Most of us have done it at some stage.
Bounced from one bright shiny diet to the next to the next to the next.
In the search of The One. The diet that was made just for you, where the weight effortlessly just melts away.
Where it just fits with your family, your business life and lets you get back into that favorite suit you bought few years ago but only ever wore it once.
But they just don’t stick.
Is it any wonder with the diet pills or shakes leaving you feeling empty (and hungry) snacking on whatever you can find along the way.
All the claims and promises fall away and the old habits creep back in.
It’s no wonder that a Google search of “Diet” comes up with 1.63 billion results and is a $452.5 million industry in 2019-20 in Australia alone.
But why is it so hard to lose weight and keep it off?
Is it some mystery that is hidden from all but a few of us?
Unfortunately this may well be a big part of the problem.
Lets take a closer look
What dieting used to be
According to the Oxford Dictionary Diet
noun
1. the kinds of food that a person, animal, or community habitually eats.
2. a special course of food to which a person restricts themselves, either to lose weight or for medical reasons.
Dieting isn’t a new problem at all. Historical records showing we’ve been following the benefits of exercise and food back 2000 years ago to Hippocrates.
Then in the early 1900’s a few strange diets came on the scene –
“Fletcherism” where you could eat as much as you like but every mouthful had to be chewed 100 times,
Soon after laxatives, chewing gum and diet pills began to emerge as did the ideas of counting calories and as long as you limit yourself to 1200 calories a day.
Then came the Hay diet of the 1930’s, Cabbage soup diet of the 1950’s, the Atkins diet in 1972.
So why do people keep dieting
But back in the 1960s American scientist Ancel Keys investigated and promoted a link between diet and heart disease and that started a shift in western diets to low fat high carbohydrate and polyunsaturated fats as the way to good health.
Unfortunately the results used by Keys were cherry picked to suit the argument he put forward and was later discredited. But not before US lawmakers and government authorities’ had been changed.
This style of eating then became the backbone of our modern diet in America and spead to other western countries
This was the start of the weight management problems, obesity and metabolic lifestyle disease epidemic that we see today.
Extract from “OECD Obesity and the economics of prevention:Fit not Fat key facts – England, update 2014“
Extract from “OECD Obesity and the economics of prevention:Fit not Fat key facts – England, update 2014“
A National Health Survey in 2017-2018 reported 67% of Australian adults were overweight or obese,
20%-30% of adults in Australia were affected by some form of metabolic syndrome, which is best described a range of disorders including high cholesterol, insulin resistance, obesity and high blood pressure and
In 2017-2018 it is estimated that 5% 1 million Australians had type 2 diabetes.
There are several reasons for these results.
A huge increase in the amount of processed and fast food available
The promotion of low fat, high carbohydrate food together with processed oils being the best way to a healthy lifestyle.
Unfortunately our modern life is not geared around supporting your health and wellness and for you to live a long happy healthy life.
To do this you need to take a different approach and not just follow conventional wisdom.
Yes modern life has certainly made life easier with thousands of choices available at supermarkets and fast food restaurants with instant meals for instant gratification, but it’s certainly not better.
Most of us know this, but it’s just been made so easy.
In a fast modern life most of us are looking for a quick everything because we are so time poor.
Quick sleep
Quick breakfast
Quick trip travel time
Quick conversation
Quick meeting
Quick drive home
Quick to eat
There are many reasons you may be searching for the ultimate diet
Your reason maybe different to the next person and it’s typically very personal to you
Lose a bit of weight
Get fitter
To feel-good
Look good in the mirror or
Live life and be able to do what you want to do
Success with health and wellness is not just in a diet
I believe what you eat should be part of a total lifestyle plan, that includes food, exercise, stress, play and sleep to achieve greatest all round result.
As well as –
The right mindset
Know specifically what you want to get out of it before you start
Be consistentBut it takes commitment, time, effort and patience to make this happen.
You won’t succeed unless you stick with it.
A real effort
Half an effort means a half result or little to no improvement at all.
Test & measure as you go and fine tune along the way.
Treat it like a life and style and experience the results for life.
Conclusion
Look I’m not trying to get you to throw your diet plan out the window, but I believe you should focus on a good lifestyle for the best health and wellness for life
And if you don’t know where to start just follow this guide to get up and running.
Here are three important steps
1 What is your big why? Identify your goals
2 Find a plan that works
Something that someone else has done and achieved the results that you are after.
A coach or mentor may help stay focused and be accountable as well.
3 Be consistent with your food, exercise, sleep and stress and stick with it most of the time.
And make it a priority every day
4 Be patient and be kind to yourself. It will often take time to undo years or decades of living a modern life which has got you to where you are today
This is a marathon and not a sprint
What do you think about dieting?
Would you move to a healthy lifestyle instead ?