If You're Not Losing Weight, You Need To Be Eating More Of This

The worst part of going on a diet, any kind of diet – well, besides the whole feeling deprived and hungry and screaming with envy and frustration every time a Taco Bell commercial comes on TV thing – is when you've dutifully been counting every calorie and passing up potato chips in favor of rice cakes and you go to weigh yourself at the end of the week and find that the needle on the scale hasn't budged a bit! Yes, this can and will happen if you're weighing on a daily basis, which is why the Harvard Health blog suggests weekly weight-ins instead. If you've spent an entire week conscientiously cutting your calorie intake, though, you're bound to get a bit angry at that darn lying scale (not to mention those pants that keep shrinking in the wash)!

At some point, though, you'll have to stop blaming the results, or lack thereof, on innocent appliances and realize that maybe your diet's not as effective as you'd hoped it would be. So what should you be doing instead? Mashed reached out to an expert: registered dietitian Nicole Hinckley who works as a nutrition consultant for vegan protein water brand Protein2o. Hinckley told us that instead of obsessing about what you shouldn't be eating, it's time to think more in terms of what you can add to your diet.

Hinckley told Mashed, "When my clients focus on their habits and actions, it can lead to even bigger results." Specifically, she mentions making an effort to boost your protein, fiber, and water intake as being a healthy habit worth cultivating. "This trio," she says, "will help keep your blood sugars balanced and help prevent those hunger hormones from sneaking up on you."

The best, and easiest, way to make your diet more nutritious, and thus likely to lead to weight loss in a natural way, is to incorporate fiber and protein into every meal and snack – and, of course, to accompany those meals and snacks with plenty of water! Hinckley recommends eggs, chicken, and fish as being excellent protein sources, and as for high-fiber foods she suggests vegetables (especially avocados, as these tick the protein box as well), beans (ditto for the protein), and nuts (again, more protein along with the fiber). As Hinckley points out, for anyone who's always on the go, " having options that...[you] can eat quickly or sip on in meetings is essential. "