Losing Weight – A Diet for Life
Many women and some men too, start each year with a New Year’s Resolution that they want to lose weight.
The reasons for wanting to diet are varied. Some people want to look, feel better and have more energy, others have various health issues that are a result of, or irritated by, being overweight.
There are many ways to diet but it is important to understand that weight loss needs to be maintained; otherwise we can gravitate towards so called Yo-Yo dieting which can be harmful.
Losing weight requires not just a change of diet but a change in lifestyle. Not considering this can mean we go back into our old patterns of eating and living and put everything we lost, and more besides, back on again and the cycle continues.
We need to educate ourselves into eating differently. Now this doesn’t mean we starve ourselves or make our meals bland and uninteresting, avoiding any of those things we like altogether: it’s all about balance. It could mean having less of those things we like and savouring them more.
If all we make our diet is a strict regime of things we can’t have and enjoy then it won’t be long until we lose interest, lose heart and we may then give up completely. This, as you may well be aware, is all too common.
Some programs focus on counting calories, weighting food and having cheats. I personally don’t think these are always helpful as they can sometimes make us both obsessive about food and diet or, at the other end of the scale, encourage us believe that we can always cheat our way through.
We need to set realistic weight loss goals and be prepared to alter our lifestyle and eating habits long term to reap the benefits of dieting long term.
Stuart Falconer
Personal Wellness Coach
07580 799472