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SALT LAKE CITY -- As the New Year begins, so do our resolutions. Recent national polls reveal that the majority of Americans have resolved to be healthier in 2011.
The weight-loss industry is a multi-billion dollar business. There are health experts and specialists selling diet programs delivered to your door; counting points online; drinking shakes to substitute meals; taking pills and sublingual drops to curb hunger; eating different combinations of protein and carbs, protein-only or raw veggies-only; undergoing weight-loss surgery; and the list goes on.
The key to successful and permanent weight loss is to change your eating habits forever.
–Katherine Beals, registered dietitian
So how do you know which diet regimen has the most successful outcome? In other words, which one of the dozens of weight loss programs will keep those extra pounds away and help you maintain good health? Is it the diet that allows you to choose your own menus or the type of diet that dictates each meal for you?
"The thing that separates a good diet from a bad diet is the word ‘diet,'" says registered dietician Katherine Beals. "The key to successful and permanent weight loss is to change your eating habits forever."
Researchers say, generally, losing weight is not a difficult goal for people.
"It doesn't matter how you do it -- whether you restrict your carbohydrates, or restrict your calories, or restrict a food group," Beals explains. "Anytime you reduce your calorie intake you will lose weight, so losing weight isn't the problem. Maintaining that weight loss is the problem."
Many diet programs have success stories. You've probably seen celebrities like Jennifer Hudson, Marie Osmond, Dan Marino, Michael Thurmond, Jillian Michaels, Valerie Bertinelli and others touting those successes in commercials. Still, many dieters find themselves on that roller coaster of diet failure.
"The reason people can't maintain their weight loss is that the methods whereby they lose weight are not sustainable," Beals says. "So if I severely restrict my energy intake, if I cut my calories down to 1,000 calories a day, I can't maintain that."
Everybody knows what they should be eating. Everybody knows what they should be doing. The disconnect comes between knowing what I should be doing and motivating myself to do it.
–Katherine Beals, registered dietitian
It all comes down to changing your behavior for the rest of your life.
"The ones that will work are the ones that promote changes in behavior that you can maintain for a lifetime," Beals explains. "The only time you're going to maintain your weight loss is if you maintain those behaviors that you employed to lose the weight. If you can't maintain those behaviors, you're not going to keep the weight off."
Sometimes knowing your personality may help you along your weight-loss journey. For example, some personality types want the program outlined with specific step-by-step plans of action.
"The problem with those plans that provide the food for you, or tell you exactly what to eat, is they're not teaching you how to do it yourself," Beals says. "And so the minute that you stop purchasing their food, the minute that you go off of their plan, if you haven't learned how to change your eating behaviors, you'll go right back to your old behaviors and you'll gain weight back."
Other personality types prefer the freedom to choose their own course of action within a particular plan. Researchers say it doesn't matter how you lose weight, you just need to make sure you can sustain those new eating habits consistently throughout your life.
"The key is to develop eating behaviors that you can maintain for a lifetime," Beals says.
Some diet programs teach people how to maintain their new svelte form with classes and recipes. Beals explains that it's just a matter of trial and error before you find what weight loss plan works for you.
In reality, most of us aren't new to the weight-loss war, she says, we just lack the motivation to continue with whatever program we've chosen.
"Everybody knows what they should be eating. Everybody knows what they should be doing," Beals explains. "The disconnect comes between knowing what I should be doing and motivating myself to do it."
In other words, it doesn't really matter what weight-loss program you choose, as long as the program motivates you to change your behavior and teaches you how to maintain those new eating habits forever.
"It's really not an issue of the macro-nutrient distribution. You have to reduce calories," Beals says, "whatever distribution of carbohydrates, protein and fat will work best for you to reduce your energy intake as calories is going to be the one that works. But again, it has to be something that you can do for the rest of your life."
E-mail: niyamba@ksl.com
