As a dietician, I practice and preach a healthy and active lifestyle, and I am not a fan of fad diets. I believe your results are a product of the hard work that you put in. If you want to lose weight and get healthy, why wait until the new year to make the change? Start now with these six tips:
- Don’t Wait, Get Started Now
- Small Changes Lead to Big Results
- Numbers Aren’t Everything in Weight Loss
- Results Take Time
- Lifestyle Change over Fad Diets
- Make it a Group Effort
Don’t wait to get started on a healthy and active lifestyle. We only have one body, and it’s never too early to make a change for the better. You know how the saying goes, “you are what you eat.” Take the initiative and start today on the road to being healthier and feeling better.
Make small changes now instead of waiting until the new year. If you’re not in the right place in your life to fully commit to adopting a healthy and active lifestyle, one or two small changes can still add up to big changes down the road. For example, if you don’t eat any fruits and vegetables currently, you don’t have to jump right in and start eating five servings per day–this kind of dramatic change may set you up for failure. Instead, try incorporating two daily servings of fruits and vegetables for the first week, three servings in the second week, and so on.
Don’t become fixated on a number. Depending on what type of exercise you’re doing, the number on the scale may not budge after a while. But your body may be making other changes, such as shrinking inches or showing improvement in lab values. A pound is a pound, and a pound of fat weighs the same as a pound of muscle. But if you shrink your fat cells and increase the size of your muscle tissues you may weigh the same amount as before but look considerably different. This is known as body recompositioning.
Don’t get frustrated if you don’t see results as soon as you would like. Studies have shown that an active, overweight adult can be healthier than a non-active normal weight adult. Don’t judge a book by its cover: Someone may look healthy on the outside but their vital signs and lab values could be worse than people who look overweight or obese but are physically active, eat fresh fruits and vegetables daily, and limit their sodium intake.
Don’t get caught up in the fad diets and promises of quick results that normally appear around the new year. Frequently these diets are super low in carbohydrates and calories and will make you lose weight, but they don’t teach you how to eat in the real world. Many times when you try to eat out or go off the prescribed meal plan you will gain weight back quickly. Also on some diets you will lose more than just fat and water weight. Sometimes with super low-calorie diets, you may lose muscle (lean body mass), which in turn will slow your metabolism. Once you go back to eating as you normally do, you may end up weighing more than you did before you started the fad diet.
Why not start now and build your own foundation with friends and family to live a healthier and more active lifestyle? Creating a support system of loved ones will help you get closer to your goals. And this foundation will allow you to help others on their paths to leading healthier lives.
