Lose Weight Through Diet Changes, Not Dieting

Dieting to lose weight doesn't seem to work for a number of reasons. First of all, most diets only work for as long as you're on them. Once you reach your weight goal (or, more often, give up), the weight you've lost returns as you go back to your normal eating habits. The result is a cycle of weight loss and weight gain, with your ego and self-esteem suffering with each successive "failure."

 

Fad diets often severely restrict certain foods. Sure, you're losing weight rapidly, but who wants to live off cabbage soup for extended periods of time? Restrictive fad diets leave you hungry. Eventually you give in to the urge to "cheat." Then you feel guilty. (And guess what? People tend to eat more when they feel guilty.) All in all, a diet is a terrible thing to put yourself through.

Diet—meaning your day-to-day eating habits—is what's important, not dieting. For most people, diet changes are better solutions to weight loss. In many cases it isn't how much you eat but the kinds of foods you eat that add pounds.

How can you lose weight? First, find out what your calorie requirements are. To maintain your weight, your caloric intake has to equal the number of calories you burn for energy. If calorie intake exceeds this energy burn, you gain weight. To lose weight, you have to consume 500 fewer calories a day than your daily requirement. That's 3,500 calories a week. That's to lose one pound a week.

Changing how you eat takes time: You don't just wake up one morning and start sloughing off weight on low fat diets. Trying to change too much too soon is a trap. Start small. For the first week, use the ingredients for low fat diets at breakfast. Then add lunches, then snacks and finally dinners. Accept the fact that you will backslide. People often think of weight loss as a race, when actually it's a long, slow process. If you're losing a pound a week and keeping it off, you're doing very well.

 

Weight Cycling: Avoiding the Yo-Yo Effect Weight cycling is a dieting trap: You diet, and lose the weight; you stop dieting, it all comes back. Also known as "yo-yo" dieting, weight cycling is devastating to self-esteem; you feel like a failure for gaining back the weight. Repeated weight cycling may cause increases in blood pressure and cholesterol levels, and also increases the risk of gall bladder disease. Making conscious changes to eating habits and activity levels has longer-lasting, more healthful effects than repeated dieting.

Healthy eating, whether a low fat or low carbohydrate diet, takes time. Not just time to change your eating habits, but time to prepare the meals. Think about all the slim, beautiful celebrities who've published healthy eating cookbooks. Of course they're not overweight—most of them have chefs (and personal trainers)! Cooking with herbs and sauces to replace flavors lost from fat takes time. Cutting up and preparing vegetables takes much more time than ordering a pizza at the end of a hectic day. Figuring out how to lose weight and juggle time restrictions is difficult.

If you can, share cooking tasks with other members of the family. When possible, cook with other people who are trying to lose weight. There's nothing worse than eating food prepared by people who have never gained an extra pound in their lives. Try as they might, they just can't understand your needs fully.

Prepared foods and processed foods are full of sodium and fat. These foods make you feel full initially but leave you hungry. Consider preparing meals on your day off and freezing them. Concentrate on food items that are high in protein and/or fiber. These foods keep you feeling full longer and are good for healthy eating.

Healthy eating doesn't mean that you bid farewell to all your favorite foods. Nothing tempts more than the forbidden! If you love a certain food, you can probably still eat it—you just have to eat it in smaller amounts and less frequently. Nothing tasty has to be completely removed from your new eating plan, although high-fat foods such as fried burgers and fries must be kept to a minimum. Minimum does not, however, mean never!

Resources

Dwyer, J.T. & Melanson, K.J. (2002, September 24). Dietary treatment of obesity. Endotext.com.

Jade, D. (2000). Why diets don't work.

Wing, R.R., & Tate, D.F. (2002, March 1). Behavior modification for obesity. Endotext.com.