Life Is One Damn Diet After Another

We're going on a diet is a typical statement. The expression implies that there is a beginning and a finish, similar to a holiday journey. We fantasize about the day when we will achieve our weight loss target and how nice it will be to no longer be subjected to severe deprivation.

There's a reassuring little tape playing in the back of our thoughts, telling us that once our weight reduction program is complete, we'll be able to stop watching calories, carbs, or fats. We yearn for the day when we won't have to clench our teeth every time we decline a beloved meal that makes us drool in our sleep. We reach for the carrot and celery sticks without excitement or anticipation, tormenting ourselves with ideas of the great delicacies we would enjoy after the diet is completed.

Uh, hello?

Allowing ourselves to think of a diet as a defined, time-limited segment of our whole life span is a certain way to return to tent city (that refers to what we wear, not where we live). We must view weight loss as a lifetime effort, monitoring our intake day after day, week after week, year after year, if we are to achieve long-term weight loss. Your heart begins to sink in your chest. You think it's not worth it if I have to live like this all the time! That small voice assures you that you are unique.

You may unwind now that you know how to lose weight and can do it whenever you choose. You'll go back on your diet and be back on track in no time if you gain five pounds. However, you will not! Consider your weight history, which has been a bit of a shambles. We all feel that after we've lost weight, it'll be simple to go on a quick diet if we gain a few pounds back. But it doesn't work that way, does it? We begin to gain a pound here and there, but then there are some important occasions approaching, and a diet would be quite uncomfortable. We don't go back on our diet until we've gained enough weight to feel disgusted enough to justify a fresh phase of severe restriction. We've joined the yo-yo club, which includes the great majority of dieters who can't keep the weight off for more than a few weeks. We go on and off diets for a variety of reasons, including boredom, depression, and discomfort. They distinguish us from our friends, relatives, and coworkers, all of whom continue to nibble, feast, and rejoice. Diets irritate us because of how they make us feel and how they affect our everyday life.

Let's take a look at the full scene from a different angle for a moment. Imagine, instead of a diet, a method of eating that requires you to be on a diet for the rest of your life. While the thought may terrify you, don't dismiss it just yet. Consider another widely held belief that many of us share. To lose a significant amount of weight in a short period of time, we must first choose a diet that appears to be a good match for us and then stick to it rigorously until we attain our goal. Let's take these two ideas and mash them together, then turn them inside out. We will not be on a diet. We've begun our life-changing diet. We next choose a diet, any diet, and make a commitment to stick to it for one week alone.

At the conclusion of the week, we will choose a completely new diet to which we will commit for only one week. This goes on throughout the remainder of our lives, with different diets being introduced on a weekly basis. What is the purpose of this? There are a slew of factors to consider:

1. By selecting a different diet each week, it removes those common misgivings that maybe we should have gone in a different direction. We worry that were not getting the right nutrients or that were going to get sick or develop a rare disease. We read the diet ratings and panic at the warnings posted for all the popular programs. With our new approach, you dont have to fret about if you made a good or bad choice because youll be making a new choice in a week.

2. If there are particularly painful No-Nos in this weeks diet, resolve to try something next week that allows a currently forbidden fruit.

For example, a primarily protein regimen has been found successful for many participants who often lose five or ten pounds in a week. However, they miss the vegetables and salad they enjoy. The next week could then be a vegetables and salad only routine, also successful for rapid weight loss but a bit lean on the protein you body needs for self-repair.

You may then find yourself craving some good bread so you switch to the Subway diet for a week until your craving is satisfied. Move on to something completely different the cabbage soup diet or liquid shakes. Since there are literally thousands of diets, a few are bound to include the food you crave. You are never more than a week away from having what you feel you absolutely must have in order to keep going. You can include spartan fad diets that move fat quickly and you can include calorie counting or Weight Watcher diets that allow almost anything so long as you adjust your intake to stay within the totals specified.

3. The frequent changes in your eating patterns keep your body off-balance. Give the body enough time and advance notice and it will adapt to anything, turning protein into carbohydrates and storing even low calorie carbohydrates as little pockets of fat. By totally changing what you eat on a regular basis, the body gives up trying to figure out how to thwart you and spends its time efficiently processing what you give it. You are effectively using your smart little mind to outmaneuver your smart not-so-little body.

4. The constant changes force you to buy food in smaller packages. Its pointless and wasteful to buy those family packs of anything. That will help you with overall portion reduction, a must for any serious dieter. Your shopping goal is only to purchase items that you can consume within a week. If you see something that you particularly want but is not on your allowed list, make a mental note to find a diet for next week that can accommodate it.

5. The need for a new diet each week requires that you read and research a lot of diets. The reading acts as reinforcement for your goals and will assure your continuing education on nutrition and fitness. When you see something that intrigues you or just makes a lot of sense, try it out. Perhaps one week will involve barely restricted eating but require a lot of exercise. Go for it its only a week.

6. You are in the happy position of having wide choices available but also the needed structure of an organized plan to follow. The regimented eating is within each weeks diet; the power of choice is operative when you decide what the next weeks program will be.

7. Can you stay on a diet permanently? Yes, you can, because youre not restricting yourself from anything for life, just for a week at a time. Should you stay on a diet for the rest of your life? Yes, you probably should as long as you are getting a balance of foods from an intelligent mixing of alternative diet plans. If you like one diet more than another, or if one particular program works exceptionally well for you, by all means cycle that diet into your routine on a regular basis. Just make sure you dont use the same plan more than once a month or your body is going to be ready for it and Zap! you find it no longer works so well.

8. Can you over-diet? We have all seen (although they seem to be harder to find these days) overly thin, cadaverous dieters with sunken cheeks and loose skin. That can be avoided by making your selected diets very diverse so you are never without needed nutrients for very long. For example, many retirement homes and assisted living co-ops produce thin seniors with pallid skin and protruding abdomens. Replace their mushy, high starch meals with any of the myriad high protein and vegetable-fruit diets and their color will improve, their energy increase, and their tummies fade.

9. Can you ever be too thin? Visit an eating disorder facility and you will see the results of anorexia nervosa, not a pretty sight and highly dangerous from a medical standpoint. If you have a history of overweight, you may tell yourself that being too thin will never be in the cards for you. However, there are not infrequent cases of the perennial heavy who becomes anorexic through dieting too much with resulting anxiety about gaining back even an ounce of the flesh so painfully discarded. If you have a distorted body image, and reliable friends are concerned about your being too thin, get professional help

10. It all comes down to using your brain intelligently. When you are at your heaviest, with the most to lose, the logical choice is a rather spartan program that will get the fat moving quickly. As you lose, more moderate programs can be interspersed so that your skin and cheeks have a chance to adjust and fill in as your weight stores become redistributed.

• If a particular part of your body is resistant to reduction, exercise may become a more important part of your plan than simply a dietary approach. Once you are hovering at your ideal weight, simple calorie counting or support group involvement may be all you need. The secret is to be rational about it all and use that wonderful mind of yours to set the program for your not-so-intelligent body with its insatiable appetite and poundage conservation cravings. Dont try to cheat unless you want to cheat yourself and then be honest and admit that, for whatever reason there is, you want to avoid further weight loss. When you want and need to lose fifty pounds, an ice cream and chocolate diet is not rational. When you are at ideal weight or below, a stringent fad diet makes no sense. Will all this mixing of diets result in consistent weight loss? There is never consistency in weight loss because there are just too many factors involved: water retention, digestive inefficiencies, the amount of energy expended, and individual body quirks. Over time, you will lose steadily but there will always be some ups and downs along the way. Once the concept of going on a diet has been discarded, a lifelong eating plan can be embraced, guaranteed to leave you in control of your weight for the rest of your long slender life