How to change your diet

So you want to make changes to your diet to lose some weight....

You could go all-in

Change everything at once and get some great results really quickly

Or

You could adopt a slow and steady approach

Change a couple of things at a time and see the weight come off slowly

Both work

But in my experience, unless you are super motivated and have lots of support if you go all-in, it's difficult to maintain the changes

However if you make a small manageable change, master it, then add another, master that one and add another and so on... you are much more likely to succeed

There are a couple of reasons for this

Making wholesale changes all in one go is hard and can seem overwhelming

It might be so overwhelming that we decide not to make the changes as it "will be too hard and I will only fail anyway"

We also know that if we have too many goals we are unlikely to achieve them.

So when it comes to diet it's often a good idea to not change it all at once

Imagine if your goal was to run a marathon. Would you go out and run the 42k this weekend?

Or would you start off with a smaller distance adding slowly over time until you reach your goal

But where to start with the diet?

There are a few options

You may want to start with one meal at a time

For example, you could start with breakfast. Decide what your new healthy breakfast is going to be and commit to eating it for a week or two

Once you have mastered that then you can move on to lunch

Or, you could decide to change your snacks. Switch out the chocolate bar for nuts and fruit

Maybe you could focus on a food group like carbs. Switch out the white rice for brown, white bread for wholegrain or potatoes for kumara

Anyone who knows me will know that I talk about portions a fair bit. Maybe you don't have to change any of the foods you eat just focus on your portions and eating slightly less

Pick one of these examples (or something different) work on it for a week or two. (or three or four if necessary) until you are doing it 80% of the time (there is no need to strive for perfection)

Then add another change into your diet