Do you ever feel like you are surrounded by people who are dieting? Or maybe you feel like that one person always on a health kick, with everyone around you enjoying themselves. Either way, diets can often feel antisocial and certainly not fun. Here is a quick read on whether you should be dieting or making changes to your lifestyle.
Dieting
When you diet, you can lose weight at quite a speed if you’re sticking religiously to the rules of your chosen diet. However, when you’re dieting, you effectively ‘starve’ your body of the number of calories you should have everyday as most diets promote strict restrictions. Diets also encourage you to track your progress based on the number you see staring back at you from the scales. This can lead people to feel as if they are failing if they don’t see the results they expected.
You’ll notice that you are quick to categorise a food as ‘good or ‘bad’. With every food, you will develop a mental stigma attached to it and you’ll most likely begin to feel negative feelings towards certain things. However, human eating habits are usually based on environmental cues. For example, at your grandparents’ you might snack on cake and biscuits, but at work it might be nuts. As a result, if you’re in a place which you associate with a certain ‘bad’ food, it could well leave you feeling unhappy and stressed.
Diets also are a temporary measure. They’re never a permanent fix.
Lifestyle changes
When making a conscious lifestyle change, such as choosing to eat healthier, wholesome, more nutritious foods, you are nourishing your body and looking after it. Calorie restrictions aren’t always the answer: you need to learn to eat in moderation, rather than stopping yourself eating entirely.
Teach yourself to exercise regularly and listen to allow your body to tell you what it needs. This will help you lose weight at a steady, safe pace and the weight loss will last longer!
Make meal planning a habit, giving yourself the chance to be creative with your meal choices. Try something new once a week!
With a lifestyle change you will notice that you are less likely to experience weakness, exhaustion and mental fatigue as you’ll soon learn and understand your body and how it works. Lifestyle changes make such a difference to your body and mind
