I get a LOT of emails from people telling me that their diet is pretty good and they exercise, but they aren’t losing weight. They want to know what exactly to eat so that they can lose weight and get back into shape. I have done numerous blogs about various healthy foods, different foods that can speed up your metabolism, and I really do stand by the fact that the best diet is a healthy diet and exercise. We all know that to keep your metabolism revved up throughout the day,you need to get at least 30 minutes of cardio in (daily) and eat a small meal/snack every 3-4 hours throughout the day.
Anything else you ask me about: the grapefruit diet, no carb diets, paleo diets…I think they are all unhealthy because they limit you from eating food that can be nutritious and what your body needs to run efficiently. Also, these diets aren’t sustainable over long periods of time. You will see many people “yo-yo” with their weight because they will go on these fad diets, lose weight, then think they look fabulous, and go back to their normal diets and gain all that weight back.
Interestingly, a new study looked at what is the most important reason that keeps people sticking to their healthy lifestyle changes. They studied commitment to health, confidence in ability to make healthy behavior choices, and belief of importance of healthy lifestyle change, to find out what helped people keep their healthy behavior choices over long periods of time. The study was performed on 499 manufacture workers, that were surveyed before making a healthy lifestyle/behavior change (such as a low fat diet) and then re-surveyed at certain lengths of time after making the change. And the study also looked at the length of time that the workers consistently kept to their healthy lifestyle change.
Commitment to a healthy lifestyle change was the most profound reason that people kept to their change and helped them to make the change and stay with it for the longest period of time (some indefinitely). To some of the participants the importance of the lifestyle and healthy behavior change was able to keep them on track for a lesser amount of time. And the participants that originally made the change that were confident that they could make the change easily, had the highest failure rate.
Which goes right along with the idea that fad diets DON’T WORK! You won’t have the commitment or feel that it is an important healthy lifestyle change because it isn’t. Making sure that you are eating a well balanced diet, lay off the fats and processed foods, you can treat yourself every now and again (like once a week) with a special treat, but stick to fruits, veggies, and lean proteins. Make sure that you are getting in exercise: skip the elevator and take the stairs, take a walk/run with a friend either before or after work, try to get up and walk to talk to someone (at work) instead of an email, and join a gym or just make a commitment with a friend to get more exercise, that way you can’t just skip out, you’ll be letting someone down! There are so many ways that you can get healthiness into your life, and you know what they are, so stop looking for these quick ways to drop weight fast, because you know it will come right back and make you feel horrible.
Make a commitment to being healthy, and a commitment to a better you!
Yours in Good Health,
B
