I’m a Certified Nutritionist and one thing that I have seen time and time again is that this notion of “dieting” really doesn’t work. I see people become frustrated with their weight and then decide that they are going to GO ON a diet. They are using the term ‘diet’ in the form of a verb as if it is something that you do to yourself for a short period of time to fix a problem. The main reason these diets don’t work is because they are a short term fix to a long-term problem.
If you currently are unsatisfied with your weight you have to look at how your weight got their in the first place. Usually the answer involves a combination of poor diet, lack of exercise, and stress. Changing those things for a short period of time may help to improve your weight. However, if when you reach a more healthy weight you decide to go back to your old behaviours, you will also have to welcome back your old results. YIKES! That doesn’t sound like much fun!
What we really want is to be able to maintain a healthy weight for a lifetime! Not just for a week, or a month, etc.
My goal in this article is to give you some food for thought!
The only type of diet that does work!
So we have established that most “quick-fix” diets don’t work. They often lead to a yo-yo effect that may give us short term satisfaction but often long-term disappointment.
I now want to reveal the ONLY diet that does work!
The answer is….. a noun!
Ok so you are probably sitting there thinking, hmm, I don’t get it. What does she mean by “a noun”!?
Let me explain…
Up above I talked about how the most common use of the word “diet” is in the verb form. People often say they are going on a diet. Or they are dieting to try to lose some weight. The mindset during this period of time is usually one where you feel restricted from eating foods you would otherwise be eating if you weren’t on this diet.
The thing is, these short term fixes don’t work. We need to shift and start using the word diet as a noun.
The definition of the noun version of a diet is: the kinds of food that a person, animal, or community habitually eats.
To give you an example. I would say that I eat a diet rich in whole foods that are in their most natural form. This is a way of eating that I follow on a daily basis.
Can you see how when we talk about our “diet” in the form of a noun we are referring to a longer time frame? Where as when we talk about going on a diet in the verb form we are talking about a short-term fix.
In my experience, my clients have the most success when they leave the dieting world behind and instead look at making incremental changes that will have a significant long-term impact on their health. You don’t need to change everything at once. You just need to change one thing at a time and make it habit. Creating a healthy diet that lasts a lifetime will give you the results you are looking for and help those results last much better than any quick-fix diet ever could.
I would love to hear from you! Tell me about what kind of changes you are going to make to your “diet” so that you can have the health you have always wanted!
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