Diets Work?
I have been known to say, “All diets work.” Because I believe they do.
From the craziest crash diet, to the most sophisticated calorie counting, they all work when followed correctly.
I should know, right?
But I did go on to read the study anyway.
The bottom line was that diets don’t work over time.
Over the long run.
And…well…hmmm???
I’ve been at goal for roughly three years now.
And didn’t I get here by…dieting?
I thought about that for a long time.
Then I remembered a conversation from long ago.
I’ve told you about it before.
From back in the day when my friend Kevin told me, “Woman! You can’t eat like that.”
Six months after reaching goal, I was still eating a dieter’s diet.
And that’s what wouldn’t work.
Because…
I was doing what I could not do forever.
Had I kept going, I would have crashed and burned.
And who wants to do that?
So, I guess the answer really is, “No. Diets don’t work.”
But…maintenance does.
It works all day long.
Reaching goal is only half the story. Because after that, you have to create a life you can maintain.
I wanted to dive head-first back into my cheeseburgers and fries.
I wanted to go back to KFC where they knew my order by heart.
But I also wanted to maintain what I lost more than I wanted any of that!
And just like learning to diet, you have to learn to maintain.
You have to find a way of eating and exercising that you can maintain for life.
For me personally, I had to let go of the idea that if I behaved long enough, I could go back to the way I used to eat.
That was the weakest link in my chain. The idea that I was fixing myself just long enough to go back.
And there is where bodybuilding entered the picture again.
I had read enough to know that bodybuilders don’t lift so that one day they may stop lifting.
They lift until they look the way they want to look, and then they too have to figure out how to maintain.
But, I have to disagree with that study.
Diets do work.
They work for losers.
And maintenance works for winners!
That makes me a winner and a loser any which way you look at it!
