Stop calling it a diet

When people learn about my weight loss, the same question is always asked – what kind of diet are you on?

None! That’s right. None!

I’m not on a diet, I changed my lifestyle.

When I started this process last year, it took a while to sink in that the reason every other attempt at losing weight had failed before was because I was on a “diet.” People quit diets every day. They cheat on diets. They change diets. It’s just a recipe for disaster.

If you want to truly lose weight, get fit, get toned, get in shape, get healthy or whatever you want to do – you need to stop finding a new “diet” and change your lifestyle.

Now, this doesn’t happen all at once. In fact, my family lifestyle is constantly evolving as I continue to grow and learn more about health, nutrition and exercise. It’s an ever-evolving process that honestly may never end. But I’m sticking to it and quite frankly – I love it!

When you’re ready to change your lifestyle, remember that it doesn’t happen overnight. You didn’t gain 30, 50 or 100 pounds in the matter of days – it took years. The same can be said for changing your lifestyle because it also won’t happen overnight.

A very wise nutritionist I met with gave me some of the best advice – focus on the little goals because they’ll help you reach the big ones.  We met weekly in the beginning and at every meeting she challenged me to change one thing each week.

Some of my goals during the months included:

• Cutting back to three desserts a week (from a nightly ritual).
• Cutting back on the grains and pastas (we had them way too frequently).
• Decreasing the amount of sodium in one day to 1500. This is very difficult, but the process certainly made me more aware of what I was eating.
• Cutting back to two desserts a week.
• Cut back eating out to no more than two times a week, then one.

The list goes on and it hasn’t stopped. Every week I try to pick something to improve from the following week. I’ve swapped one meal to go vegetarian to get my family to eat more vegetables. I went an entire week without ice cream in any form (that was tough).

These little changes add up to one big lifestyle change. If you pick one change a week to focus on – maybe it’s eating one meal together as family, then build on that goal. It will help you change your lifestyle and stop focusing on a diet. Keep a list of your changes and look back on them in a month, or three months and see how far you’ve come.

One of the other major differences between diets and a lifestyle change is restrictions – or in my case the lack thereof.

You hear about restrictions in diets so often. You can’t eat grains. No sugar. No salt. Only meat. Only this .. that… stand on your head to eat.. you know the stories I’m talking about. In my lifestyle, nothing is “restricted” because I make the rules according to how my body reacts, my family and my loves.

We’ve all heard the phrase “everything in moderation” and that’s entirely true. When you change your lifestyle, you don’t have to give up everything you love – you just might cut back on them significantly. Instead of that entire box of Oreos… try having one serving! Maybe instead of nightly ice cream, you only have it once. It’s small changes that make a big difference.

The best part of making a lifestyle change though is that you learn how to be happy and healthy. Today, I’m confident in eating out with friends at a restaurant, knowing approximately how many calories, carbs, etc are in my food and truly knowing how to make the right choices no matter what circumstances.

If you’re reading this wondering how to get started, I encourage you to take a moment and think of one goal that would make you happy. Eat one meal at home a week, cut out the soda, whatever would be an improvement. You can do it if you believe you can!

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