Source: Author: Published date: 2008-05-10  

A common perception among people is that a healthy lifestyle is something which is difficult to follow and it requires a lot of patience and self control. For most people dieting involves counting calories and having a check on each bite you take irrelevant of personal likes and dislikes. It is a closed short term process for rapid weight loss which is utterly unrealistic and cannot be enjoyed on a long term basis. This is half the reason why people quit dieting so easily. Lack of flexibility, dissatisfaction, feeling of deprivation and strict rules make it difficult for people to actually put it to practice.

Very few diets talk about success in the bigger picture. You will find few diet which focus on health rather than diet, offering shopping tips for effective weightless, emphasizing natural weight loss to starvation, dining strategies, different alternatives to add flavor to food in a health conscious manner, etc. Some diets are unrealistic to the extent of being unsafe and a risk to health. They don’t talk about how to handle or deal with our cravings and hunger in an effective manner. Instead they promote shunning away from these natural feelings. Ultimately people lose their confidence and quit the whole regime.

Each time you deprive yourselves in the name of diet, weight loss becomes strenuous and more difficult. This leads to frustration and discouragement. You end up giving in to temptation, unable to handle the pressure, and eat more. You get caught in a vicious circle which does nothing to help you. In fact you might just end up harming yourself or even develop an eating disorder. Deliberate deprivation only leads to unhealthy lifestyle and you end up defeating the cause for your diet.

Diets cause people to listen to body signals and eat according to their system’s requirement. You ignore signs of appetite and hunger and the need to be satisfied. Hence your body becomes deprived resulting in feelings of low self esteem. And when you quit, you suffer from guilt and defeat and thus once again you go back to dieting. You body is not a switch to easily adapt to this on and off dieting patterns. The body becomes weak without proper nutrition and energy and a balanced exercising regime.

Surveys show that only 5% of the people who diet are successful. This proves that dieting is neither a sure shot nor the right and the effective way to reduce weight or lead a healthy life. Diet slows down your metabolism, so when you stop your diet, your body is inefficient in metabolizing normal food quantities and hence you put in more weight. This is the reason why 95% of diets fail. It is impossible to live on the diet mode for life depriving oneself of delicious food and starving. So instead of suffering from frustrations, hunger, deprivation and guilt, try to inculcate healthy food habits which will work out on a long term basis. This will prove to be a realistic and an achievable target.

[back to top] [Print This Article] [Close]