It’s almost the start of a new year, which means it’s almost diet-craze season. Every year, women create New Year’s intentions and resolutions centered on health and weight loss, and they begin to restrict their bodies. These restrictions only create more frustration in the body, which leads to unhealthy feelings about our appearance.
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t Honestly, most trendy diets just don’t work.
t The word “diet” has earned a bad reputation. It’s true definition is “the customary food and drink of a culture, a person or an animal.” But most of us know a diet as a temporary and restrictive program of eating to lose weight.
t This doesn’t sound pleasurable or nourishing at all to me! If you have tried a diet over the years only to feel more frustrated, it is time to look at health and wellness in a more holistic way.
t The first mini-step you can take is to be kinder to yourself this year. Set realistic intentions regarding how you would truly like to feel on a daily basis, and then find a support system. Just remember that you know your body better than anyone else does, and only you know how you have felt if you have been on diets before.
t Here are seven reasons why diets don’t work! Keep them in mind to help you avoid dieting in the New Year.
1. Forbidden fruit
t If I told you to never eat pie again, the only thing you would want to eat would be a piece of pie. Whenever we deny our body any sort of culinary pleasure, we tend to overeat and binge on the exact thing we are trying to avoid — which only leads to more weight gain.
2. You’ll gain it all back
t Yes, you will lose weight on a diet, but 95 percent of all people who lose weight will gain all of it back — plus more. Since dieting is really a temporary food plan, it doesn’t work in the long run. That’s why you may have tried many diets only to fail and then try another one immediately thereafter, all of which is just no fun and is harmful to your body.
3. It’s unhealthy
t Many diets lack essential vitamins and nutrients that you need in order to have energy, be in a good mood and think clearly. Plus, you learn absolutely nothing about healthy eating when you are dieting, and when the diet is over, you go right back to your unhealthy habits.
4. It makes you feel bad about yourself
t We end up being our own worst critics! I have been there, and I know that when we are so controlling about the food we are eating and the amount of exercise we do, we only end up feeling worse about ourselves.
5. “Diet food” is bad for you
t Most of the so-called diet foods that you can purchase actually cause weight gain. Our body knows what to do when we are eating real whole foods, and when we start to add in the fake sugars or low-fat foods our body can’t break down, it actually causes stubborn weight gain.
6. It makes you feel sick
t When we restrict our bodies, it can trigger mood swings, headaches, brain fog and physical and mental fatigue. No wonder we don’t feel our best when we are dieting — it makes us feel as if we were sick! But when we nourish our bodies with real whole foods, movement and self-care, we feel energized, happy and confident.
7. It makes you hungry
t We get hungry! When we are dieting, we tend to not eat the right types of foods, which only leaves us feeling hungry. This is what makes dieting unsustainable. We tend to crave sweets or salty foods to make up for what we are lacking.
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