Firstly, diets don’t work. Well, not in the long term anyway. We may lose weight whilst we are dieting, but there’s only a tiny percentage of us who can actually keep the weight off. More often than not, a year after our diet has finished, we find ourselves heavier than when we initially began. The weight just seems to creep back on – poof, one morning our clothes are feeling a little more snug, and our ‘muffin-tops’ seem to be erupting over our belts once again. Where did it come from? It’s incredibly frustrating, and can even be soul-destroying for many. Why can’t the weight we lose just stay away for good?
Therefore, the battle often isn’t in dropping the weight; it’s in keeping it off. What are we doing wrong? What needs to change? Is it possible to maintain a weight that we know is healthy, and that keeps us happy – for the rest of our lives?
Of course there’s an answer! The answer lies in our mind-sets, and the approach we take to life.
You see, we are manufactured, both mentally and physically, to find the easiest way to do things (let’s just call it evolutional intelligence that no longer serves us). Modern day humans LOVE the quick fix. There is a quick fix for just about everything these days – from communication to transportation, from industrial inventions to health – if you’re after a way to do something without too much effort, cost, or time, you can be guaranteed you’ll find something you can use to solve your situation.
The problem is that in weight loss, quick fixes simply don’t work. And there are so many of us who know that and who have experienced that. Where do you think the words ‘yoyo dieting’ came from? People find a quick fix diet that ‘works’, do it for 6 months, lose their weight, within the next 6 months they’ve often gained it back, so they repeat the diet or find another one that works. It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to discover, that, in actual fact, these diets are NOT working. If they were working they’d keep the weight off for good. Right?
For sustainable weight loss you need to be able to sustain the lifestyle that created it. If it’s not something you can or wish to sustain long-term, there is no point in doing it – it will only turn to heartbreak.
You must start how you wish to go on. You must create a new lifestyle. This should include new little habits that are healthy – not radical – and that you are able to continue with into the long term. The great thing is that you get to choose the very habits that will create this new lifestyle. You may need some professional guidance to help direct you in the right direction – this will also ensure that you get the highest nutrient value from the foods that you consume on a daily basis. The other great thing is that it doesn’t mean total exclusion of the foods you love – in fact, the old adage of everything in moderation has become popular again.
To put it simply, the best nutritional lifestyle – the one that would give you the most health benefits for your buck – is one where you’d be eating clean food (vegies, grains, nuts and seeds, fruits, lean meat, good protein, healthy fats, minimal to no packaged or sugary foods, and no caffeine or alcohol) 80% to 90% of the time, and you’d be allowed to treat yourself about 10% of the time. This would ensure you were eating nutrient-rich foods, but weren’t depriving yourself of those little things that you like to treat yourself with from time to time. And it would still enable you to reach the healthy weight that you dream of, and would enable you to sustain that new weight once you get there.
So, please don’t be a naïve individual who wants to dive into the newest diet fad – that’s all it is – a fad. Good nutrition doesn’t come in a bottle, in a ratio, or with special sales tactics. Good nutrition is real food. Eat to nourish, not just to satisfy, and discover how your health, wellness, and body composition, responds. Eat for keeps; eat for your life.
