New Year’s Resolution: The Diet
Terrible words, The Diet. Yet, its the most popular New Year’s Eve Resolution – and the one most likely not to succeed. We try and we fail. Why, most likely because we need to plan better. Meal planning is one of the more challenging things to do when you’re living a hectic life. When you don’t have the time to put together a healthy meal, you grab fast food, hit the diner or hope the TV dinner you just bought will be worth eating.
Then there is the concept of The Diet. It has such a negative feeling tied to it now that the thought is an immediate turn off. Unpleasant to say the least. And we all know how well we react to doing unpleasant things – we avoid it at all costs! Plain salad for lunch – yum. Where’s that Snickers bar!
If you’re looking to lose a few pounds so you’ll look good in your wedding dress, tuxedo or swimsuit then a diet will possibly work for you. You’ll most likely gain most, if not all, of the weight back anyway. But for long term success it has been proven that diets don’t work for the masses.
What if we were to ditch the diet concept and look at it as part of an overall lifestyle change?
Lifestyle changes are the most important aspects to maintaining a healthy weight or keeping diabetes and heart disease in check. And lifestyle changes means long term changes, not short term spurts of action. These changes have to be positive. They have to leave a positive mark on your psyche, how you feel about yourself, and need to be easily repeated. And of course, this means positive choices for food and activities that will allow you to retain the lifestyle you envision for yourself.
You could be like all those celebrities out there and choose a "diet plan" like Jenny Craig, NutriSystem or The Zone Diet. Then again, if you were being paid to lose weight it would be a great incentive to do so. Got to love those endorsements! In the next few posts I will be examining what these 3 diet plans are while looking at objective reviews and comparing them to how a personal chef can help make the difference for you in making positive changes to your lifestyle.