It’s always there lurking, watching us eat our pizzas and creeping up on our thoughts about food…. the D-word. No hun, not the good D-word like dessert, the D-word as in DIET. Somehow the idea of a diet always sneaks up on me, regardless of what I’m eating. The guilty urge to try and shed some pounds is only intensified by the approaching vacation season, but I’m not going to crash diet and here are five reasons why you shouldn’t either.
1. Crash dieting NEVER successfully works. Calorie counting like a crazy person for a month is horrible. Extremely restrictive diets, such as the military diet or juice cleanses, tend to drop the pounds in the form of water weight. So even though the scale might say you lost 10 pounds, chances are you will gain it all right back.
2. Restrictive dieting is, almost immediately, setting you up for failure. The “I can’t” mentality seems to only intensify our cravings, especially during diets when you tend to cut out so many things at once. I don’t know about the rest of you, but when I crave things that I “can’t” have, I get real hangry.
3. Unreasonable goals. Lose fifteen pounds in two weeks? Lol okay, I don’t know what planet you live on but sure, go ahead and try. Five pounds in two weeks? That’s more like the ballpark people should be aiming for. I’m not saying that setting big goals is bad, but if you give yourself between now and spring break? The lack of results will not only bum you out, but discourage you from trying again in the future. I’m no expert, but if you take small steps towards a larger goal, you’ll probably be more successful.
4. You need to exercise. The, ‘lose weight just by eating like this’ type of diet has lured us all in, but the cold hard truth is that this is unrealistic. Eating alone isn’t enough. Unfortunately for the average Jane, you need to work out too. That’s where the results are, and chances are if you aren’t toning up like you hoped, it’s because the only exercise that’s being done is the walk from your dorm to Barone.
5. The word die is literally 75% of diet. However, when was the last time ANYONE was happy during a diet? All we have time to do is calorie count and complain about our diet. Take my word for it as a fellow diet complainer; nobody wants to hear about how you can only eat apples and carrots because you’re on a diet.
I personally think that having a healthy lifestyle with exercise and good nutrition should be a long-term decision. Treat your body right and take care of it! Don’t starve yourself for weeks trying to get the spring break “bikini-bod”. Make active decisions during your everyday life towards a healthier way of living and I guarantee you will have the body you desire before you know it.