Struggling to lose weight, or tired of yo-yo dieting? Maybe you’re counting your points, or your zones or you’ve tried Paleo or Vegan, but you just can’t lost weight?

The hard truth is that it’s almost impossible to lose weight if you’re making some of the critical diet mistakes listed below…

1.) You Skip Breakfast

I know…

Some mornings, it can be tough. You overslept, or the kids needed help with that last minute homework assignment, or there was nothing in the fridge, or there were other excuses….

But you have to remember that breakfast, while maybe not the MOST important meal of the day, it IS the most important meal not to screw up.

A study conducted by NWCR, which tracks more than 5,000 people who have kept off at least 30 pounds for a year or longer, found that 78% of participants have a meal every single morning.

Your best bet?

Be prepared, with real food. Just as bad as skipping breakfast, many of us turn to prepackaged “energy” bars…most of these are loaded with sugar, which is going to cause a spike/crash cycle that’s going to leave you hungry again in a couple of hours.

A lot of these also loaded with tons of preservatives, which add no nutritional value, and can cause immune responses from your body. Not good.

There are a couple of tricks to never screwing up breakfast:

First, be repetitive. My wife and I cycle between a few of the same meals for breakfast every day:

1. Green Smoothie

2. Egg, veggie and bean scramble

3. Quick rolled oats, with flax, chia and fruit

Next, plan ahead. Make a big batch of oatmeal, or some of these Paleo breakfast bars so that you’ll always have a quick, nutrient-dense option ready to go.

Make a decision to get up 15 min earlier that you otherwise might to whip up something like one of these delicious recipes, and have a plan. Remember, failing to plan is planning to fail.

Remember that one of the most important reasons to make sure that you have a nutritious breakfast with a good mix of complex carbohydrates, protein and fat, is so that you’ll have sustained energy, and feel satiated, so that you’ll be less likely to make impulsive food choices later in the day.

2.) You buy foods labeled “Fat Free” or “High Protein” or “Ideal for Weight Loss!”

Repeat after me:

These are marketing gimmicks, and I won’t fall for them anymore!

Marketers are smart. Like scary smart, especially when it comes to consumer psychology.

They know you want to lost weight. They want you to buy their product. So all they have to do is convince you that their product will help you lose weight.

BUT…

Most of these products don’t. And if they DID help you lose weight, then they probably wouldn’t need to work so hard to convince you of that, right?

How many times have you seen broccoli touting its fat free weight loss benefits?

Usually “Fat Free” is code for “Loaded with Sugar.” You know what’s great at making you gain weight? Sugar.

Or let’s talk about “High Protein,” especially those myriad shakes that claim “High Protein,” “Ideal for Weight Loss.”

Those are the EXACT SAME SHAKES that are sold to gym rats and body builders to help them GAIN WEIGHT!

How can the same product help one person gain weight, and another person to lose it? Well the answer is simple…

They can’t! No product can do that!

You want to get fat? Drink a lot of those protein shakes.

So remember, if something is being marketed to you as a “weight loss” product, it should raise HUGE red flags.

Stay the hell away. Eat more broccoli. For more info, check out this article on learning to read food labels.

3.) You Ignore the Obvious

Many people reading blog posts like this are looking for the “secret ingredient” that’s going to finally help them lose weight forever.

You think that the problem lies with the fact that you’re not eating enough of whatever magic juju fruit Dr. Oz is recommending this news cycle, and not in the fact that you eat ice cream 3 times a week.

You don’t need that magic supplement, or pill, or Amazonian ingredient.

You don’t need insane workouts or a celeb’s training secrets, or literally anything that the cover of every single health magazine proclaims to be the next holy grail of weight loss.

You need to make consistently good choices, every day.

You need to eat a lot of vegetables and fruit. Stop worrying about getting enough protein- you’re getting plenty. You would literally have to be at borderline starvation levels to not get enough protein.

Worry about getting enough fiber instead. Most Americans eat nearly double their RDA (Recommended Dietary Allowance) for protein, but only about half of their RDA for fiber.

Oh, and two thirds of Americans are overweight or obese, so how’s that protein obsession working for us? Eat more vegetables.

Regardless of controversy surrounding gluten and dairy, the hard truth is that most people lose weight when they cut out wheat, dairy, fruit juice and soda (including diet soda).

By the way, non-fat and low-fat dairy are STILL dairy. If you really want to lose weight, cut it out. In fact, you know what milk’s great for? Helping you gain weight.

I have mixed feelings on gluten. I’m not really convinced either way. If you really have a gluten sensitivity, then removing gluten would actually help you gain weight, by improving nutrient absorption.

I suspect that associated weight loss comes more from the fact that there are just a lot of crappy foods with wheat in them, and by cutting out wheat, you happen to also cut out a lot of junk food.

It could also be a pesticide issue.

Either way, if you really want to lose weight, cut out those known weight-gain culprits; don’t really worry so much about what the media says, just pay attention to your results, that’s really all that matters.

If you found this info useful, make sure you check out our latest book: The Diet Myth: Mistakes that are Making You Fat, and the Simple Secrets to Losing Weight and Keeping it Off, now available on Amazon!