Diet update
One week and counting. Five pounds and (hopefully) counting. Go me.
There seemed to be a general consensus that diets/dieting is "evil" (verbatim quote). First off, I find it ironic that at least one of the comments was from someone who's been on several, and successfully lost lots of weight on them. ;-) Secondly, I believe that changing one's eating habits more drastically in the short term than one intends to maintain in the long term, in order to achieve the immediate goal of removing excess poundage (which results in positive reinforcement of the overall lifestyle change) is not a bad thing at all. Being overweight is unhealthy in so many ways; getting to a more healthy weight is a good goal, in and of itself.
Now, don't get me wrong here. I don't in any way support crash dieting such that one becomes uncomfortable or unhealthy, or destabilizes one's metabolism, or gets hooked on addictive diet pills. The only way that a weight-loss regimen is truly effective is if it is conceived with a plan to sustain it in the long-term. That includes working within the constraints of what changes the dieter is willing/able to make, what other lifestyle changes ought to go along with it (e.g. incorporation of exercise into daily or at least weekly life, plans to deal with backsliding and the situations that cause it, etc.), and the metabolic needs of the human body. I guess what I'm saying is that dieting is not something to be undertaken lightly, without an awareness of the consequences of one's actions.
It's also about attitude. A dissatisfaction with one's body image is not a particularly good reason to reduce one's weight. (In my case, it was the spur for initiating the plan, but not the underlying reason.) A concern for one's physical health *is*. I've got enough cardio-pulmonary issues in my family that I am concerned, and the way to minimize my risk of medical problems is to decrease my weight and exercise more. And that's what I'm doing.
I'm on a diet. And I'm OK with that.
There seemed to be a general consensus that diets/dieting is "evil" (verbatim quote). First off, I find it ironic that at least one of the comments was from someone who's been on several, and successfully lost lots of weight on them. ;-) Secondly, I believe that changing one's eating habits more drastically in the short term than one intends to maintain in the long term, in order to achieve the immediate goal of removing excess poundage (which results in positive reinforcement of the overall lifestyle change) is not a bad thing at all. Being overweight is unhealthy in so many ways; getting to a more healthy weight is a good goal, in and of itself.
Now, don't get me wrong here. I don't in any way support crash dieting such that one becomes uncomfortable or unhealthy, or destabilizes one's metabolism, or gets hooked on addictive diet pills. The only way that a weight-loss regimen is truly effective is if it is conceived with a plan to sustain it in the long-term. That includes working within the constraints of what changes the dieter is willing/able to make, what other lifestyle changes ought to go along with it (e.g. incorporation of exercise into daily or at least weekly life, plans to deal with backsliding and the situations that cause it, etc.), and the metabolic needs of the human body. I guess what I'm saying is that dieting is not something to be undertaken lightly, without an awareness of the consequences of one's actions.
It's also about attitude. A dissatisfaction with one's body image is not a particularly good reason to reduce one's weight. (In my case, it was the spur for initiating the plan, but not the underlying reason.) A concern for one's physical health *is*. I've got enough cardio-pulmonary issues in my family that I am concerned, and the way to minimize my risk of medical problems is to decrease my weight and exercise more. And that's what I'm doing.
I'm on a diet. And I'm OK with that.