D.I.E.T. Let’s break this word down to the 1st 3 letters DIE, not very motivating!
A diet typically involves avoidance, restriction, and often a time period, which, in the long run, is very difficult to maintain. Most diets are not even made for maintenance or long-term use, so why are so many of you doing them?
Most people who go on diets soon gain back any lost weight, a UCLA study suggests. Why don’t diets work? The first is that it’s just plain hard for people to change their eating behaviors. And the second reason is that even if you do succeed at a diet, the rule of diminishing returns comes into play.
Most who go on diets gain the weight back; lifestyle changes are needed
Lifestyle changes will work if you have realistic expectations, good support, and choose a plan that you can stick with — a plan that will give you moderate change over a long time. Most people who have a healthy weight have to work at it.
Elements of this lifestyle change include moderating food intake, increasing physical activity, managing stress without food, and getting treatment for depression and other illnesses that get in the way.
A healthy lifestyle is easier than you think
Changing your eating and physical activity habits can be difficult at first. But once you’ve started, it’s easy to sustain. Here are a few tips to help ease the transition:
- Combine an active lifestyle with healthy eating.
- Make small, achievable, lifelong changes to your lifestyle and eating habits.
- Fill up on nutritious foods.
- Keep portions moderate in size.
- Eat until you have had enough – not until you are full.
- Do your best to avoid eating when you are not hungry.
- Recognize that on some days you might be hungrier than on other days.
- Eat slowly and enjoy your food and put your fork down between bites.
- Reduce the amount of ‘extra’ or ‘sometimes’ foods that you eat.
- Be active with daily activity you enjoy, keep your body moving
- Lift heavy! Our bodies want challenges. Hire a personal trainer to challenge you.
- Recognize the difference between hunger and boredom.
Once a wide range of nutritious foods and physical activity becomes part of your everyday routine, the idea of “D.I.E.T.ing” will start to seem strange.
