Fitness: Life Is One
Damn Diet After Another
A common expression each and every one of us has said at one point
or another in our lives is that we’re “going on a diet.” The phrase suggests
that we will be "doing something different," like embarking on
a short term vacation trip where there is a beginning and an end. We dream of
the day we will reach our weight goal and how wonderful it will be when we
don’t have to lead a life of painful deprivation.
In the back of our minds, there is a comforting little tape
playing, promising us that when our weight loss campaign is over, we’ll be
able to stop counting calories, carbohydrates, or fats. We long for the day
when we no longer have to clench our teeth as we refuse a favorite dish that
always causes us to salivate in our sleep. We reach for the carrot and celery
sticks without anticipation or enthusiasm while torturing ourselves with
visions of the special treats we’ll enjoy when the diet is over.
Uh, hello?
Allowing ourselves to think of a diet as a delineated, restricted
period within our total life span is a sure avenue back to an unhealthy
lifestyle. To have any hope of attaining permanent weight control, we must
approach it as a lifelong effort,
expanding our fitness levels and watching our calorie
intake day after day, week after week, year after year.
You feel your heart sinking in your chest. You think “If I have to
live like this all the time, it’s just not worth it!” That little voice
promises you that you are different. You can relax because now you
know how to lose weight, you can do it anytime you want. Gain five pounds
and you’ll go back on your diet and be back to goal in no time at all. But you
won’t! You will go as far as putting on your golds gym tank top or cute yoga pants and somehow never make it to
the gym. You will fall back into old snacking pattern while reassuring yourself
that you will get back on your diet on Monday... no Tuesday... perhaps next
week.
Think back over your chequered weight history. We all believe that
once our weight is down, it will be so easy to go on a short diet if we
gain back a few pounds. It doesn’t work that way, though, does it? We
start gaining a pound here and a pound there, but then there are some
special events coming up and a diet would be so inconvenient. We don’t go
back “on” our diet until we’ve gained enough weight to develop the self-disgust
that warrants a new period of serious deprivation.
We have become a full-fledged member of the yo-yo club, that vast
majority of dieters who cannot keep the weight off for more than a few
weeks.
The reasons we go “on” and “off” diets are numerous: they are
boring, depressing, and very uncomfortable. They set us apart from
friends, family, and coworkers who continue to snack, to feast, and to
celebrate. We resent how diets make us feel and how they impact our daily
lives.
Let’s look at the whole picture from a different perspective for a
minute.
Instead of “a diet” envision a way of eating that involves living
on a diet for the rest of your life. Imagine your workout clothes naturally become a daily aspect of life and are
worn so often that they need daily or weekly washing. While the prospect may
appall you, don’t say you can’t do it just yet.
First, consider another wide-spread concept many of us accept. To
lose substantial weight in a relatively short time, we need to select the
diet that seems to fit us and then stay with it, religiously, until we’ve
reached our goal.
Let’s now take these two concepts, squish them together, and then
turn them upside down.
We are not “going on a diet.” We are starting our diet-for-life.
We then pick a diet, any diet at all, and make the commitment to stick with
that diet for one week, and one week only. At the end of the week, we are going
to pick an entirely different diet to which again we only commit for a one week
period.
This continues for virtually the rest of our lives with selected
diets changing on a weekly basis. What does this accomplish? A whole bunch
of things,,,,
Variety of Choices
By selecting a different diet each week, it removes those common
misgivings that maybe we should have gone in a different direction. We worry
that we’re not getting the right nutrients or that we’re going to get sick or
develop a rare disease. We read the diet ratings and panic at the warnings
posted for all the popular programs. With our new approach, you don’t have to
fret about if you made a good or bad choice because you’ll be making a new
choice in a week.
No, No-No's
If there are particularly painful “No-Nos” in this week’s diet,
resolve to try something next week that allows a currently forbidden
fruit. For example, a primarily protein regimen has been found successful for
many participants who often lose five or ten pounds in a week. However, they
miss the vegetables and salad they enjoy. The next week could then be a
vegetables and salad only routine, also successful for rapid weight loss but a
bit lean on the protein you body needs for self-repair. You may then find
yourself craving some good bread so you switch to the Subway diet for a week
until your craving is satisfied. Move on to something completely different –
the cabbage soup diet or liquid shakes. Since there are literally thousands of
diets, a few are bound to include the food you crave. You are never more than a
week away from having what you feel you absolutely must have in order to keep
going. You can include spartan fad diets that move fat quickly and you can
include calorie counting or Weight Watcher diets that allow almost anything so
long as you adjust your intake to stay within the totals specified.
Frequent Changes
The frequent changes in your eating patterns keep your body
off-balance. Give the body enough time and advance notice and it will adapt to
anything, turning protein into carbohydrates and storing even low calorie
carbohydrates as little pockets of fat. By totally changing what you eat on a
regular basis, the body gives up trying to figure out how to thwart you and
spends its time efficiently processing what you give it. You are effectively
using your smart little mind to outmaneuver your smart not-so-little
body.
Only Purchase What You Need
The constant changes force you to buy food in smaller packages.
It’s pointless and wasteful to buy those family packs of anything. That
will help you with overall portion reduction, a must for any serious
dieter. Your shopping goal is only to purchase items that you can consume
within a week. If you see something that you particularly want but is not
on your allowed list, make a mental note to find a diet for next week that can
accommodate it.
Read and Research
The need for a new diet each week requires that you read and
research a lot of diets. The reading acts as reinforcement for your goals
and will assure your continuing education on nutrition and fitness. When you
see something that intrigues you or just makes a lot of sense, try it out.
Perhaps one week will involve barely restricted eating but require a lot of
exercise. Go for it – it’s only a week.
The Needed Structure of an Organized Plan
You are in the happy position of having wide choices available but
also the needed structure of an organized plan to follow. The regimented
eating is within each week’s diet; the power of choice is operative when
you decide what the next week’s program will be. The same concept works for
exercise plans. Change it up while maintaining a solid structure. Grab that gym
bag and go!
No Restrictions In Balance and Intelligence
Can you stay on a diet permanently? Yes, you can, because you’re
not restricting yourself from anything for life, just for a week at a
time. Should you stay on a diet for the rest of your life? Yes, you probably
should as long as you are getting a balance of foods from an intelligent mixing
of alternative diet plans. If you like one diet more than another, or if one
particular program works exceptionally well for you, by all means cycle that
diet into your routine on a regular basis. Just make sure you don’t use the
same plan more than once a month or your body is going to be ready for it and
Zap! you find it no longer works so well.
Diversity is Bliss
Can you over-diet? We have all seen overly thin, cadaverous
dieters with sunken cheeks and loose skin. That can be avoided by making your
selected diets very diverse so you are never without needed nutrients for very
long. For example, many retirement homes and assisted living co-ops produce
thin seniors with pallid skin and protruding abdomens. Replace their mushy,
high starch meals with any of the myriad high protein and vegetable- fruit
diets and their color will improve, their energy increase, and their tummies
fade.
Professional Help
Can you ever be too thin? Visit an eating disorder facility and
you will see the results of anorexia nervosa, not a pretty sight and
highly dangerous from a medical standpoint. If you have a history
of overweight, you may tell yourself that being too thin will never be in
the cards for you. However, there are not infrequent cases of the perennial
heavy who becomes anorexic through dieting too much with resulting anxiety
about gaining back even an ounce of the flesh so painfully discarded. If you
have a distorted body image, and reliable friends are concerned about your
being too thin, get professional help.
Increase Fitness
It all comes down to using your brain intelligently. When you are
at your heaviest, with the most to lose the logical choice is a rather spartan
program that will get the fat moving quickly. As you lose, more moderate
programs can be interspersed so that your skin and cheeks have a chance to
adjust and fill in as your weight stores become redistributed. If a particular
part of your body is resistant to reduction, exercise may become a more
important part of your plan than simply a dietary approach. Once you are
hovering at your ideal weight, simple calorie counting or support group
involvement may be all you need. The secret is to be rational about it all and
use that wonderful mind of yours to set the program for your not-so-intelligent
body with its insatiable appetite and poundage conservation cravings. Don’t try
to cheat unless you want to cheat yourself and then be honest and admit that,
for whatever reason there is, you want to avoid further weight loss. When you
want and need to lose fifty pounds, an ice cream and chocolate diet is not
rational. When you are at ideal weight or below, a stringent fad diet makes no
sense.
Realistic Results
Will all this mixing of diets result in consistent weight loss?
There is never consistency in weight loss because there are just too many
factors involved: water retention, digestive inefficiencies, the amount of
energy expended, and individual body quirks. Over time, you will lose steadily
but there will always be some ups and downs along the way.
Take Control
Once the concept of “going on a diet” has been discarded, a
lifelong eating plan can be embraced and the weightlifting gear
comes out of the closet, it is guaranteed to leave you in control of your
weight for the rest of your long slender life. Please details to know click
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