If you try something time and time again, and repeatedly fail, chances are that you’ll either give up, or you’ll try a different approach to find what works. It’s just common sense.
But when it comes to weight loss, we don’t seem to always use our common sense. You need look only as far as the amount of advertising that’s devoted to quick diets, including photos of people fitting into one of their pant legs, and photoshopped before-and-after shots, to know that we still “swallow the kool-aid” of unreasonable expectations for our bodies.
No matter how often they don’t work, we keep falling for the promises.
None of what you see in weight-loss advertising is absolutely untrue or impossible. But it is not as easy as it seems and the advertised results are different for everyone and takes dedication. No-one said losing weight is easy but it is definitely attainable.
The Real Problem with Quick Weight Loss Solutions
It’s easy when you try to do something, and fail so often, to blame yourself. When you do, you convince yourself that you’re simply not meant to live at a healthier weight.
Here’s the Truth: when you don’t achieve the results that crash diets lead you to expect, it has relatively little to do with you. Think about it, how can anyone go from being overweight all their lives to having an athlete’s body, forever after, in just 90 days – or 30!?
While it’s not impossible, it’s not reasonable to think that most of us can do it. So, in a way, the promises made by quick diets and exercise programs actually set you up to fail. You really have little chance of getting the results you want.
The other nasty thing that “over-the-top” expectations do is they rob you of the pleasure of enjoying what you actually did achieve. In other words, while losing 5 pounds in a month is really a great achievement, if the diet said you should have lost 20, you feel like you’ve failed.
A Common Sense Revolution in Eating
When you realize that the fast route to lower weight and healthy living actually leads the wrong way, your common sense tells you to make a change and head in the right direction – eating a balanced diet and getting proper nutrition. But it doesn’t mean you’re not going to encounter more challenges along the way.
If you suddenly stop all the eating habits you are used to, regardless of how unhealthy they are, and introduce a strange new diet, chances are the adjustment will be difficult. Indeed, just like a crash diet, the expectations can be too high. Can you really go from a poor diet lacking in nutrition, to eating like a marathon runner, in one step?
What “Healthy-ish Eating” Means
We’ve written before how to help yourself succeed in losing weight. In a nutshell, the following will help:
1. Give Yourself a New Perspective on Weight Loss – It isn’t reaching a number on the weigh scale; it’s leading a new way of life
2. You Can’t Win Using Someone Else’s Plan – We’re all different. Your weight loss program needs to be tailor-made for your needs
3. Be Kind to Yourself – Don’t beat yourself up if you cave in to your ice cream craving. Celebrate every achievement; every improvement and every pound you lose.
4. Get Support From Others – Weight loss is usually a personal, lonely pursuit, but you’ll give yourself me chance for success with a little help.
Judging by all the recent publicity around “healthy-ish” eating, it sounds like the experts are jumping on our band wagon.
According to CBC.ca, healthy-ish eating is “eating food that’s at least somewhat healthy, rather than obsessing over a “perfectly” healthy diet.”
In a quote in the CBC story, Dieticians of Canada spokesperson, Andrea D’Ambrosio, nicely puts into words what many people experience when they try to lose weight, and what they really should be going through.
“They tend to be extremely hard on themselves, and they’re aiming for 100 per cent perfection,” she said. “And the reality with healthy eating is that there’s no perfection. It is basically we’re doing the best we can with the circumstances we’re in every day.”
And you can’t do the best you can, in your particular circumstances, on a diet that’s supposed to work for tens of millions of people.
You need your own weight loss plan and the nutritional consultants at your local Herbal One Centre are ready to create one for you. Here’s to your success!