No magic bullet

Add comment July 8th, 2008

It’s difficult to avoid diets. The average American goes on three to four of them a year.

But because nutrition — along with cardiovascular exercise, resistance training and flexibility — is a main component of a healthy lifestyle, it’s important to view a diet more as a performance-enhancing program than a deprivation-based punishment for trying to lose weight.

Safe weight loss is usually considered to be one to two pounds per week. That means it’s a slow, deliberate process so ask yourself when contemplating a diet if it’s one you can live with for the rest of your life.

If you can make the commitment to an eating plan, you won’t need to think about maintenance of a desired weight loss goal because that will have started when you adopted your plan.

That said, remember that even the most motivated dieter is going to overeat once in awhile. Just get back on your plan as soon as you can.

As a good friend of mine used to say, “There is no magic weight-loss bullet, just choices to make.”