Health Tutor

There is no end to the list of diets out there that claim to allow you to loose all the weight you want with out having to change a thing. Each week a new plan comes out with even more miraculous claims than the last. Most likely if you are among the millions of people who feel the need to loose weight it is easy to get sucked in to the vortex thinking this will be the one that works for me. With a record number of people over weight and obese it seams everyone has jumped on to the Diet bandwagon claiming to have the next best diet plan. The important thing to understand is that almost any diet will help you loose weight if you stick with it long enough. The key is sticking with it. So what is the best diet for you? Following some simple rules will help you choose your best diet and not let you get sucked in to wasting you money or putting your health at risk

                1. Does the diet match the way you like to (or have to) eat! Some people have the time and discipline to eat every 2 or 3 hours, while others lead a more chaotic life and are lucky find time to grab something between their regular daily tasks. Find a diet, or better yet make up one that matches the way you like to eat.  Is the Diet structured or Flexible. Some people are very disciplined and can handle a very structured diet, while others prefer more flexibility. Just make sure you can stick too it for the long term (most likely the rest of your life) If you go back to the way you use to eat you will go back to what you use to weigh even more.

                2. Do you like the food and is it affordable. A friend once suggested that I try the Atkins diet he had lost over 50 pounds on it and had never looked better. This was enough for me to give it a try. But as a person who has never been a meat eater, the switch to a diet that was almost all meat and no fruits or vegetables was tough. I stuck with it two weeks and had not lost any weight but had realized I was on the wrong diet for me. Nothing kills weight loss faster than following a diet that you do not like or have a taste for. If you do not like salads it would be impossible to stay on a diet that requires you to eat a salad each day for lunch.

                3. How does it fit in with the rest of the family? Will the plan coincide with what and when the rest of the family is eating? If not, how much of a hardship will that be? If you have to come home at the end of a busy day and cook two meals you may want to rethink the plan. And if you are trying to stick eating something bland & tasteless while you are cooking something you see as “forbidden” & love, for the rest of the family it will hard not to keep from snacking or even worse eating a second dinner.

                4. Don’t ignore your cravings. We all have our favorite foods, foods we would rather not do with out. As soon as you class a food as forbidden it becomes the food you most want. Plan it in to your diet. Once a week have that small bowl of ice cream or a small piece of chocolate if you know you will get a piece at the end of the week you will be less likely to “sneak” a piece when you think no one else is looking.

                5. Don’t think of it as all or nothing deal. The biggest reasons that diets fail is because of cheating and giving in to temptation and we often think of it as all or nothing deal. It starts with a bit of snacking, then just a little more, and a little more, until we think oh what’s the difference I have already blew it I may as well enjoy the rest of the cake. Then we start in beating ourselves up over our indiscretions. We then see is as we have failed to loose the weight we wanted with this diet we will have to find another one that works better. The truth is that it wasn’t the diet it was just our failure to stick with it.

                6. If you fall off the wagon get back on. If you have fallen off the diet wagon what you need to do is reassess this diet was it for you? Or was just one that you spotted it while waiting in the check out line or the one you “skinny friend” said that she would try if she had to loose weight.

                7. Exercise always helps. Whether a diet plan includes exercise or not it is important to add in some form of exercise. Even a small amount will help. We will get in to this more in the future.

                8. It takes time to lose weight. There are several rapid weight loss diets. These diets boast a very quick weight loss, and it is true you will loose weight but that weight is all water & muscle and not actual fat. Often with these diets the you do loose weight very quickly & GAIN IT BACK JUST AS QUICK WHEN YOU GO BACK TO NORMAL EATING. You may want to consider a more eating habit/lifestyle change diet that can bring long-term weight management success.

                9. Record everything you eat. (at least at first) Even if you intent is to not restrict or count the calories. Studies show that people who record their food loose twice the amount of weight as those who do not. Why? Because we tend to under estimate how much we are really eating. Of course this goes with out saying that if you wait till the end of the day to make your record you may as well forget it. Odds are you have forgotten just how much you did eat.

                10. Anytime you see a diet that completely eliminates any one-food group from your diet be cautious. As humans we require a wide variety of foods to get proper nutrition. The same goes for diet that only allow all you can eat of one food (or dish) like the pineapple diet or cabbage soup diet.

                11. Avoid any company or person that would like to “sell you the secret formula” even at a reduced cost. The only thing you will loose will be your money.

                12. Crash diets don’t work. Putting yourself on a crash diet may result in a short term weight loss but you can also put yourself in starvation mode making even harder to loose the weight. The best bet is still the slow steady weight loss.

Following these simple rules can help you find the diet you need to achieve the weight loss you are looking for, but as any one who has been trying to loose weight for a while knows this is not the whole story there is may things that go in to loosing the weight we would like. Over the next few weeks we will discuss some of the other factors that can help you loose the weight. I hope you will find this helpful. Please feel free to leave your comments on what diets you have tried and  what other health issues you would like addressed.