Diet vs. Diet

So are you trapped by a diet or freed by your diet?  What’s the difference you ask?  Plenty! 

The diet trap is what one follows to lose weight.  It usually means restricting certain items from the menu.  It’s designed to be a quick fix to a long-term problem.  We eliminate things we enjoy in hopes of better health.  What often happens, however, is that we either lose interest and drop the diet or we lose the weight, drop the diet, go back to old habits and the weight returns. Restricting  ourselves, either to certain types of foods or a certain number of calories, puts our nutrition out of balance and can actually increase cravings for the things you are trying to eliminate.

Your diet is what you eat on a regular basis for health and nourishment (not a short-term fix).  If your diet consists of items that are making you ill or overweight, then it’s time to start adding new things to it.  Add new things?  But I’m already overweight, you might be thinking.  Here’s the deal: begin adding new healthy foods to your daily diet and the unhealthy foods will eventually be squeezed out and your health (and weight) will turn around. 

Simple yes. Easy, not necessarily. It will take some effort on your part.  So where do you begin?  Just choose one thing at a time to add to your daily diet.  Choose a new vegetable to have a few times a week or add extra water to your daily regime.  If you’re drinking from a water bottle all day, sodas will be pushed out.  The more vegetables you add to your meals, the less room there will be for the processed, packaged foods.  If you replace 3 breakfasts each week with a smoothie packed with fruits and green superfoods, that’s 3 days without bagels, waffles, or donuts for breakfast.

The focus on the freeing diet is adding rather than restricting.  When you add vegetables, lean meats, whole grains, and superfoods, your body will get the nourishment it needs and the cravings for refined carbs and sugars will go away.  When your plate is filled with these nourishing foods, there won’t be room for the processed food-like products.  If you change your thoughts from “I can’t have that” to “I can have it, but choose to have this instead” you are back in control.

When you begin eating clean, whole foods, your body will begin to work more efficiently.  Your immune system will get stronger. Your skin and hair will look and feel healthier.  Your energy levels will increase.  Keep adding new things.  Try new foods.  You won’t necessarily like all of them, but there are so many whole, healthy, natural foods that you can keep trying different ones and just keep the ones you like.

So turn your health around by adding new whole, real foods to your plate. Then add some more… and more. 

In the next article we will talk about what types of foods to add to your menu.  Don’t want to miss it?  Subscribe to this blog or ‘Like’ our FaceBook page!

Tags: change, choice, diet, eating, health, nutrition, real food, weight, whole food