Diet vs Lifestyle Change

Do you know the difference between a diet and a lifestyle change? For many people the differences aren’t as important as a plummeting weight loss or fitting into the bathing suit or dress. But others have recognized that when you ‘diet’ you commit to changing your nutritional intake for as long as it takes to lose weight. But when the weight finally comes off you return to your old habits.

And it was your old habits that brought you to the point where you wanted to lose weight in the first place.

So, as you might imagine, diets do not work. What does work is making permanent lifestyle changes that result in weight loss, overall improved health and no rebound weight gain. Too many times people are sucked into the promises of quick loss with fad diets that don’t provide enough nutrition to support a health body and deprive the individual of foods they truly love and appreciate.

This deprivation oftentimes will lead to termination of the diet and returning to the old nutritional habits. Unfortunately, this can also lead to an increase in weight above what the individual lost in the first place. And the reason a person puts on more weight has a basis in physiology.

When a person originally loses weight they often lose lean muscle mass because of the nutritional mistakes they make using fad diets, too little calories or depriving the body of the fuel it needs to survive. When the individual finally gets tired of being tired, over exercising or depriving themselves of their favorite foods and activities they turn back to their old habits, but in an overabundance. In other words, they over eat, over indulge and forget about the workouts.

This reversal in nutritional intake results in a weight gain of fat instead of the lean muscle mass they originally lost. The weight gain is often more than they lost because of the rebound effect and because the fat they gain burns less than lean muscle mass. The metabolic rate of the fat is also lower than the muscle mass which means that it takes a lower amount of calories to gain back the weight they lost and then some.

For many this knowledge comes as an epiphany. After years of dieting and traveling on the yo-yo train they finally come to realize that a \”diet\” brings nothing more than fatigue, frustration and aggravation. Instead, they turn to a knowledge that they have held for years but were often unwilling to acknowledge because now it appears as if they must deprive themselves forever of the foods and activities at once loved.

Nutritional changes are best accomplished in moderation. This means that totally depriving yourself of chocolate ice cream, pizza or the bread and butter will only lead to another roller coaster ride that you finally fall off of. Instead, it is important to accomplish changes in nutrition slowly, methodically and deliberately.

By acknowledging that your previous dietary habits have led you to a place where it was necessary to consider losing weight you can also help yourself to find moderately small changes in your diet that will lead to a successful end goal. For instance, you may start by eliminating regular soda from your diet and replacing it with diet soda. Then slowly over time, you can also eliminate diet soda, full of empty calories and no nutrition. Or you may start by decreasing the amount of ice cream or candy you the each day. You can also replace that morning doughnut with a cup of yogurt.

By slowly changing your habits your weight will not rebound and you will not have difficulty when you go out with your friends. Consider that we are what we eat and that the old adage \”garbage in, garbage out\” holds just as true for our nutritional intake as it does for the data we input into our computer.

Permanent dietary changes and nutritional intake are your goals when your ultimate goal is to lose weight and gain a healthy lifestyle. You can only accomplish this through diligent work and not quick fad diets or promises of numbers of pounds lost each day. Do not get sucked in by advertising promises but remember that you are caring for the only body you have which has been built to last your lifetime.