By
Terri Main
I
overheard someone saying the other day, "Such
and such is a great diet. When I need to lose
weight I go on it and can drop the pounds
in a few weeks." Now, if this sound reasonable
to you or you wish I could send you the name
of the diet, then you might be a Roller Coaster
Dieter.
A
Roller Coaster Dieter is someone who can lose
the weight. After all, they've done it several
times already this year. The problem is that
the weight doesn't stay off. What happens
is that you notice that you have gained a
bunch of weight, then you go on a diet and
lose what you need to lose, congratulate yourself,
buy some new clothes and then go back to your
"normal" life. A few months later,
you can't wear the new clothes you bought
because you put back on the weight.
You
are not alone. It is estimated that 95 percent
of all people who lose weight gain it back.
The problem is that constant gaining and losing
of weight is actually worse on your health
than being moderately overweight.
So,
how do we get off the roller coaster? Well,
first forget about "diets." Forget
about shakes and eating grapefruit every day
for two weeks. Forget about modified fasts,
eating one meal a day or following some very
rigid diet plan put out by someone with some
poorly authenticated medical degree.
"Diets"
are temporary by their very nature. You can
only eat grapefruit for so long. You can only
survive on one meal a day for so long. You
can only avoid fat or sugar or carbs for so
long. Secondly, you need to think in terms
of lifelong fitness patterns and not temporary
quick fixes offered by diets.
In
small steps change your fitness life style.
Add a thirty minute walk to your routine.
Order salad instead of fries with your burger.
Eat just 100 calories a day less than you
did last week. Then add to those changes until
they become part of your lifestyle.
Third,
add exercise. Dependency on diet alone, especially
if you are over 30, will lead to increasing
levels of deprivation as your metabolism slows
down with age. Rev up that metabolism with
exercise so you can have an OCCASIONAL treat
without it totally undoing all the good you've
done.
Finally,
monitor your weight. Once you've lost the
weight, don't expect it to stay off on its
own. Keep an eye on the scale and if your
weight starts to edge up, pull out your journal
and start evaluating how your lifestyle has
changed to allow the weight gain and correct
it when it's just a few pounds instead of
panicking when you've gained all the weight
back.
Roller
Coasters at the amusement park may be fun,
but not when it comes to weight.
Copyright
2003. Terri Main is a college professor with
degrees in communication and psychology and
it the webmaster of Get
Real! A Sensible Approach to Weight Loss.
She also publishes a daily diet tip.
