Stop Dieting and Start Living a Lifestyle of Happiness

3 min read

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Do you ever feel overwhelmed by everything you read in a magazine, see on social media or hear on TV about weight loss? I decided to do some research on diets and find more about this subject! When making a lifestyle change it must be within our limits, reachable to live for a lifetime, and doable within our budget! It's not one size fits all!

It needs to be called "lifestyle of happiness" instead of using the term "weight loss."

How can you enjoy life if you're on a diet all the time? Is that a way to live? How do we teach our children about healthy habits and enjoy life at the same time, if we don't do it ourselves? Are you allowing social media, magazines and TV to influence you on how to live and eat. It's time to put and end to letting the number on the scale, celebrities, and social media "influencers" determine what we should look like.

I think love is the way to a happy life filled with gratitude. We put unnecessary stress our bodies with diets. The research has shown that many weight loss diets, fad shake diets, etc. are not a balanced and healthy way of losing weight. It doesn't foster lifelong healthy habits. Although, they have become a popular part of the health industry. Why is that?

People want a quick fix and the creators of the diet often create a popular or fad diet simply to make money off of you. We are constantly bombarded with 'diets' on social media, radio, and TV. It feels overwhelming at times, diets that promise to help you lose weight to the ones that can lead to FLASE hope that losing weight is magically LIFE CHANGING!

All they do is deprive you of life, joy in your heart and food you enjoy. They don't teach you how to add healthy habits or how to budget a healthy lifestyle into your life. It doesn't show you how to create new habits that fit your life and budget. The reason I know so much about fad diets vs. making a lifestyle change, is that I learned from OWN my experience.

As a young girl, I had an eating disorder, which then lead me into the yo-yo dieting roll coaster. In 2016, I decided it was enough of this up and down roller coaster I was on. I wanted a lifestyle that was more focused on being mindful and thoughtful around a healthy and fit lifestyle. This is when Sassy Mom Fitness was created!

In my own experience I learned that "fad diets" can result in temporary weight loss, but can lead to malnutrition and subsequent weight gain! It causes you to lose the lack of control in your life and body, always feelings deprived of life, always feeling hungry and always feeling frustrated. You are always looking at the number on the scale! It's like an eating disorder, but the only difference is you're eating, you're counting calories, replacing meals with shakes or following a meal plan.

You keep plugging away until you lose the weight, but what happens after you're done? Did it teach it you how to live a healthy and fit lifestyle? Did it provide you long-term support, and help provide a program the will help teach you about taking small steps to smart change? Did it give you freedom to enjoy life? Did it bring the best version of yourself? If not, lets talk about being aware of dietary restrictions.

You need to be aware of the dietary restrictions that come along with the diet that you're choosing. If the diet is low calorie, a fad shake diet, counting calories etc, your hormones and metabolism can get out of balance because your body needs proper nutrients to run properly and stay healthy. Think of food as your fuel, your body needs a certain amount of calories a day so it can function properly at a cellular level. It provides each cell in your body the nutrients it needs to function and help fight against disease. Your cells work more optimally with compatible nutrients. In turn this helps the body become a fighting machine. It will help keep illness and disease at bay. It's important to eat the recommended number of calories based on your age, height, sex and level of exercise. You can locate important apps on your phone, to help keep your body at its recommended weight.

The dieting world can consist of people depriving themselves of food that they would normally like to eat in their daily lives. Diets give you a timeline and when your diet is done you resort back to your old habits, which causes the weight to come back, plus some. Again, I emphasize unless you permanently change your eating and exercise habits these diets often lead you back to where you started. Nothing has changed and you didn't learn anything. You failed at your diet and now you have extra weight from that diet!

This is why a lifestyle change makes more sense. It must show you and teach how to make small steps to SMART change and how to make it fit your lifestyle and budget. Your goals must be reachable and you must be able to maintain it for a lifetime. According to research, only five percent of dieters can successfully keep the weight off after dieting. Most dieters regain a third of the weight they lost on a diet within one year of going off the diet. Nearly all of the weight they lost is back within three to five years. Often a person ends up heavier than before they went on their 'diet'. I hope when you decide to go on a diet that you rethink your approach and get the right support you need. STOP dieting and START living a lifestyle of happiness!

Written by Rachel Duran for The Healthy Moms Magazine and legally licensed through the Matcha publisher network. Please direct all licensing questions to legal@getmatcha.com.

Disclaimer: The LYFE Fuel blog is for informational purposes only. The information does not serve as a replacement for professional medical advice or treatment. We kindly ask you not to ignore professional medical advice because of any information you’ve read on https://lyfefuel.com/. If you have any concerns about your health, please consult a physician or appropriate health care expert.