If you’ve had it with yoyo dieting, it’s time to think about making lifestyle changes. Healthy lifestyle changes can mean eating healthier, working out regularly, getting more sleep and drinking more water. It definitely doesn’t mean starving yourself or eating only certain foods and feeling deprived because of it. One reason I don’t recommend dieting is that diets just don’t work. You may lose weight, but then go back to old eating habits and the weight returns.
Dieting is restrictive.
While changing your eating habits takes time, you may have to follow a few meal plans until you learn all the tricks and ways to save calories. With dieting, the meal plan is strict and doesn’t change. Dieting always ends. That can occur when you lose the weight you want to lose or end in failure with a box of chocolate chip cookies and a pint of ice cream. Eating unhealthy or high calorie foods doesn’t mean your healthy eating plan is over. You’re allowed a “cheat day” or two. You simply go back to healthy eating the next day.
There’s loads of variety once you learn to eat healthier.
If you don’t feel like eating grilled fish that night, but prefer a chicken dish instead, it’s no biggie when you’re eating healthy and adopt it as a lifestyle change. In fact, I’ve had people who never learned more than the point where they give up sugar and processed foods actually lose weight. That was all they did! It can be a no brainer or as knowledge laden as you choose. Simply cutting out soft drinks and sweets can help shed lots of weight over time. Being prepared with an apple or some nuts for a mid morning or mid-afternoon snack is a smart option you’ll learn from healthy eating.
There’s no counting calories or carbs with healthy eating.
Are you worn out trying to journal all your food and count the calories or carbs on your new diet. It’s time to start thinking about eating healthier instead. It’s all about making smarter decisions when it comes to food and learning how to make substitutions to add nutrition and cut out excess calories. Some fun tips include cutting back on sugar or oil in baked goods and substituting applesauce instead.
- Eating healthy lasts a lifetime. Once you learn how and make it a habit, you’ll never have to worry about gaining weight again.
- Eating healthy isn’t just about weight loss, although that’s a very nice side effect. It’s all about ensuring you have good nutrition to keep the body strong and healthy.
- Eating healthy is freeing. It’s about letting your body be your guide to what it needs.
- Healthy eating is more about living a better life and being healthier. It becomes the way you want to live, not a punishment for gaining weight.