Don't diet

Possibly the biggest thing I have learned is diets don't work.  If you tell yourself that your diet starts tomorrow, you binge today.  If you tell yourself that there are foods you can't eat, within a week you will be craving them, eat them and then feel bad for doing it.  This last bit is even more likely to happen if, like me, you're an emotional eater.

Diets don't teach the good habits you need to live a healthy life.  Cutting out complete groups of food?  Yeah, great idea.  If we're not supposed to eat something, I'm pretty sure it should be toxic.  The people I know who have always been a healthy weight don't cut whole food groups from their diet.  When I've been on diets, particularly the super crazy ones that cut out whole food groups, like the south beach diet, I've lost a stone in a week.  Then got fed up of my food choices being restricted and given up.  Cue putting on all the weight again, plus some extra for good measure.   

The other thing about diets is that we tend to think of them in terms of something that we do and then stop.  They're a short term fix, or at best a medium one.  We expect them to end and then we can go back to being the way we were before.  I've learned that's just not possible.  If the way you were eating before made you fat, why should that change if you're not fat any more?  It won't.  Eating too much of the wrong things, or just eating too much in general will make you gain weight again.

So, if you really want to lose weight and be healthy for the rest of your life, give up diets.  If you're thinking about starting a diet, don't do it!  If you're on one, give it up.  Trust me, it's the first step towards being healthy for life.