What is the best diet for me?
Are you ready to diet? Again? Diets entice us with their promises of quick weight loss. But the people we know who eat well and look healthy aren't dieting at all. They have simply adopted good eating habits. Diets can be so restrictive that they set us up for failure. Some are so low in caloric intake that we literally don't have the energy to continue with them.
Follow almost any diet and you will lose weight. This is because whether you are counting calories, fat, or carbohydrates, or restricting certain types of food, you are ultimately restricting the number of calories you consume. The formula for losing weight is very simple: Consume fewer calories than you burn.
You do not need to join a commercial diet program, purchase special foods or dietary supplements, or use diet pills to succeed at weight loss. In fact, the best thing that you could do would be to start eating healthy right now and continue to do so for the rest of your life.
Of course very few people could do such a thing, so think of a diet or the use of diet aids as tools to help you in the right direction. A good diet can teach you how to eat well and can give you a jump-start toward meeting your goals. But whatever path you choose to follow now, your goal should be to make it on your own at some point down the road.
So, what should you eat? You would likely do well to reduce portion size, eat mostly fruit, vegetables and lean protein (reduced-fat dairy products, fish, chicken, and lean cuts of beef and pork), and avoid sweets and junk food. Pick foods with good nutritional value and they will not only be healthy but they will help you lose weight.
After learning the basics of diet and weight loss you will be able to choose the diet, or simply a healthier way to eat, that is right for you. You will be able to steer yourself away from the marketing gimmicks and promises of short term results and find a solution based on sound, realistic and healthy principles.
A good diet will be healthy from the start, and will be based on principles that you can follow for a lifetime. It will not rob you of so much energy as to discourage you, and also needn't rob you of your money. Eating well generally costs a lot less than eating poorly.
Lastly, do not try and change too much too fast. If you have been eating poorly and not exercising, both your body and your mind will have a lot of adjusting to do. All the sugar and fat were actually quite enjoyable, and sitting on the couch didn't feel too bad, either. If you try and change everything too quickly the odds are greater that you will feel bad, get discouraged, and give up.
But there is a happy ending to the story. A point will come when a handful or raisins will taste as sweet as those candy bars you felt bad about eating, and you will look forward to your regular exercise. For better or worse we can become addicted to just about anything. It's certainly "for better" when it's eating well and exercising.
Read more about establishing healthy eating habits with Registered Dietitian Linda Wright at Columbia St. Mary's Diabetes Treatment Center.
