4 Reasons Why Short Term Diet Don’t Work
Busy schedules and the constant need to be on the call, keeping up with the fast-paced world has resulted in searching for easy and quick escapes when it comes to taking care of our body. Each week, an array of trends, detox, diets and plans flood the internet claiming to be the most effective one with quick results. Such short-term diets are extremely hard to follow and even when a person manages to follow such a plan, the results are short-lived and does not benefit the person in the longer run. Diets which guarantee quick results can also prove to be unhealthy and can interfere with the person’s competence, mood and other such factors in a major way. Certain pivotal flaws in short-term diets can be recorded as follows:
Diets Suck Away The Joy of Eating
Eating is not just about consuming food for nourishment but, it is also about pleasuring the palate, getting the feeling of satisfaction and fulfillment not only at the hunger level but at a more personal level and it is about enjoying food. Food is an integral part of the family traditions, the culture a person is raised in. The memories of our mother’s dishes we savour in childhood stay with us throughout our lifetime, the thanksgiving feast or eating biryani at Eid with our family brings happiness and love into our lives. The whole process of cooking with loved ones, dining with family and enjoying the food together should feel rewarding after the whole day of working but diets are quick to kill the thrill. Diets can prove to be harsh, especially when it doesn’t allow any flexibility or autonomy to the individual. Such diets make process of cooking like a chore, which eventually eliminates the pleasure of eating as well. The satisfaction one receives evaporates and one might either feel the urge to eat even more than before or just quit eating at all. Such extreme poles of hunger grievously interfere with the emotional levels of the individual, making their whole life seem revolving around food impacting other spheres such as work, family as they get neglected.
The Month Mentality
The plans designed are usually a month or a few months long, guaranteeing quick and efficient results. What shall a person do if he/she is not able to achieve the big goal after those 30 days? Shall the person stop following the diet and look for a new one? Is the person supposed to give up the diet and eat whatever they want after the fixed period is over? Such questions often baffle people as what shall they do after the diet is over? As the routines prescribed in such diets are extremely hard to imbibe permanently in the lifestyle, one should seek after effective and sustainable changes in the routine.
Banned Food
Certain foods or food groups are often marked as banned from your palate in diets. Therefore, avoiding the off-limit food everywhere you go becomes the sole purpose of your existence. Avoiding social gatherings as you might get offered such food becomes a thing and diets start to govern your social life. Giving your diet such power only plays with your head, some might start to crave the food even more and eventually feel guilty for eating. Craving sometimes also results in over-indulging and the whole will and effort went into maintain the diet goes into “waste” and you start to make promises to yourself that you’ll maintain a perfect diet from tomorrow. Many don’t realize that it isn’t about banning food you love but controlling the urge to over-indulge.
Unrealistic rules and goals
Short term diets ask you to change your whole lifestyle overnight. Making a dozen changes in what you eat, your eating pattern and changes like including several exercising patterns in your daily routine feels overwhelming and extremely hard. This is one reason why one gives up pretty early in such diets. Subtle and sustainable changes, one or two at a time seems achievable and easy to maintain in contrast to a dozen changes overnight. Quick diets might give results to an extent but the results are fast to bounce back as well as soon as the person fails to fulfill unrealistic goals.
Instead Try This!
Transforming short-term goals into a long-term lifestyle which allow controlled and measured positive changes in your daily lives are absolutely essential. Go for sustainable outcomes which stay with you rather than quick results which also might cause negative impact on your life.
Elevate the whole food experience
Cooking with your loved ones can be an excellent time to bond over food, trying new recipes and mixing old traditional recipes with your modern alternatives. Exploring new recipes together can include the missing enthusiasm and increase the will to eat of your family members. Dining together, discussing your day and revisiting old memories doesn’t only bind the family even stronger but the urge to eat also increases when one eats with others as compared to eating solitarily. Ditch your phones and televisions and try to eat with your loved ones together and celebrate eating!
Realistic rules and goals
Trendy diets and detoxes may seem efficient on the surface yet they are extremely hard to follow in reality and provide short-lived results. Following diets which focus on easy and healthy home-made food shall be your goal as they are easy to sustain and provide long-term results. E.g. Simple to find vegetables and fruits which are rich in fiber as opposed to packaged food and juices should be preferred. Such subtle changes in your lifestyle will prove to make you feel healthier, more active and fit than before for a longer period of time. Achievable tiny goals set by yourself are more effective than big unrealistic goals set by another person for you. Integration of tiny steps in your life, complete assimilation is important. Doing everything at once shouldn’t be your approach, one goal at a time helps achieve goals faster and they stay with you for a longer period of time. A solid foundation is necessary to build a strong lifestyle.
Avoid elimination of foods
Eliminating certain foods or food groups from your diet just because trendy diets on social media are advising you to is not a wise decision. A controlled consumption of whatever a person can or likes to eat, with respect to individual allergies and conditions must be practiced. Avoiding food basically means you are depriving yourself of particular nutrients, taste and satisfaction which that food can provide, therefore one shall consume if he/she wants. Deliberate elimination of meals, avoiding meals or consuming minimum amount of food may lead to a yo-yo diet. Yo-yo diet refers to a practice where one consumes the bare minimum to lose weight, and soon gains weight (even more than before) as he/she starts to eat a normal level again. Yo-yo diets are extremely harmful to the body as well as the emotional and psychological levels of an individual are triggered. A continuous effort which doesn’t call for radical measures is the safest approach to lead a healthy life.
Adding such solutions to one’s life, imbibing such practices may seem challenging at first but to access the life-long treasure of health and fitness, it is absolutely necessary to reflect on the above-mentioned solutions. Make sure to notice that it isn’t just about losing weight to fit the criteria of “beauty” set by your social media platform, but it’s a matter about cherishing life with a healthy mind, body and soul!
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