The Difference Between Diet and Dieting

Diet and Dieting are two different things. A diet is about what you eat. Dieting is about what you don’t eat. Chances are, you’ve been eating the way you are now for a long time. Making a change in the way that you normally eat takes a lot of will power and a real drive for change in your life.

This is especially true if you feel you are depriving yourself of something you like. To be successful with a change in your diet, (that which you eat) you need to be mentally prepared. This has several different aspects.

The first is to be rationally convinced that the game plan you intend to follow is sound.

The second is to be emotionally committed to succeeding with your plan.

Many diets start as an emotional reaction to our personal dissatisfaction with how we look or how we fear we will look on a given date. I.E. Swimming season, wedding, reunion, etc.

The advantage of the dieting plan focuses on losing weight by a certain date lies in their clear objectives and time line. Loosing weight by a deadline is something we can measure, and commit ourselves to emotionally. The rationale of loosing x pounds is measurable, the reward tangible. We as human beings can do almost anything for short or defined periods of time.

We can skip meals, skip favorite foods, and exercise fervently in the quest for a clear objective and deadline. The sum of all the pounds lost by brides prior to their weddings is roughly equal to the grains of sand on all the honeymoon destination beaches in the world combined.

Targeted dieting focused on a goal and deadline can be effective, but it is dieting and not a diet. As soon as the event is over, the prior diet re-establishes itself often kicked off with a celebratory indulgence.

The dieting worked, but did not change the diet.

For long term success, attention needs to be focused not on dieting, but rather the diet.

Rationally to be successful the new diet must be based on something you can understand and believe in. That where learning a little of the science behind a diet makes some sense. You don’t need to become a scientist or even fully understand all the complicated aspects. But it does help to learn a bit about the rationale behind a lifetime diet.

Among the most successful lifetime diet formats is the Glycemic Index based diets. Originally designed to meet the specific needs of diabetics, these have been widely adopted by tens of thousands of people seeking to loose weight.

The results have been very positive for those who were successful in altering their diet to conform with the guidelines. Since this is a lifetime diet, the focus is on what can and should be eaten as well as identifying items that should be passed on, or more appropriately eaten in lesser quantities.

Here the emotional support must come from within. From a commitment to attain a healthy goal weight and then to sustain it.

This may be more difficult at first, but becomes easier as the results of the diet begin to show themselves. Thankfully, with the glycemic index based diets results are pretty dramatic after a short period of time.

Losing weight can be easy when you understand how to use the Glycemic Index. Get a free 10 part course on the Glycemic Index at http://askearlabout.com/GlycemicIndex or purchase Earl Netwal’s new book on the topic, The Glycemic Revolution The Ultimate Guide to Weight Loss Made Easy”

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