So you’re ready to go on a diet and shed some of that excess weight? That’s great, and you should be excited about how you’ll look and feel when you reach your goal! Unfortunately, this early enthusiasm doesn’t always carry over to the actual diet. A few weeks in, you might be wishing you could go back to eating the way you did before. Here are some tips that can help you stick to that diet and realize your goal.
1. Choose a Realistic Program
If you’ve spent your whole life inhaling meat, going on a strict vegan diet tomorrow is asking for failure. It takes a strong person to totally change your lifestyle on a dime and stick to it. A better way is to find a program that seems doable and not too gimmicky. Remember, if your goal is to lose weight and keep it off, you want to find a diet that you can adhere to for the foreseeable future, not just for a few weeks. Using the tips in our quick weight loss program and following a restricted diet for a short period here will help as well, because you will really have something to look forward to after the first month is up!
2. Set Realistic Goals
You might go into a diet with the best of intentions and come out of it feeling like you failed if you didn’t reach your lofty goal. By all means, consider how much weight you want to lose ideally, but start with an intermediate goal that you can shoot for, and continue to lower the target as you meet each goal. If you do this, you’ll internalize the progress you’re making, rather than dwell on the distance between your current weight and your ultimate goal. As part of this, tracking your progress is an important way to stick to your plan, as you’ll be less inclined to break it if you are focusing on how well you’re doing.
3. Reward Yourself
One of the toughest parts of a diet is feeling like you’re being deprived. If you are eating a low-carb diet, for example, you won’t be having those candy bars or cans of soda. A few days might not be a big deal, but months of perceived deprivation will set you up for a big binge and guilty feelings. Don’t go for an all-or-nothing approach. Try it in terms of a game: “If I meet my goal of X, or I stick to my diet for X number of days, I can have Y.” Don’t go overboard on your reward, and make it healthy if you can, but recognize the importance of rewarding yourself for a job well done, so you can keep with it. Along with food, you can also reward yourself by going clothing shopping.
Final Thoughts
If you can, find people who can support you as you commit to a new diet. Often, peer pressure can be enough to dissuade someone from breaking a diet. Even better, try to go on that diet with someone else and help each other.
Finally, don’t forget why you’re on the diet. If you feel tempted by something, just ask yourself if it’s aligned with your goal, and internalize how important this goal is to you. If you really want to succeed, anything that interferes starts to seem less enticing. You’ll reach your goal before you know it! For further reading, here’s a similar diet plan looking at how to lose weight in a week, that references some of the fad diets around as well.