Enough with diets!

Summer is just around the corner and you cannot wait for the perfect weather to put on that great little summer dress or the beautiful bathing suit you bought last year. Sadly, one quick try of said dress suggests your silhouette has thickened over the winter. Gosh, what will you do? Start one of those amazing diets advertised on the cover of every magazine, pronto! But before you do so, you should read what follows!

Although losing weight quickly can be a quick-fix, a study confirms once again that diets have very little chance of leading to sustained weight loss. In fact, researchers found that individuals lost an average of 5 to 10% of their body weight during the first six months of a diet, but in the end, the majority of them regained all the weight they had lost and more! This is what is commonly called yo-yo dieting. It is important for us to understand that losing and gaining weight repeatedly is detrimental to our health, notably making us more susceptible to cardiovascular diseases.

This being said, not getting on the flash diet bandwagon does not mean we should remain inactive before those accumulating pounds! On the contrary, maintaining a healthy body weight is associated with many health benefits, not forgetting of course feeling good about ourselves …and fitting into that perfect bathing suit! The problem is that too many people who are over their healthy body weight see diets as quick, short-term solutions. The fact is that maintaining a healthy body weight is a life-long challenge that most of us are faced with. On the menu: regular physical exercise, a healthy and well-balanced diet made up of a variety of unrefined foods, served in reasonable portions.

We must seriously re-evaluate our eating habits and truly want to make permanent changes in our lifestyle if we want to keep the weight off for good. In order to adopt healthier lifestyle habits progressively and permanently, we must learn to look at food differently. Taking the time to try new foods, new cuisines, find new ways to cook or try a new sport are all excellent examples of how we can achieve our goal.

If you do not want bathing suit anxiety to rear its ugly head every spring, say goodbye to diets and hello to the pleasure of healthy eating and physical exercise!

Happy summer!