Phew, it’s hot out there! It’s the time where people are running around outside half naked, going to the beach, and hitting the swimming pools to stay cool. We’re right in the middle of summer, and we all want to be that slim, toned version of ourselves. More often than not, the first thing we turn to is a new plan of attack in the diet arena.
There are an overwhelming amount of options when it comes to diet plans. You’ve certainly heard of all of them by now just by watching TV or surfing the internet. Do any of them actually work?
YES! And no.
“Well that’s confusing, thanks a lot,” you say. Well sorry, but it isn’t so black and white.
The science of diet plans is tried and true; however, the ability to adhere to these sometimes extreme diet plans tends to fail some people.
Here are 2 ways to ensure that a diet plan can work for you long-term!
1. Counting Calories
I can already hear the moans pouring in. Counting calories is about as cool as paying the bills. Nobody wants to do it, but you need to. Don’t worry, you don’t have to count calories and banish specific junk foods forever. After a week or 2 you’re gonna start to become a pro at knowing how many calories are in each food item. As for the junk foods, it’s OK to indulge once in a while as long as it is factored into your calories.
You see, a lot of people will jump into a diet plan and eat the foods recommended, but what’s really needed is a calorie restriction. The only way to ensure you are consuming less calories than you should, is simply to count them.
The first step here is to go online and find a “maintenance calorie calculator.” The first thing it will do is ask you some questions and spit out a ballpark number of calories that you should eat per day to stay at your current weight. Of course, you don’t want to stay at your current weight, so you would eat less than that number. This would be called a caloric deficit.
Again, the only way to ensure you are eating at a caloric deficit, is to log the amount of calories you are eating, and to monitor your weight. If your weight isn’t going down, you need to eat less calories. It’s that simple, and if you don’t believe me, here’s an article from Mayo Clinic that acknowledges calorie restriction leads to weight loss.
2. Realize that Losing Weight Requires a Lifestyle Change
We talked with Yes You Can! Diet Plan who explained that they’ve seen people lose weight and then gain it back in just a few weeks. They said, “So many people lose weight on a diet successfully, stop the diet plan, and wonder why they gain the weight right back. Diet plans work on the same level that any other plan works. If you quit the plan, you don’t get the results.” Do airplanes take off with a plan and then abandon it half way? Do ships set sail and then stop navigating because they don’t feel like it anymore? Of course not! If the plan is abandoned, that plane or ship is never going to reach its destination.
Your body is the same! You can’t just go on a diet plan and lose the weight, only to go throw the plan away and go back to old habits. That will get you right back to where you started. Once you lose the weight, you have to keep up the habit of eating healthy. The diet plans themselves can always be made to work, it’s just that you have to stay in the realms of the plan that got you there in the first place.
‘Biggest Loser’ Winner Afraid of Re-Gaining Weight
This article by the LA Times features a past winner of the very popular TV show, “The Biggest Loser.” A New York dietitian, Felicia Stoler, emphasizes the importance of thinking about losing weight as a lifestyle change.
Don’t get caught up in all the fad diets out there that are shoved down peoples’ throats over and over. These kinds of diets are extremely hard to commit to, which is why people tend to say that diet plans don’t work. Creating a diet plan that restricts calories and makes for lifestyle changes that are reasonable to follow long-term is the key.
Now get out there and use that diet plan to achieve whatever goals you have!
