It’s OK to be on a DIET! – Ottawa Weight Loss Expert

Yes, I said the ‘D’ word! It seems that the word ‘diet’ has become forbidden in the English language. It’s viewed as shameful, dirty and unethical to be on a diet these days. All of the wellness experts are telling you to stay away from ‘diets’, that they are no good and will only cause harm! I happen to strongly disagree with most of these ‘gurus’.

The first thing I tell my clients, is that they have to be ok with ‘being on a diet’ if they want to make serious progress! In my expert opinion, you can’t lose weight without ‘dieting’, and those that deny this notion usually struggle.

But, before I go any further, let’s redefine the word and the meaning of ‘Diet’. Diet is not about restriction, diet is about STRUCTURE. The truth is most people will feel like they are on a ‘diet’ the moment they become more aware and conscious of what, when, or how they eat. But as long as you want to lose weight, you will need to have structure and control over your eating. In other words, you will be ‘dieting’.

Why has that become such a bad thing? It is so because unfortunately for most people lack of structure leads to overeating and results in excess weight gain.

Structure is therefore FREEDOM as it becomes ‘the bridge’ to a way out of this predicament!

Having structure is all about having some healthy limits and boundaries in place which you can modify and alter when needed. It’s about having a good meal plan, pre-planning your meals, tracking your food intake, taking all the guess work out, and having something reliable to work with.

What get’s measured, get’s managed. ~Peter Drucker

This is true in all areas of life, especially weight loss!

When there is lack of structure around eating, despite your best efforts at eating healthy and exercising, you might not see much progress, which will lead to feelings of frustration and discouragement. In fact, this is the primary reason why so many people fail to lose weight. They try to do it without ‘going on a diet’ and instead they adhere to a ‘clean eating’ philosophy. But that doesn’t always work when it comes to consistent progress on the scale.

I’ve seen countless women who eat healthy but can’t lose weight become extremely frustrated with themselves and their bodies! This mostly happens because they lack structure and are inconsistent with their meal plan.

A way around this is to adopt and embrace the ‘diet phase’. All my clients undergo this phase until they get to their goal weight. This phase simply consists of tracking what you eat and maintaining consistency with the meal plan.

It’s OK to be on a Diet, just embrace it, and work with it! As long as you continue to avoid the concept of dieting you will continue to struggle, simply because there is way too much room for inconsistency and inaccuracy which are detrimental to anyone trying to lose weight.

Look, dieting sucks, but it’s part of the process. Structure may not give you the freedom to enjoy as much pizza and wine as you’d like, but it almost always guarantees progress and results. That being said, if you’re following a flexible diet system, you’ll still be able to enjoy your wine and pizza while on a ‘diet’. But sometimes you’ll need to be ok with saying no to that extra slice.

And yes, a diet is a temporary feat, but it is there to teach you about healthy limits and boundaries, commitment, consistency and portion control which are great habits to develop for weight maintenance purposes as well as for other areas of life.

Embrace your diet, stick to it, get to your goal and use the experience to grow and evolve!

And remember ‘DIET’ is about structure, not restriction.

Ruslan Kedik