Dieting vs lifestyle changes. Sounds a bit different, right? If you’re someone who’s getting started on their fitness journey, then you might be thinking, “Isn’t dieting one of the biggest parts of lifestyle change?”.
To break the truth to you, it’s not! Dieting is just “a phase” to achieve some short-term goal. To those, who have already tried and tested, know the actual truth. You have to have some major lifestyle changes to lose and maintain that lost weight.
Millions of companies are running just on the diet food plans they provide. A statistic said that around 45 million Americans go on a diet per year, crazy right? This makes a net worth of around $33 billion every year spent solely on diet food by them. Despite all these big numbers and every other American getting into dieting, two-third of the total Americans are still obese.
The majority of people go on diets to lose weight. They want to lose weight to have higher self-esteem. But this shouldn’t be the one sole reason to lose weight. You must lose weight to have a healthier self. Being overweight can cause some of the greatest diseases like diabetes, high cholesterol, high blood pressure, arthritis, etc.
Diet and its significance
Dieting is something which everybody must have tried in their life to lose weight. Be it for the upcoming wedding season or fitting into your favorite old dress. Even you know why dieting is the first thing that comes into everybody’s mind for losing weight fastly. It’s because you can achieve things in a short period. Your body experiences a sudden shift in your quality and frequency of having food and that’s why you lose weight fastly. But do you know the effect of this is also short-term? Yes, you will regain the weight you lost within a few days of getting back on your diet, that too with low metabolism.
When you want to or try to make better food choices, you shouldn’t be regretting not having that chocolate. Of course, you will be tempted to be a normal human being. But you must know that it’s a path you’ve chosen for a healthier version of yourself. While dieting, you wait for things to get over so that you can have every other thing you want. No matter how unhealthy it is. When you have these things of your own will and make some real changes to your eating habits, then it’s called an overall lifestyle change. Let’s see how it is.
Lifestyle changes and how they can make you a better person
When you talk about lifestyle changes, you are talking about some long-term goals. Though, lifestyle changes don’t happen overnight. You have to develop and get those activities in your lifestyle as regular habits. Be it walking or doing yoga every morning, or not having water just after food. It might take longer or even shorter time for some, depending upon the person, right. But eventually, everyone gets there.
Lifestyle changes stay with you forever, because you chose them too. As you do it, with your own will, you don’t treat it like some goal to be accomplished within a few weeks or even months. Lifestyle changes directly focus on the bigger future, the later life of yours after a few years. When everybody develops their taste for every other worst possible thing, you choose the one that you know would benefit you after a few years.
When you put great effort into something, you get greater results too. you must have heard that “your health is your greatest asset”, the biggest investment. When you invest your time and yourself for your health, you just get more years to enjoy and live. Many of the people who have done dieting in the past have regretted having that guilt to always look up for cheat days. But when they have all these changes in their lifestyle, they can live guilt-free.
In a healthy lifestyle change, you can
- Lose and maintain a significant weight with healthy, multigrain food.
- You become more disciplined
- You gain muscle weight and lose the extra few pounds.
The difference between diet and overall lifestyle changes
During the diet, you just want to get things done. That means, you just want to lose weight, be it hard or easy either works for you. Your goal is to have that particular number on the weighing scale but when you focus on a complete lifestyle change, you become kinder to yourself. That number no longer holds the priority. You Focus more on enjoying each meal, the activity you do. You become mentally strong to feel less food served now and then.
Most of the research has stated that people are likely to regain every point they lose during a fad diet, crash diet. So, if you want to lose weight and remain in that, you have to make some healthy lifestyle changes like:
Starting slow and small:
Lifestyle changes do sound very drastically changing your whole self. But it is in fact, very hard to do so. Especially when you have many other things on your plate. Set realistic goals and small ones. Not letting the streak break at least for a week can be a good head start!
More, the merrier:
When you collectively do something, it develops a feeling of getting things done. Because we are responsible for ourselves and even for others in that scenario. Get someone to have a new, healthier lifestyle altogether. No matter how distant or close he/she is from you. Just hanging someone to push you on hard days or remind you why you started what you started and pat your back on every little accomplishment will be more than enough.
Tell your close ones about your journey and the path where you’re going on. Their support will boost a lot of your moral support. If you don’t know or have the planning on things to get started, then you must consult an expert to guide you for a healthier life.
