3 Tried and True Ways for You to Rethink Dieting
Diets don’t work. Every new nutritional study and dietician will tell people that diets as people generally think of them are unsuccessful. Diets are promoted as temporary ways to reset your body; as difficult, tedious routines that don’t mesh easily to our general routines; or as programs that a third party provides and which can’t be deviated from. These ways of thinking don’t work, especially because each of them is based on the idea of taking something away. Here are some ways you can rethink dieting, increasing the nutrition in your meals so it doesn’t feel like you’re constantly taking away in terms of time, enjoyment, or your favorite foods!
Rethink Dieting With These Methods:
Add Foods Before Removing Them
Diets fail because they immediately take away foods we enjoy but don’t provide immediate results. We are highly attuned to negatives, especially if those negatives impact our routines. So more and more dieticians are focusing on the idea of adding nutritionally dense foods instead of taking away nutritionally empty ones. This means eating vegetables and lean proteins first before eating starches. If you fill your meals with both nutritious foods and less healthy ones but always eat the healthier foods first, then you’re less hungry when you get to the starches or carbs. The reason why people see so much success with this method is two-fold: you are more likely to eat less of the nutritionally empty foods without feeling like they were taken away, and you eat more nutrients. After all, the problem with most American diets isn’t just that they’re calorie-rich, it’s that they’re nutritionally poor.
Add Easy Barriers Into Your Food Routine
The studies about using smaller plates and utensils are common knowledge, but that doesn’t make them any less true. Once we’ve put food on our plates, it’s both easy and engrained to eat all of it. By restricting what’s immediately available, you have to consciously decide to refill your plate and that small change can have long-term impacts on your health. Another easy barrier to add is to keep a prepared meal in the kitchen instead of at the dinner table. Mindless eating, or reflexive eating, is one of the biggest factors in over-eating, so every step you introduce helps increase mindfulness, even if getting a refill is by no means difficult. Other barriers you can include are waiting twenty minutes before seconds or eating away from your television and phone because eating while distracted can make you feel like you didn’t enjoy the food as much and so you need to get more. But it’s important to add barriers that don’t negatively disrupt your routine or that you have to artificially impose. Those are the changes that are harder to stick to, especially if you’re removing something you like.
Replace Instead of Remove
This method is the trickiest way to rethink dieting, especially since replacing sugar with honey or one kind of oil with another is still a form of removing something from your diet. But so many food programs focus on the idea of restricting intake that it’s hard to notice to focus solely on the negative space that’s left behind. That’s why it’s important to replace each nutritionally empty ingredient with something even just the smallest bit better. Progress is progress, and it’s much better to take small strides towards a sound diet than make massive changes for a week that aren’t sustainable. So if you’re taking the route of removing select ingredients from your diet, always put something in its place so the absence is less noticeable.
The Bottom Line – It’s Time to Rethink Dieting
Changing your food habits depends on how you think about it. If you focus on sticking to a diet, restricting your meals, or cutting out some foods, it’s that much harder to think about permanent, healthy changes. Instead, think about adding nutrients, rearranging your routine, and finding alternatives. Contact us today to learn more!
David Michael Gilbertson is the founder and president of 3 Elements Lifestyle, LLC., a Fitness and Weight Loss company that specializes in YOU! With more than 15 years of experience owning, operating and managing clubs of all sizes, David lectures, delivers seminars and gives workshops on the practical skills required to successfully help you with your health and fitness goals. David also helps you build the teamwork, management, and training necessary to open your own fitness center. For more information on Licensing and Consulting Services Visit his website at: www.3elementslifestyle.com or email at daveg@3elementslifestyle.com or call (805) 499-3030.
