10 nutrition mistakes you don't know you're making: hidden evils could be undermining the foundation of your lard-losing efforts. Here's how to fix them

Men's Fitness, May, 2003 by Jeff O'Connell

7 Mistiming your preworkout fuel consumption. Begin your workout well-nourished, but with your stomach virtually empty. If you skip breakfast and lunch before an afternoon workout, your body will likely run out of fuel and crash before the session ends. Conversely, if your stomach is full of food before you lift your first weight, too much blood will be drawn to your stomach rather than to your muscles, where you want it. And if you do cardio on a full stomach, it will take much longer for your body to start tapping into its fat stores.

"Ideally, you'll want to eat a high-energy meal or snack [a bowl of granola topped with fruit, or some whole-wheat pasta with chicken, for example] two or three hours before your workouts," says Kundrat. "An hour before training, augment that with a liquid meal or energy drink along with 16 ounces of water."

8 Thinking that "2 percent milk fat" means what it says. It doesn't mean that only 2 percent of the calories you're drinking come from fat. In reality, 35 percent of the calories in a single serving of 2-percent milk come from fat, most of it saturated. "It's just clever marketing," Krug says. "The manufacturers are referring to total volume, not caloric content."

Unless you're lactose-intolerant--and not as many folks are as believe they are--milk can be a great asset to your diet, and 2-percent milk is a better choice than higher-fat whole milk. But if you're keen on minimizing fat, your best bets are 1-percent or fat-free milk. You'll get used to it, and eventually grow to prefer it.

9 Substituting margarine for butter. Margarine was created to provide a healthier alternative to the saturated fats found in butter, but according to nutritionist Oz Garcia, author of The Balance, the trans fatty acids contained in margarine make it even worse for your heart. Trans fatty acids have a negative effect on heart health by lowering levels of the "good" HDL cholesterol while raising levels of the "bad" LDL.

If you must use margarine, at least opt for the reduced-calorie liquid version. Better still, steer clear of both margarine and butter--your heart and arteries will thank you for it.

10 Eating salad to lose weight. Salads have a place in any nutritious diet, but equating their consumption with successful weight loss is a common error. A seemingly healthy Caesar salad, for example, can leave you saddled with 50 fat grams from the cheese and the Caesar dressing, which typically contains two healthy ingredients, mustard and olive oil, along with a slew of fatty ingredients, including egg yolk. What's more, an hour later your stomach will be growling and your protein-starved muscles shrinking as you reach for something even worse.

Think of salads as an adjunct to, rather than a substitute for, your main meal. Limit their fat profile by going easy on the dressings and other fat-laden toppings such as grated cheese and croutons. And juice them up with lean protein sources such as chicken breast and beans. Protein builds muscle, and the more of that metabolically active tissue you have, the easier it will be to lose fat.