5 Reasons It’s Hard To Follow A Diet
5 Reasons It’s Hard To Follow A Diet
There’s no question that trying to stick to a diet takes work. Once you’ve made the decision to take charge of your weight, you’ve got to break away from your usual routine.
Instead of days of mindless eating and nights spent loafing on the couch, now you’ve got to think about planning and cooking your meals. Not to mention counting your calories and carving out time for exercise.
1. Your expectations aren’t realistic
Once you’ve made the decision to “go on a diet,” you may have high expectations for your weight loss—especially if you find yourself making a lot of sacrifices.
But if you expect to lose more than you can safely achieve over a period of time, you’re just setting yourself up for failure. And if you expect that you’re going to follow your new diet to the letter, you’ll probably abandon the whole thing as soon as you make a slip and cheat.
2. You eat for reasons other than hunger
Emotional eaters turn to food when they’re feeling depressed, angry, or stressed. If they start on a diet and deprive themselves of the emotional comfort of food, you can imagine what happens.
They just get more depressed, angry, and stressed. If you find yourself eating when you’re not really physically hungry, you’ll want to work on finding other ways to make yourself feel better.
3. You don’t change your environment
Your environment has a big effect on your eating. Think about what you keep in your refrigerator, freezer, and cupboards at home, the snacks you have stashed on your desk, and the burger places you pass on your commute every day. There are temptations all around you, and if you don’t take charge of your environment, it’s just too easy to give in.
4. You don’t eat regular meals and snacks
Too often, people think the quickest way to weight loss is to just eat as little as possible. So, they skip meals and snacks, which leaves them hungry, tired, and cranky.
Then they crave sugar and caffeine to get them through the day. Skipping meals and snacks usually doesn’t help you lose weight, because you’re likely to just eat more at your next meal.
5. It doesn’t fit your lifestyle
I’ve said it before, but it’s worth repeating: When you say you’re going “on a diet” it implies that, at some point, you’ll be going “off your diet.”
This often happens when people try to adopt a diet plan that just doesn’t fit with their lifestyle. Maybe it calls for a lot of food preparation and you just don’t like to cook, or you don’t have time. Maybe there are too many restrictions. So, you quickly get bored, or you can’t find anything you can eat when you go out with friends or family.