Dieting vs A Lifestyle Change

Starting with Food Choices: 
When you start a diet, a wide variety of foods immediately become off-limits. In some cases, eliminating these foods from your daily diet can actually lead to significant health risks. For example, some diets eliminate all carbohydrates. But carbs, especially whole grains, protect you from heart disease, cancer and diabetes. With a lifestyle change, however, your food and beverage choices remain unrestricted. In fact, you can eat and drink anything you want in moderation. Adopting healthy lifestyle changes allows you to include all necessary and appropriate foods in your daily diet -- which helps maintain your physical and mental health.

Getting & Staying Motivated:
Because a lifestyle change allows you to indulge occasionally, it helps maintain your motivation. On a diet, many of your favorite foods and treats will likely be off-limits. When an overwhelming craving for double fudge chocolate ice-cream strikes, you are basically out of luck. And, let's be honest, a frozen banana probably won't satisfy you. For many people, these strict limitations make dieting difficult. Unlike a diet, lifestyle changes allow you to indulge in these treats in moderation. Over time, you teach your cravings to evolve from a double serving of double fudge chocolate ice cream to one scoop of chocolate frozen yogurt. Because you allow your body and mind time to adapt, the changes are easier to manage. And when change is easy to handle, your motivation remains strong.

Results that are Sure to Last:
According to the American Council on Exercise, or ACE, only about 5 percent of dieters successfully keep the weight off. In fact, most dieters regain a third of the weight within one year, and almost all of the weight in three to five years. When you reach your weight loss goal on a diet, you will probably stop dieting, and the weight will slowly pile back on. But when you reach your weight loss goals through healthy lifestyle changes, those changes have become a permanent part of your life. Even if you relax a bit, you will probably maintain many of those healthy changes. If you are looking to lose weight for the long haul, you must make a commitment to permanently change certain aspects of your lifestyle.