For quite sometime now, I have been saying in my blog that it is important to make your diet plan your lifestyle. I have said in the past that a diet becomes your lifestyle when the diet becomes a natural way of life as you go about your daily routine. I had a light bulb moment recently as I thought, yes, the thing to do to make your diet your lifestyle, but how does one go about doing that? Yes, you have to follow a weight loss plan that works for you, but as I have said before, your feelings, emotions and thinking need to be on board as well.
Give yourself a big pat on the back as you attempt to make a lifestyle change. Changing so many things about your life, what you have always known, how you eat, prepare food, exercise.... is huge. With the right thinking and planning it out; however, "you can do this thing" (You can do this thing is my own person mantra that I say to my self all the time since day one of starting the diet plan I am on!!!)
How can we mentally and emotionally change? In the world of therapeutic interventions, there is a type of therapy called Cognitive Behavioral Therapy. A type of "talk therapy" that is based on the theory that our ways of doing things are related to the interaction of thoughts, behaviors, and emotions. In Cognitive Behavioral Therapy, the therapist and patient will work on identifying and directly changing thoughts and behaviors that may be maintaining undesirable habits.
Basically, this means that if we change our thinking about something, we can change our ways, specifically, our not so good habits. So, my thinking here is that if we change the way we think and feel about being on a diet, we can change our habits and that can become a long term lifestyle change for better health and well-being.
What are ways we can change our thinking about going on , being on, and maintaining a diet plan? Here are some pointers on how to change the way we think about dieting.
-Convince yourself that you can be successful on your weight loss plan. Remove fears of failure and replace that emotion with the thoughts of how great you will feel when you start to see and feel real results.
-Switch from thinking about resistance and deprivation, the things we cannot have, to all the good things we can have on our diet.
-Change old food associations, habits, customs and what I call what we have been "rooted" in. For example, here in America, we are so used to going to the diner and having eggs, toast and potatoes for breakfast, or a burger and fries for lunch or dinner. Now, I have changed my old food associations to include an omelet without the potatoes and burger and salad for lunch or dinner. And I have no problem in asking for substitutions in a restaurant. This is my thinking that has changed, which have changed my habits, which has made my diet my lifestyle. I could not even fathom going back to my old ways of eating and my old, ingrained food associations.
-Educate yourself about your diet plan. Don't just sort of know it; really know it. What is the plan? What are the steps involved? What is the right approach? For many of us, myself included, thinking out, organizing and planning out a weight loss and exercise regime is a new way of doing things.
-Find new ways to cope. This can include talking to others in a support group, seeking out the advice of a nutritional counselor, and not being afraid to tell people (family, friends or others) you are dieting and you follow a certain plan for your health.
Creatively changing the way you think about dieting is creating a habit. You may not want to brush your teeth every night, but you do it anyway because you always do it right before bed; it's a habit. You can do the same thing with your weigh loss goals. When your diet becomes your lifestyle, it becomes easy, very satisfying and your natural way of going about your life.
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