All diets work; that is in the short-term.
The trick is in your diet selection. The best diet for you is one that:
- Is sustainable in the long-term; ideally for the rest of your life.
- Provides adequate nutrients for your body.
- Works with your schedule.
- Makes you feel free.
My thought: Diets can’t help you to be fit and lead a healthy life. Exercise is most important part of good health. To do exercise perfectly, tracking of fitness is most essential so that you can track your health conditions as well as maintain regularity. Only a good quality fitness tracker can give you a better result.
Let’s take a closer look at this criterion
1. Sustainable for the long-term; ideally for the rest of your life.
95% of diets fail according to the 2017 report published by the U.S. News & World Report. Diets fail because they are too extreme and therefore not sustainable. Unfortunately losing weight is 80% diet and 20% exercise.
You could exercise for 5 hours a day and still not lose weight if you neglect healthy eating healthy bacteria foods. The good news is that what the U.S. News and World report considered as a “diet” are actually extreme diets.
The original definition of a diet is “the kinds of food that a person, animal, or community habitually eats”. So if we shift our way of thinking from ‘diet = restricted from foods’ to ‘diet = the kinds of food I eat’ long-term success is possible!
2. Provides adequate nutrients for your body.
Everyone’s body is different. We all need different proportions of nutrients and if a diet is too strict and structured, we won’t have the freedom of listening to our body’s’ nutrient needs.
We have cravings for a reason, either our bodies really want a particular nutrient or mineral, or our bodies are going through slight withdrawal symptoms.
A diet needs to be flexible enough so we can learn to listen to our bodies healthily, either by consuming the salt your body wants or by allowing yourself to have a small bite of brownie that you have been craving for three days.
3. Works with your schedule.
I have noticed it time and time again; a diet that tells you to eat every 2-3 hours. This is simply unrealistic for some people in their day to day lives.
If you have to take a break from work to eat a snack that you are not particularly hungry for in the first place, just to come back and get sleepy on the job as your body sends a good portion of your blood to your stomach to digest said snack, then that diet is not for you! It is not sustainable!
4. Makes you feel free.
If you have been craving a brownie for three days, then you should feel free enough to not only eat that brownie but take your time and savor it as opposed to shoveling in your mouth before anyone sees you and feeling guilty afterward. The point of a diet is to be healthy but who would want to be healthy if the efforts to be healthier makes you feel chained by rules?
There are so many diets out there. You can find the one that will work best for you. Think back to all the diets you have tried. What didn’t work for you and what did? This will be very helpful in discovering your ideal diet plan as you review the vast options I have detailed for you.
