I don’t advocate diets. The best summer diet is to develop healthy eating habits that you can live with. I think the on-or-off quality of a diet is a problem. Yet when a client decides to start a diet program, I can still support them and help them maximize success.
Diets are seductive. They promise us the moon. Our friends and coworkers swear by them, making them hard to resist. Besides, as the weather begins to warm and thoughts of shorts and swimming arise, suddenly we are in a rush to lose 20 pounds. What could be wrong with that?
Diets are typically based on some limited choice of foods, which is a way to keep your calorie intake down. Cutting way back on calories does usually result in weight loss – for as long as you do it.
The usual problem with diets is that once you go off of them, you return to your old way of eating. Which generally means returning to your old weight (or more). It would be better to make lifestyle changes.
When I work with a client on a specific diet, I ask them what they like about it: what works? This is especially useful in the beginning when they are enthusiastic about it. I make notes about the specific parts they find useful. It often has to do with preplanning so that they know what they are going to eat, and eating more frequently.
As a client continues on with the diet over time, they become less enthusiastic. They begin to bump up against the places where it doesn’t work for them. Instead of tossing it all out, I encourage them to think through what adjustments would make it work.
In this way, my client starts with a popular diet, but gradually creates their own approach that works for them. Instead of going off the diet when they get bored or frustrated with it, they keep what works and modify the rest.
You can do this too. I still think the best approach is to focus on developing healthy eating habits that you can live with. But if you can’t resist the pull of the latest summer diet, then try these techniques to make it work for you.
1. What works: what are the features that you want to continue?
2. When you get stuck, get creative: how you can modify it to make it work for you?
3. What adjustments will make these into healthy habits you can live with?
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Really sensible advice.
A breath of fresh air.
I definitely agree. A lot of people mistake diet for losing weight, that in fact it is about eating well.