Plan Your Diet

Chances are, most of us will feel the need to diet at some point in our lives. Whether it’s for a special event (a wedding or vacation), because our doctors recommend it, or because we just want to look or feel better and healthier, dieting occasionally or frequently is a priority.

Dieting is a huge industry in the U.S., probably because there’s no definitive answers as to what works best. The tried and true method of eating less and exercising more just seems to take too long in our quick-results-obsessed culture.

But following trendy diets, like high-protein/low or no carb diets, diets that have you drinking shakes, or the prepackaged food diets, isn’t your best bet. These types of diets are usually unrealistic to maintain long-term. Restricting your diet to just a few foods, cutting out entire food groups, or eating too few calories may help you lose weight in the short term, but will also help you pack on the pounds in the long term. The reason is that your body will start to slow its metabolism down while you’re dieting.

You’ve probably heard it before and you may want to roll your eyes, but you really shouldn’t look at eating health as a diet. It implies that it will be temporary and you will revert to old habits once you take the weight off. What good will that do? If you don’t stick to it, the weight will inevitably pile back on. So call it a lifestyle change or just new eating habits.

Finally, it’s okay to start with small changes. If you try to change everything at once, you’re really setting yourself up or failure. Trying making one small change a week or month. Keep making changes, track your progress, and by the end of a month or year, you should see some results.

Have patience with your eating habits. You didn’t develop eating problems overnight, so you’re not going to magically solve them overnight, either. Keep at it!