Have you ever noticed a small wince when you talk about weight loss with your doctor, trainer or other people who have successfully lost weight and kept it off? No? Then you’ve either mastered your positive weight management lingo or you just haven’t been paying attention.
The reason is that there are a lot of very popular terms that are used on a regular basis in the dieting community that can do a great deal more harm than good. To people who have lost weight in a healthy way, or who simply know a great deal about health and medicine, those terms sound like nails on a chalkboard.
The following are some of the words that you might want to consider chopping from your vocabulary if you want to lose weight and never see those extra pounds again.
• Diet
If you’re just talking about a diet in terms of what you eat – for example “a healthy diet”, then go for it. If you’re using the term to define short-term restrictions to your foods for the purpose of weight loss, then this is the first term you’ll want to hack from your life.
• Cheat day
if you have a “cheat day” then it means you’re on a “diet”. Cut both these terms at the same time. There will be times when you deviate from healthful eating. However, that is not a cheat day. It’s just a day when you’re eating differently. Don’t eat such a restrictive diet that you would need to take a full day off to eat junk food and you won’t need that type of day in the first place.
• Guilt-free
just because you are aiming to eat foods that are better for you, it doesn’t mean that other foods should cause you to experience guilt. Try to build a healthier relationship with your food and you’ll find that you can live with – and feel proud of – all your eating choices, regardless of what they are.
• Cleansing
at the same time that you remove the word “cleansing” from your diet, dump “detoxing,” too. The entire concept of having toxins built up in your body that can be removed through special highly restrictive dieting, special teas, supplements or other products and practices is false medicine. Indeed, some foods are better for you than others. However, you do not have a pool of toxins building up in your cells that must be removed through cleansing and detoxing.
In fact, most doctors agree that these practices and products cause the body more harm than good. If you want to make sure toxins don’t build up in your body, drink lots of water and eat a healthy amount of fiber. The body is designed to rid itself of waste in an effective way. When you have regular bowel movements, toxins don’t have the chance to build up in the way that cleanses and detoxes could eliminate them.
