WHY DIETS DON’T WORK
The New Year is right around the corner. This is a great time to start fresh, set new goals for yourself, and re-evaluate your priorities. This is also the time of year to start a new diet. But I would like to challenge you to skip the diet this year and make some lifestyle habit changes that will last.
A lot of people start the new year with Whole 30, but it is only 30 days. What happens after day 30? You quit and go back to whatever you were doing before.
Weight Watchers is another common one. You lose the weight quickly, then find it again, and then some, because it isn’t sustainable or realistic to count points for the rest of your life. Food is more than points.
The keto diet is also a popular one, but it can be hard to stick to and not good for everyone. Most people do it for 2-3 months and then fail because as soon as they eat carbs they are out of ketosis, and they give up.
Your health is more important than points and longevity is achieved by changes that last more than 30 days.
ELIMINATION DIETS AND CUTTING CALORIES
Your body needs food. It needs the right fuel to function. The right foods, in the proper amounts, and at the right times will help you achieve optimal health. Most people don’t know what it feels like to “feel good”. They walk around in a constant state of brain fog. They are fatigued, irritable, achy, bloated, have heartburn, sleep dysfunction, infertility, sexual dysfunction, and a slew of auto-immune diseases. Guess what? These are all issues that most likely come from the things you are putting in your mouth, or not putting in your mouth. Telling yourself that you are going to just eat less may work for a few weeks, but eventually, your hunger will win. Your “willpower” will fail. Cutting out fifteen different food groups and not knowing why you are doing so usually leads to giving in to those foods again.
We are meant to eat food. Eating is good and food is good. What isn’t good is the excess of ultra-processed foods in our American diet. We just need to be eating REAL food. Real protein, vegetables, nuts and seeds, and fruit. I can hear you now reading this, saying “Yeah but those things don’t taste good”. Actually, they do. Real food tastes incredible, better than processed food. But most Americans are so used to eating processed foods that their taste for real food has changed.
READ, LEARN, GROW
The best thing you can do is start educating yourself about the foods you are eating. Start reading, listening, and doing your research. And I don’t mean asking Google. We’ve been living in an age of fast food and pre-packaged convenience. This food age we are living in is still pretty new and the health effects are astounding. There are an estimated 330-500 million people living with type 2 diabetes worldwide. In 1985 there were 30 million people living with type 2, in 2011 there were 366 million, which is 12 x higher! This is from the WHO and IDF. It is now estimated that the number is around 500 million! And just to note, this does not mean that these people are obese either. There are many people with type 2 diabetes who are in the “normal” weight range. So, just because you aren’t struggling with the number on the scale doesn’t mean you are healthy.
This is why your food matters. It’s why Weight Watchers and counting macros aren’t enough. Eat real food, get up and move, and don’t ever settle.
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