Focus On Weight Loss Success: Restore The Balance
I believe that our current obsession with “healthy eating” is unhealthy.
I also believe it’s the reason so many people have trouble losing weight and keeping it off.
Here’s why:
A Truly Healthy Lifestyle Is About Balance
When you gain too much weight, you’re overeating. When you become obese, you’re probably eating or thinking about food almost all the time.
It can affect your relationships with other people, your activities, and your physical and emotional health.
Your life is out of balance because food has become too big a part of it.
Enter Healthy Eating
In theory, it’s the way to go. Lose weight with nutritious foods only.
But one of two things usually happens instead:
1. You Don’t Know Where To Begin
You’re bombarded with so much information about health and nutrition that you become overwhelmed. Afraid you’ll make a mistake, you give up on weight loss altogether.
The solution is simple.
Focus on calories or portion control. Just start losing the weight and worry about the rest later.
2. You Exchange One Obsession For Another
Instead of eating all the time, you study food and fitness constantly.
You feel like you’ve become a registered dietician and/or a personal trainer. You analyze every morsel of food for the “correct” amount of protein, carbs, sodium, sugar, fat, etc.
You construct related charts and graphs. You study food labels for hours.
You constantly give unsolicited advice or criticism about “healthy eating” to the people around you.
Their eyes glaze over when you talk about it or they start to avoid you.
You don’t know how you’d fill the void if you didn’t spend so much time on weight loss and nutrition. Or you have trouble fitting your diet into your life because it takes so much of your time.
Your New Lifestyle May Be Even Riskier Than Your Old One
Because people who exchange one obsession for another often become yo-yo dieters.
You may lose the weight. But once you get there, your life is still out of balance. You don’t know how to live without the diet.
I know that some people manage to keep their weight off with this approach. But most don’t.
Because at some point, you need to lead your life free of obsession.
You Need To Restore The Balance And Find Other Activities
It’s no different than the alcoholic whose life revolves around drinking or the workaholic who has nothing without work.
You may delude yourself that your obsession is healthy. But in my opinion, healthy eating is more than what you put into your mouth.
It’s your approach to eating. And how it fits into an overall healthy lifestyle.
This is the fifth article in the series, “Focus On Weight Loss Success,” from ILoveToCheatDiet.com.
Technorati Tags: healthy eating, nutrition, diet, dieting, lose weight, weight loss, weight loss success, overeating, focus on weight loss success
April 16th, 2007 at 1:13 pm
I know some people who do the chart thing. Wow, get a life.
April 16th, 2007 at 2:09 pm
I think I know what you mean about going to extremes. That makes healthy unhealthy.
April 16th, 2007 at 3:58 pm
Becoming too extreme can also turn some people into anorexics.
April 16th, 2007 at 4:21 pm
Calories, baby, calories. That’s what weight loss is all about.
April 16th, 2007 at 4:27 pm
I used to be one of the people who was so overwhelmed by the all the information out there about healthy eating that I just kept putting off losing the weight. I wish someone had given me that advice a long time ago to just focus on losing the weight and worry about the healthy eating later. It’s better to get started than to do nothing at all.
April 16th, 2007 at 4:45 pm
Thanks for taking the guilt away from those of us who don’t spend every minute of the day checking food labels. I think it’s important to eat healthy but within reason. I’ve never thought about how much of an obsession it’s become for some people or how it can take over your life like alcoholism and workaholism. I wonder if healthaholics are in denial about what they do, too.
April 16th, 2007 at 6:29 pm
I thought you were off your rocker when I first started reading, but then I saw what you were saying. Too much of a good thing is bad.
April 16th, 2007 at 7:52 pm
It’s hard to let go of something that’s been a part of your life for a long time even if it is an obsession. Maybe that’s why so overweight people sometimes swap an junk food eating obsession for a healthy eating obsession.
April 16th, 2007 at 9:25 pm
Oh I guilty of the extremes - I loved my charts! For me, creating a balance was always so hard. Its like I needed to be an extremist in order to see results. I’m slowing trying to get out of that but it is a very easy trap to fall into. I am also guilty of swaping obsessions .. but its so easy now to become obsessed with “healthy eating” - its everywhere - tv, newspapers, internet — all telling you what is healthy and what is bad. Thank you so much for the post and the reminder that balance and moderation are actually “healthy eating”.
April 16th, 2007 at 11:00 pm
I let healthy eating take over my life for a while with charts and all the rest. Then a friend pointed out to me that I was spending all this time analyzing stuff but I wasn’t making any real progress with losing weight. I guess I fell in love with the process and it made me feel as though I was doing better than I actually was. I think healthy eating is good, but like Deb said in her comment, we need to remind ourselves that balance and moderation are really the keys to “healthy eating”.