Diet, diet, diet... I guess this four simple words gain quite a big boom in attention this past 70 years. Along with the rising of modern living, and physical aesthetic trends, the word has become one of the most thinkable word throughout the world.
For a number of variation of reason like loosing weight, get in shape, change shape, get healthier, reverse medical condition, psychological issue, even love life. People has been dug here and there to find the perfect answer for what really works.
The culprit of this life long search is two words: Confusing Principle. There is a principle in the diet aspect among several others, which named (obviously) by what it cause us, to confuse.
This principle explain that in accordance to diet (and exercise) there is No one strategy fits all (and No once work will always work - this one is my own words). The logic is because every single individual is different, and every individual's condition changes from time to time.
Look at the person next to you and you will instantly see your differences, from the outer appearance, also the inner appearance. Even if you are an identical twins.
The body shape uniquely different, it works differently, health condition is different, not to mention sleep pattern, eating pattern, activity pattern, hormonal, etc.
It is impossible to find 2 identical individual, so why do we seek for identical answer to fix unidentical problem?
If you are strugling with your diet, then you might want to go through these aspects that might be the cause:
1. You Fall In Diet Fads
You see one celebrity or a friend lost weight by following some diet, you look through about it on the internet, then you found out there are more people has been succeded with the diet, plus it looks doable, so you feel like you might found the right one.
(Please, you should also do some research for every 1 of those people succeded, how many has failed?).
And you start to think:
hey, diet is about food and eat, we do that couple of times every day since we were born, it shouldn't do any harm.
Well, what we eat determine how our body will work (and shape) eventually.
Just like a car, its system needs to be fueled by the right type of gas for its engine, imagine what will happen to your car if you fuel it with wrong kind of gas? Yes, troubled and eventually broken down.
Same thing will happen to our body, if we fuel with wrong kind of foods, it will not work as good as it should, and eventually it will be broken down.
So how do we know what food to chose?
There are some complicated considerations to determine what the right food to eat from how the body oxidize (read: convert) macro nutrients to energy, how the autonomous nervous system regulate the metabolism, blood type, levels of body's acid base balance, lymphatic system, and many other; but to be less rocket science, i would sugest just to notice how your body feels after every meal.
Learn to notice every 2 or 3 hours after meals to when you are waking up in the next morning, if your body feels tired, bloated, lazy, sleepy, over heated, heavy, or craving for something, brain fog, stressed, it might means you were fueled with wrong kind of foods.
In the other hand, if you feel energize, light, clear, fresh, happy, then it should be the right fuel for you.
I recomend to take note, so over time you will have a good library of the right foods for you.
2. Expecting Result Too Soon
Succeeded on the first day of diet makes you want jump on the scale right away the next day.
Some people might have lose some pounds, but most people dont. Even if they do, it was not because you lose the fat you wanted to lose, but more of the body water fluctuation resulted from the change of habit you made the day before, and it can fluctuate back up the same way.
But what if you want to track your result everyday?
It is completely okay if you want to go on scale every day, as long as you understand this concept, and prepared your mentality towards this fluctuation.
Otherwise it (the fluctuation) will smash your determination psychologically, then it will stressed you out too much.
Once you get stressed out, it will be harder for the body to lose weight as it messes up with your hormonal ballance since stress will promote the release of the hormone cortisol which will effect other hormones like thyroid, progesterone, oestrogen, leptin, and many other, creating hormonal imbalances.
Just enjoy your diet as it is a way for your body to feel better, embrace every progress even it is just a tiny bit.
Treat it as a journey for you and your body in learning something new and better. You will have people notice a better version of your body before you know it.
3. Doing It Too Extreem
The word diet almost always associated with strugle & unpleasantness, so you tend to find the fastest way to get things done and achieve your goal.
For that some people just want to cut off everything and just eat almost nothing. Yes you might going to lose some for the first couple of weeks because of the deprivation, but with that you are degrading your metabolism, and putting your organs in danger.
It will only a matter of time that you (and your body) will give up and start to over absorb everything. Imagine you are squeezing the water off a wet sponge inside a bucket of water, once you let go it will absorbed the water back up fast.
Cut off the bad stuff and replace it with good stuff gradually. Start with cutting off the biggest threat like fried food.
Cutting off fried food will do enough effect to your health and result. Then proceed with other threat. Make commitment to your healthier self, CONSISTENCY is key.
4. Not Incoorperating Physical Activity
Your body were designed to move. The way your body work is for as efficient as possible by improving what oftenly used (systems, organs, & body parts) and reducing what less used.
The more you move your body the more it will fasten your metabolisme, the more complexity in activity the more complex your body will improve its ability to perform.
Gradually increase your physical activity (don't forget to keep track) will accelerate your result.
5. Not Having Quality Rest
Good diet, activity, and rest quality are the combination of a successful program for getting healthier.
They need to be maintained in balance. The diet is what you fuel the body, the activity is what you do to iniciate the body's adaptation for the better in quality, the rest is what you do for the body to recover and build your body to a better quality.
Maintain the quality of diet, activity, rest (sleep) will assure your achivement of the program.
Be healthier - Be happier
Image : pixabay.com