The Anti Diet Post

You'll have seen it in the press this morning, and what a truly shocking suggestion for the dieters market, the which celeb are you weighing scales. 

In a nation that seems to be in an epidemic of fad dieting do you think these are a good idea or a real distasteful attempt at encouraging dieters to weight the same as their fave celeb? 

So many of my followers have been asking me how I've succeeded at loosing my weight, and the truth is... 

I QUIT DIETING! 

I enjoy a healthy clean and balanced variety of food, drink water and I exercise 5/6 times a week, that's it. 

I've been there, the low carb, low calorie, shake diets, I've done them all but I have to say since turning my lifestyle around I am now longer even in agreance with companies like Weight Watchers and Slimming world because both are guilty of taking a concept and making it a gimmick for people who are desperate to loose weight buy into them.

Weight Watchers has worked for me in the past, but I gained my weight back, and they really push the use of their own brand low fat (high sugar) diet foods, low fat options and their own branded stuff contains the real silent enemy...sugar!
In a nutshell Weight Watchers is nothing more than a calorie controlled diet, and they don't overly promote exercise in conjunction with healthy eating, which again doesn't set anybody up with the correct tools to go on in life and succeed to get to their goal. 

Slimming Worlds promotes eating as much of food as you like, again that's not teaching someone to be in control of their own portions and teaching then to learn the real tool you need to succeed in weight loss.. and that's willpower. 

If your reading this now and your thinking of embarking on your own weight loss journey, you'll need just a few things to succeed: 

• The want to change, and I mean the real want, this isn't about a half assed effort it's about giving it all you've got. 
• Willpower, you'll need this tool for life, not just for the initial stages, even I need to rely on good old fashioned willpower to not eat things when I simply don't need them. 
• The understanding that you are wanting to change your life, not just 'go on a diet' for a few months, trust me you'll fail if that's the way your thinking. 
• A gym membership, or even just some simple hand weights and some circuit exercises if you have to work out at home, now the summers on it's way a field will be helpful or even the area you live in, hit the streets and run, walk or jog, just get moving! 

In more recent months you'll have no doubt seen the latest addition to the 'fad' dieting world...
Juice Plus, nothing more than a marketing scam, a shake and capsule plan branded with the slogan
"The Next Best Thing To Vegetables" The next best thing?! what's wrong with (and lets face it a much much cheaper option is to just eat actual vegetables)
As my other half regularly points out people who are so desperate for a quick fix would be better of buying a decent tub of protein powder than drinking these sugar filled shakes.

Don't just take my word for it, I've used my own protein label and compared it to that of the Juice Plus shake label to show you just what I mean.
Packed full of unnatural  ingredients and chemicals, how can they be promoting a healthy image to people when their products are so artificial?! 

With sugar causing an obesity epidemic,not to mention the huge influx in people suffering from diabetes, when will this nation stop? 

Obesity is a huge problem for this country, and these fad diets, direct marketing and pyramid schemes are simply buying into to the empty space in the market that's being created by everyone eating too much of the wrong foods and by taking no notice of the hidden dangers in doing so. 

I feel so strongly about this, because I've personally experienced the struggle on both sides, the difference being that during my 'fad dieting' stage I always used to think 'oh it'll follow this for 6 months then I can eat what I like' I felt deprived, starved of my desired foods, and very unhappy.
It seemed such a long process that didn't really give me any results, and of course you hit the famous plateau stage where you either just give up altogether and end up back at square one, with even more weight to loose than you had to begin with, or you plod along miserable and feeling like your getting no where, and that you'll be on this diet forever.

 The truth is by dieting alone your never going to get the real results you have only ever dreamed of I'm your mind unless you combine them with exercise. Cardio exercise is brilliant if you want to increase your hearts strength, improve your stamina and generally just increase your overall fitness.
Weight lifting is brilliant for building muscle which in time speeds up your metabolism at rest, combine the two and you have a winning combination.

I can personally say also that by changing my life and developing a true love for the gym and exercise I am so much happier, everyone who knows me will tell you that, not to mention the lift its had on my general health and well being, the weight loss and toning is an added bonus. 

I used to suffer from anxiety, I couldn't leave me house at one point, I missed work for over 100 days, writing that now feels so surreal because I cant imagine that was actually me, feels like I'm describing someone I don't even know. 

I'm almost at my 1 year gym joining anniversary, and it feels so good to be beating the old me with each day that goes by, she will never come back, I have made way to much progress to ever let all the handwork I've put in go to waste.  

I have no qualifications on nutrition and I'm not a PT but I have tailored my own lifestyle change, and that's the only way your going to succeed you must have the mindset in the right place that in itself will power your drive and determination to get to your own goal, what ever it is you have all you need in your mind to do it, and it needn't cost you a penny in gimmicky diet products, or a weekly subscription to a club, you can do it if you want to do it. 

The comments and feedback I've received in the relatively short time I've been making my changes make it all the more worth while, I feel flattered that I've inspired some of you to achieve your own goals and it's been great hearing some of your feedback. 

Well done to all of you who've achieved what you wanted to achieve, and to those of you just starting out all I can say is, it wont be easy, you'll have days where you want to quit, but don't give up on yourself. You have to keep going. 

The process is simple...

Eat Clean + Work Out + Trust The Process = Your Goal 

It wont happen overnight, but it will be so worth it when you get there to know you've worked for it.

xXx