it comes to dieting, but he also runs a online shopping web site at SaleFoo.com.

1. The All Or Nothing Attitude

All or nothing dieters will often pick out a complicated diet that is almost impossible for them to maintain. Before beginning, they will search the kitchen for anything that does not fit the plan and throw it in the garbage. They are planning to be the perfect dieter, and so they will be, for one day, three days, seven days or even a couple of weeks. Then, inevitably, something happens that means they cannot keep to the diet one time. Immediately the whole thing is ruined in their eyes and the diet is over. They go to the store and buy all the things that went into the garbage last week and proceed to gain back all the weight that they lost, as fast as possible.

If you are this kind of dieter you need to ask yourself some tough questions. Do you really want to lose weight permanently, or just lose a few pounds so that you can enjoy putting them back on again? The way forward is to make small changes to what you eat so that you have a slow but steady weight loss.

2. The Attitude of Sacrifice

Another common mistake is to view your diet as a period of sacrifice. You do not allow yourself the foods that you enjoy most while you are on your way to your target weight. You may have a great diet plan and be very successful in losing weight, but what happens when you reach your goal? You have not learned to eat ‘bad foods’ in moderation so as soon as you start, you are likely to go out of control. It is better to include a little of everything in your diet and learn to enjoy it in small quantities. Yes, even chocolate!

3. Goal Failure

Setting achievable goals is vital in any weight loss plan. Goals should be clear, realistic and set out in writing. While you probably do have an ideal weight in your mind, unless you are only very slightly overweight it is probably too distant to be useful. A more useful goal would be to lose two pounds per week for the first five weeks and then one pound per week after that. Some weeks you will lose more and some less, some weeks you may even gain, but if you track your progress on a graph you will see that ups and downs are natural and do not stop you progressing steadily toward your major goal.

If you have been making these mistakes, do not worry. The most important point in dieting as in so many other things is to move on. Learn from your failures as well as your success and do not use a mistake as an excuse for giving up. The only way to achieve your goal permanently is to make a commitment to become a healthier person. Remember that eating normally includes eating more some days and less others. Learn to enjoy food in moderation and you have every chance of avoiding these bad diet mistakes.