Diet vs. Lifestyle

Not a diet…

There are so many diets out there. If I throw out some words, I am certain you have heard of many of them. Atkins. Keto. Paleo. DASH. Mediterranean. South Beach. Nutrisystem. Gluten-free. Vegetarian. Whole30. Flexiterian. (Ok, so maybe there are a few you hadn’t heard of yet - there are so many!).

Diet is both a noun and a verb.

• As a noun, diet refers to either “food and drink considered in terms of its qualities, composition, and its effects on health” or “a particular selection of food, especially as designed or prescribed to improve a person’s physical condition or to prevent disease.”

• As a verb, it means “to regulate the food of, especially in order to improve the physical condition” or “to feed.”

(Thank you, dictionary.com)

Diet is either the food you eat or the regulation of the food you eat. In today’s vernacular, we tend to think of diet as the latter - regulating or restricting what we eat to help us lose weight. What has always struck me about the word diet is its inherent feeling of being temporary. We don’t tend to talk about diets in the long term. If someone says they are on a diet, the unspoken meaning is that at some point it will end. When is the diet over? Usually either when the person lost the weight they wanted to lose, or they gave up along the way.

But what happens when the diet ends? The majority of people simply go back to their usual way of eating. The problem is, their usual way of eating is what got them needing a diet in the first place! Even worse, people then tend to slide backwards and gain back the weight they lost on the diet and more. This is what "yo-yo dieting" is all about - people will restrict their food to lose weight, then switch back to old habits and gain weight... and this cycle can repeat as many times as that person chooses to go on a diet. Without taking the time to learn new nutrition habits and the patience to slowly incorporate those changes into your daily life so they are sustainable, you are more likely to end up right back where you started.

We all want results as quickly as possible, but this is not the best method for long-term health and fitness. For starters, short-term weight loss doesn’t give you enough time to truly develop the habits that are going to make you successful for life. They say it takes 21 days to learn a new habit… but that’s just the first step. Within the first 6 months of starting something new (whether it be nutrition, physical fitness, or something entirely different), you are more likely to stop or give up. In addition, too rapid weight loss wreaks havoc on your body in terms of metabolism and hormones, making it even harder to keep the lost weight off. Remember the show the Biggest Loser? In a study done on 14 contestants from the show six years after they completed the competition, researchers found that the majority regained a “substantial amount” of the weight back because the weight was lost too quickly. The study was published in Obesity journal and you can read the whole study results here: https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1002/oby.21538.

...but a lifestyle!

So what’s the solution? Think of your health and fitness journey as adopting a new lifestyle. A lifestyle isn’t temporary or short-term; a lifestyle is how you live your life - for life. Don’t suffer through a diet for a few weeks or months, waiting for it to end so you can finally eat like you normally did. The only thing you will accomplish is being miserable by restricting yourself, and then once you start eating “normally” again, you will gain the weight back (and more). That’s no way to live!

Build healthy habits for life.

Now, I will be the first to admit that I thought the exact same way. When I was going through my program at Nuviva, I was counting the days until “I can eat [insert food here ] again!” Alcohol was a big one; whenever my friends were sitting around drinking and I was the only sober one, I (and they) would say “can’t wait until I’m/you’re off this diet so we can drink again!” Same with fast food. Restaurant food. Soda. I felt so deprived in the beginning of my weight loss journey and thought that everyone was having fun without me. However, as I neared my goal weight with Nuviva and Amy was about to let me navigate life without her weekly check-ins and constant support, my thought process changed: this wasn’t some temporary thing that I was going to do and then go back to my old habits. Then all the hard work was for nothing. After four months, these were my NEW habits! I wasn’t learning how to lose weight just to gain it back again, I was learning how to eat for life.

Get started by making small changes a little at a time. Be patient with yourself - you didn’t gain weight overnight, and you won’t lose weight overnight. It CAN be done, but you have to be patient. Take the time to learn new eating habits. Trying to change everything all at once will be overwhelming, so make one change at a time. One way to get started is with portion control, where you don’t change what you eat, but simply change how much you eat. Cut it down a little at a time. It might be a bit difficult at first because your body is used to eating more, but you will adjust. The body is amazing in its ability to adapt! Once you have reduced your portions and you are comfortable with your ability to keep the portions smaller, then add another small change. Maybe this would be a good time to start adding more fruits and vegetables to your meals. Try to make half of your daily intake of food fresh fruits and vegetables (with a little bit more vegetables than fruits).

Daphne’s tip: frozen fruits and vegetables are super easy to prepare and are just as good as fresh! Frozen fruits are great for smoothies (you’ll need less ice) and one bag of frozen veggies cooked up in the microwave can give you a week’s worth of food, saving you time. Canned fruits and vegetables are usually also okay, but double-check the nutrition label to make sure there are no added sugars or ingredients.

Fruits & veggies can help with weight loss.

Once you have reduced portions and then added more fruits and veggies, then think about your next change. Now remember, don’t add more changes until you’re comfortable with the previous change(s). Making changes progressively will allow you to adapt to each one before moving on to the next. Eventually you can make healthy swaps (think “Eat This, Not That”). One of my favorite examples is making spaghetti with spiralized zucchini for noodles. Reduce added sugars (this one is HUGE!) - one way to do this is cut out sodas, sweet teas, fruit juices, or sugary sports drinks and drink more water instead.

There are so many small changes that you can make over time, and together they will add up to some big results. The key is patience. Eventually you will feel (and see!) the differences. Remember, this is not about suffering for a short amount of time... this is about finding a sustainable way of healthy eating - for life.