Strength for Her

Dieting is a huge industry in America. Everyone wants to know the secrets of losing weight, and fast! Although some fad diets will help you lose weight, they aren’t sustainable. No matter how much weight you lose, once you go back to your old eating habits it will quickly pile right back on, and then some. Studies suggest that yo-yo dieting, quickly losing and gaining weight back again and again, is detrimental to one’s health and makes weight-loss efforts even harder.

No matter what the current fad, all diets work the same way - by depriving the body of precious calories to cause weight loss. Creating a calorie deficit is the only way to lose weight. However, this process needs to be done gradually and maintained to be effective. If you cut back severely on food, the body will lose weight. But the metabolism may slow down, because the body will switch into starvation mode and try to hold onto every precious calorie it gets. Metabolism slows down to adjust to the lack of food. Once you start eating normally again, the combination of the slower metabolism and the extra calories will pile the weight back on quickly.

The only way to lose weight and keep it off is to modify your lifestyle to include a healthy, balanced diet and regular exercise. In order to see the results of a healthy diet, it has to be a change that you make permanently. Now, of course you can still indulge from time to time on your favorite vices. If we don’t give in to an occasional craving, they will become stronger and will inevitably result in a binge (which is another reason diets often fail, they’re too restrictive). But overall, your normal routine should consist of healthy eating, with an occasional treat every now and then.

The word ‘diet’ means food habitually eaten. Somewhere along the way, it became associated with the deprivation of food for weight-loss purposes. Let’s get used to using the word in its intended fashion, to describe a regular routine of eating healthy and balanced meals. Throw out the idea of temporarily restricting yourself and embrace a long road of loving your body by giving it the food it needs. This is the key to long lasting success.