Why your diet is NOT working…and probably NEVER will.
January is National Dieting Month, and just about everyone has made some sort of post-holiday resolution to lose weight by cutting calories. Every year brings a new diet and a new hope that this just might be ‘the one’ to restore our health and youthful contours. But no matter how many celebrity-sponsored diets and enticing marketing claims are made, the results are almost always short-lived and disappointing.
Let’s look at what science has proven so that we find some realistic options that can truly benefit our overall health and well-being.
- Diets don’t work! They never will because calorie restriction is difficult to maintain long-term, and our bodies ‘learn’ to adjust and often rebound with later weight again.
- Weight loss alone doesn’t necessarily make you healthier. Although you may lose weight temporarily by restricting calories and starving yourself, your overall health requires regular exercise, reduced stress, adequate sleep and emotional well-being for you to be truly healthy.
- Focusing on dieting will distract your focus from the more important fundamentals of a sustainable, healthy and balanced lifestyle. As always, it’s the big picture that matters!
- Severe Calorie Restriction can lead to mood disorders and binge eating. More importantly, significant calorie reduction can rarely be maintained.
So what can we overweight and frustrated adults do?
Clinical research and nutritional research studies reveal that the real secret to healthy and long-term weight loss lies is in making a sustainable and comprehensive lifestyle change, not in the passing fads of calorie counting.
There are no effective, magic potions, celebrity ‘secrets’ or newly discovered gimmicks that will provide safe and healthy weight loss. What really CAN work is making a personal commitment to a balanced and healthy lifestyle, emphasize a nutritious more plant-based diet, control portion sizes, learn to manage your stress, prioritize adequate sleep and do more of what makes you happy!
At evolv Plastic Surgery and Medical Aesthetics, we believe in long-term and comprehensive aesthetic programs that improve quality of life and happiness. We care about all of our patients’ overall health. We hope to inspire everyone to make healthier choices and improve their lifestyle and well-being through education, research and by providing safe and proven products, services and treatment.
So we invite and encourage everyone to focus on wellness, not weight. Remember ‘weight’ is just a number, like ‘age,’ and not really as important as overall wellness and emotional well-being. By learning and embracing better habits and lifestyle, respecting yourself and cultivating an attitude of thankfulness and gratitude, life can be a lot more fun as well as healthy. After all, life is just too short to drink bad wine!
Signed,
Dr. Frank Barone M.D., FACS