Bad ideas for dieting
Introduction
It is probably safe to say that most women and many men have been on a diet at some point in their lives, even those women who medically speaking would not need such a diet. Somehow, the idea that the thinner the woman and the more muscular the man, the more beautiful they are, has ingrained itself into our society and is hard to get out again. This is the main reason why many people restrict their food intake or the kinds of food they eat for a certain period of time, sometimes longer, sometimes shorter. However, as the number of overweight people in western countries skyrockets, there are also a number of people who actually need to stick to a diet if they wish to protect their health, improve their longevity and regain a better vitality. Dieting is never easy and anyone who tries to tell you any differently is lying – the weight took time to come on to your body, and it is not going to come off in a month if you put it on over the last two years. First off, it is important to realize that any temporary diet has to be followed by a permanent change in nutrition and lifestyle, or else the weight will come back to sit on your hips before you even get a chance to buy those pretty new jeans you wanted. Once you realize that and once you are willing to make a real change in your life, there are a couple of basic mistakes lots of dieters make but that are very important to avoid.
Main mistakes made by dieters
As stated above, dieting has to be followed by a lifestyle change. Healthy eating has to be learned and wise choices have to become part of one’s everyday life. What this means is, crash diets are a bad idea. You learn nothing about nutrition, in general, all you lose is water weight, and you eat so little that the body thinks you are starving it and clings on to every morsel of food you give it after the end of the crash diet, making you gain all the weight you lost back and often adding some more to that. Of course, they are an alternative, assuming you don’t really want to lose weight and just look extra good for your sister’s wedding in two or three weeks, but you have to be aware of the fact that whatever weight you lose is highly likely to come straight back.
Another thing to remember is that diets will require you to rule certain foods out. Once you have lost the amount of weight you wanted to lose, or if you are medically healthy but just wish to drop a few pounds, it is okay to have a cookie or a glass of wine once in a while. If you really need to lose weight though, it is recommendable to cut out junk food, greasy food and sugary food completely for a while, or at least keep consumption to a minimum.
Exercise is also a must, because while it is possible to lose weight simply by changing what you eat, exercise can help you achieve your goals so much faster. It also helps shape your body so that when you lose all the weight you wanted, you won’t look flabby and your skin won’t sag. A combination of cardio and weight lifting is the best way to go.
Last but not least, please stay away from diet pills unless your doctor recommended them for you. Especially over-the-counter diet pills can contain lots of ingredients you can’t even pronounce the name of, let alone know what it is, many of them do not work, and if they do, there usually is a price to pay. Side effects of diet pills can include severe problems such as cardiac trouble, regular headaches etc. Many diet pills that were on the market a few years ago have now been banned for being too dangerous, and you never know what can happen with those things. If you are medically obese your doctor might prescribe you pills, otherwise you’ll have to rely on exercise, willpower and dieting.