QUESTION: What’s the Best Way To Stick To Your Diet?

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Excerpt: Your journey to health is not something you start and stop. Want to learn what’s the best way to stick to your diet? Let’s talk about it…

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“Your journey to a healthier weight is not a journey that you start and then give up. It is a journey that you are living every day for the rest of your life.”

Thich Nhat Hanh

Here is my problem with ‘diets‘: From what I’ve seen, people don’t start a ‘diet‘ with the intention of ‘dieting‘ for the rest of their life. There it is.

Have you ever heard somebody say, ‘I have been dieting for a decade and it feels great!’ – I haven’t.

And if they aren’t planning on following a diet for life then quitting the diet isn’t a matter of ‘if‘ but a matter of ‘when‘—which implies that old ways will be re-adopted and it will eventually be as if nothing was even done in the first place!

From my experience, people who find long term success aren’t people who ‘diet‘ but rather, are people who make lifestyle changes to their diet.  

The key is not to make drastic changes all at once that are to be followed for life, but rather to make a series of small changes that can be built on over the course of your life. The power comes from the compounding effect.

If you had to build a house from scratch, by yourself, would you try to build the entire thing in one day? Of course not!  That would be ridiculous.

Then why do so many people try to build their bodies and their health in a day? Try to do too much too fast and you’ll burn out. Do too little and you won’t see results.  Challenge yourself in a way that is outside of your comfort zone but within your means.

Add one small healthy lifestyle change, give it your exclusive focus and attention and stay with it until it becomes a habit (30 days is usually good)—then repeat!

The most important piece to remember along your journey, that I think Thich Nhat Hanh is speaking to in the quote above is the idea that you can never really ‘give-up‘ or ‘quit‘.  Why?  Because you’re going to eat food again!  We can’t survive without it.

So the lesson then, is to try, try, then try again.  Commit to small changes and follow through.  If you don’t, then guess what?  You now have new information to pull from (about yourself) that you can use to try again better next time.  Some examples:

1)  Maybe you set the goal of not drinking pop/soda anymore — After a few weeks of successfully avoiding it, you find yourself in a restaurant with a large drink menu on a hot and sunny day – and you cave in.  The lesson in the mindset is to not say, ‘That’s it! I’m a failure! I guess I should just stop trying to avoid pop/soda all together and just drink it all the time again‘ but rather say, ‘That’s interesting… I caved in.  Maybe I should find another drink that really quenches my thirst on hot, sunny days for the next time that I’m in this situation.‘  This way you teach yourself how to go into trigger situations with a plan.

2)  Or Maybe you focus on preparing more of your own meals so that you don’t have to rely on processed and pre-packaged — After a week or two of trying out some new recipes for dinner, you find yourself losing motivation and momentum because cooking after a long day at work is tiring.  Once again, instead of ditching your new attempt all together and going back to your old ways – think about what you learned.  Cooking after a long day is tiring.  So, why not try cooking a few days worth of meals on a Sunday and a Wednesday?  Get a few days done in one day so that the majority of the days you don’t have to do it!

3)  Or maybe you want to try cutting out some calories by switching from drinking coffee with cream and sugar to drinking coffee black — At first it tastes really bitter and tough – but maybe that’s because you’ve been drinking it that way for a long time – so you decide to give it some more time.  Let’s say that even after drinking your coffee black for a month, you still can’t get used to the taste and decide that you really prefer it with cream and sugar.  Well, you’ve learned that double-double coffees are a priority to you, but – in order to continue your quest for a healthier you – tell yourself that in order to add in that sugar and cream to your coffee you have to take it out of your diet somewhere else!  Then try again.

Once again, these actionable ideas are things that you want to make into life-long habits.  If you are not willing to adopt a change to your diet for the rest of your life—then don’t adopt it.  Think marathon, not sprint.  You are going to face challenges and obstacles along the way.  Be prepared.  Remain flexible in your approach.  Accept the process, think long-term, and stay steady moving forward every day.  Consider this… your new diet.

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