Another healthy tip courtesy of Charles Platkin
Why experts say “don’t diet; make it a lifestyle.” What in the world do they mean? They mean that you need to hange behaviors (diet and exercise) to lose weight, but to keep the weight off for good you must choose behaviors you can live with forever. You need to consistently question and ask yourself is this “change” I just made (read: exercising at 5 a.m. every morning) something I can do forever? Can I eat celery for breakfast every day? (That’s a joke by the way, to highlight the silly things we often do to lose weight.) You need to form patterns: Make your new eating behaviors automatic by doing them over and over again. You shouldn’t need to take breaks from your “diet.” If you have to take a break, you made too many compromises in the first place and your diet will not last. New eating
and activity behaviors need to be comfortable and not too restrictive.
Be Prepared: It is important to recognize that preparation will help you make better choices. Ever heard the expression, “chance favors the prepared mind?” Think about this scenario: You’ve been so “good” on your diet: You’ve lost weight, exercised every day for months it’s all going so well. Then it happens. You’re completely stressed out; you just had an argument with your 14-year-old daughter; your boss is breathing down your neck about that report that’s late; your phone’s been ringing off the hook you’re at the end of your rope. Then, to top it all off, your co-worker is having a birthday celebration with the works, including lasagna, cake and ice cream. You have it all, and you don’t just stop there you continue this slide, and you relapse. The reality is that weight loss and maintenance have lots of ups and downs, and plenty of curve-balls. Think about the difficult choices you face most often, and make sure to figure out the best outcomes before you face them not during.
– Charles Platkin, PhD, MPH, nutrition professor at the CUNY School of Public Health at HUNTER College in NYC and editor of DietDetective.com