We’ve all tried a fad diet that we ended up dropping after just a week- what’s the secret to picking a diet and making it last?
Five weeks, two days, and forty three minutes: if you haven’t heard it before, this length of time is how long it will take the average person to abandon their diet plan. Five weeks may seem like a long time at the start, but in reality a little over a month of healthy eating is not enough to lead to real changes in the quality of your lifestyle. So what is the secret to picking a diet and sticking with it?
Realistic Goal Setting
The most important part of sticking to a healthy diet plan comes before you even begin making a change in what you eat. Setting reasonable goals is essential for success, because if you don’t know where you’re trying to go then you will never get there. Each person’s dietary needs are different, so you should be wary of diets that promise one simple solution that will lead to drastic weight loss for everyone.
Your diet should reflect the way you currently eat and should involve small, progressive steps that don’t leave you feeling empty and sad about what’s on your plate. There’s no reason healthy eating shouldn’t be fun! Rather than giving up all sugar in your diet, for example, start with something smaller like giving up sugar at breakfast. Worried about how to eat five veggies in a day? Why not add one or two of them into a delicious fruit smoothie at lunch.
Expectation and Reality
The second aspect of realistic goals is realistic expectations; that is, understanding what to expect from your diet. Although we all wish it weren’t true, there is no magic diet that will help you lose 30 pounds in a month. Diets that promise change like this actually set you up to fail by promoting eating choices that are not sustainable or healthy in the long run.
Healthy diet expectations might include losing a few pounds, but beyond the weight loss aspect of dieting it is important to recognize and be proud of the little accomplishments, like celebrating eating vegetables with dinner for a whole week or saying no to that craving for donuts in the morning! By celebrating the little victories, you will feel more satisfied with your choices and less likely to feel like the diet isn’t working just because the scale won’t budge. Weight loss takes time and is in no way the best way to judge the success of a diet. Learn to recognize your progress as it happens and you’ll feel like a winner every day!
Team Up with a Friend
One of the oldest tricks in the motivation book is to not go it alone. Countless studies have shown that when you attempt a challenge with friends, you are much more likely to accomplish your goals than if you try it alone. The benefits of dieting with a friend are numerous: you can work on your health goals together, you can compete (in a friendly way) over goal completion, and you can hold each other accountable to your goals. Losing weight with someone else can feel uncomfortable at first because it involves asking for a friend’s support, but it’s important to remember the positive aspects -- fun, comradery, and of course all of the health benefits along the way!
Social pressure is a reliable way of accomplishing long-term change because while you may be able to lie to yourself about your habits, there’s no lying to a friend when they can see your choices and hold you accountable. Plus, having someone else care about your success is a great source of motivation to resist buying that bottle of soda at the grocery store. Working on your goals with a friend is a fantastic way to grow healthy together, bring you closer as friends, and keep you on track.
Self Reflection
One of the most important elements of making a lifestyle change is the ability to honestly reflect with yourself on how you feel. Similar to recognizing the daily victories, recognizing the times when you don’t feel so good about your diet is crucial to understanding why you feel this way and what you can do to make your experience more enjoyable. Keeping a diary of your meals and how you feel after each one can be a great way of reflecting with yourself on what is and isn’t working. When you look back, you will be able to figure out which elements work for you and which you should alter – if you need more cookies to stay happy with your diet, add some healthy cookies to your shopping list!
Self reflection can also be a way of showcasing your accomplishments to others, whether on social media or in person. Sharing your goals and accomplishments through writing gives you the chance to show off your progress and also adds another element of motivational pressure which can help you stay on track. When you achieve your health goals, you should definitely feel proud and sharing this pride with other people can be extremely validating and help you make progress on your next goals as well. We all can benefit from a little bit of encouragement from others!
Research, Research, Research
When starting a new diet or lifestyle change, one of the most helpful things you can do is prepare yourself with information on the change you intend to make. If your goal is to start eating more vegetables, do some research on tasty veggie-based meals ahead of time so that when hunger or cravings set in, you already have tools that can help you overcome them in a healthy way. Planning is often half of the work in implementing a change, so the more research you can do the better off you will be. There has never been an easier time to make lifestyle changes, with YouTube videos that can teach you everything from alpine skiing to how to cook fish. Watching videos about healthy cooking can be a great way to eliminate the stress of coming up with your own ideas for how to eat according to your diet goals. Seeing positive examples of the behavior you are trying to model is a major contributor to goal achievement, and there are plenty of good examples to emulate online. Do some research before you dive into your diet to save yourself stress later on.
