Get Flexible With Food! (It Could Help You Lose Weight)

Determined to eat only healthy foods no matter what? That could be your undoing: Being too rigid with your diet could cause you to pack on the pounds. In a German study tracking 1,247 men and women, flexible eaters were more likely to maintain their weight loss three years later than rigid eaters. (Being physically active and coping well with stress also helped participants keep the weight off.) 

Are you too rigid when it comes to diet? An inflexible eater takes an all-or-nothing approach to food, as in “I can’t have any sugar” or “I won’t eat any white flour.” While these may be noble aspirations, they can set you up for failure. You can’t always control what’s served. And you’ll end up feeling so deprived that you’re likely to abandon healthy eating altogether. (That brings up the classic rigid diet construct: “I’m either on or off my diet.” Most people tend to get “off” eventually!)

Being too rigid about what you can or can’t eat may also make you miserable. A study from researchers at Louisiana State University linked it to eating disorders, mood disturbances and excessive concern with body size/shape.

How can you walk that fine line between flexibility and control? Here’s what I advise my clients:

1. Set goals that are both attainable and somewhat general. Make them tight enough that you’re likely to eat nutritiously, but not so rigid that you can’t live up to them. For instance, I try to include a fruit or vegetable in at least two of my daily meals, make nearly all my grains whole grains, very rarely have anything fried, eat very little red meat and almost never have a sugary drink.
2. Figure out what you can and can’t control—and accept it. For instance, let’s say you’re at a conference, and you’re planning to go out to dinner with colleagues to a restaurant of their choosing. You can control breakfast and lunch, so make them healthy, and then do your best at dinner.
3. Plan for moderate portions of “splurge foods.” Instead of figuring, “I’ve already broken my diet, so I’ll have four slices of this medium pizza,” decide in advance that you’ll have just two slices with a big salad.
4. Make “diet” a taboo word. You’re not on a diet—you’re on a mission to eat better; you’re improving your health; you’re nurturing yourself with nutrition foods. Find new vocabulary that describes what you’re doing in a positive manner.
   
   

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Posted in: HEATHLY EATING, WEIGHT LOSS ADVICES