However, at any one time, more than 160 million Americans are on a diet. The human body is designed to protect you from extreme weight loss and starvation. Losing weight is not easy because it is a complex and multi-faceted journey.
I am a anti-diet, body positive sport dietitian. I accept all bodies and I never tell athletes that they need to lose weight in order to improve performance. Even if an athlete comes to me wanting to lose weight, I never make weight the primary focus.Before you set out on your effort to lose weight, make sure you keep the following in mind.
- You may long for a flatter stomach, leaner arms and slimmer thighs but looking a certain way or dieting your way to a smaller version of yourself will not make you happy - or happier. You can lose weight and struggle with your mental health, experience joint pain, find it difficult to run or bike up hills, not like the way that you look and lack self confidence. If you are struggling with your body image, unhappy with your weight or in pursuit of the ideal body, a different body will not give you love, acceptance, a better relationship, a more enjoyable career, a more enriching social life, fulfilment or self worth. Weight loss alone isn’t a prescription for happiness. Your weight does not determine your self-worth. Your body does not define who you are. Dieting into a new body and making yourself smaller won’t make you happier.
- In a world where unrealistic body standards are everywhere, developing a positive relationship with your body and a healthy relationship with food can be challenging. It's easy to compare yourself to others, believing that losing weight will make you healthier or achieving a specific body composition will make you a better athlete. In our body obsessed culture, which normalizes disordered eating patterns, it's easy to prioritize appearance over health. Negative self-talk is one of the biggest barriers to body acceptance. It's very difficult to want to take care of (and respect) something that you hate.
- Dieting can easily turn unhealthy and dangerous. It's easy to take a diet too far. It's not uncommon for people to make extreme changes - like not eating grains, dairy, sugars and processed foods - severely restricting calories and nutrients all in the name of weight loss. A "diet" may offer quick fixes and a black and white method of dictating what you can and can not eat but the truth is that these methods are extreme and impossible to maintain in the long term. Plus, they teach you nothing about changing your lifestyle habits which is how long lasting weight loss is achieved.
- Sustainable weight loss means making sustainable habit changes. You can take a pill, injection, supplement, purchase a meal replacement kit, fast for 8-12 hours or follow a fad diet. But if your weight loss method isn't sustainable, the weight loss you achieved will not last. Furthermore, with many extreme weight loss methods, there may be long term risks associated. It's easy to think that weight loss happens from eating less and exercising more but adopting and maintaining healthy behaviors is key to living a long and healthy life.
- Health is physical and mental. Although changing your eating behaviors may improve your physical health, your efforts to change your body should not bring on mental fatigue. Overthinking your food choices, counting and recording every calorie consumed and constantly feeling deprived are not ways to improve mental health. More so, when you are severely restricting your food, you will be fatigued, hungry and only able to focus on food.
- It is hard to feel good about yourself if you hate your body. And if you hate your body, it's hard to take care of yourself. Because weight is so closely connected to self-esteem, when you feel bad about yourself, you are more likely to overeat or under-eat. Your thoughts about food matter. Seeing food as an enemy can make it difficult for you to eat for fuel and nourishment. In our diet-crazed society, constantly eating too little, eating too much and never eating with pleasure can cause serious physical health issues. Undereating and a cycle of restriction and binging can have serious mental effects, especially when this style of eating becomes a way of life. Considering everything your body can do and everything it does for you, it's so easy to take your body for granted - especially when you are having a "bad body image day." (yes - that's a thing and it's normal). It isn’t until your body stops working properly (sickness, injury, illness) that you really begin to appreciate the greatness of your body. The body is complex and is constantly changing. Every day your body is adjusting to it’s environment and the stress placed on it. As you move through life, you will experience many wonderful changes - intellectually, spiritually and emotionally. It’s only natural and normal that your body will change along with you.
