Naturopathy

If you ask anyone who has been on a diet, they’ll tell you truthfully that diets just don’t work. The diet mentality is that you’ll take to a certain way of eating temporarily and all of the weight you need to lose will fall off and you will live happily ever after with your new little fit self. This couldn’t be farther from the truth. So if dieting doesn’t work, what can you do?Step one is to get real. You may not be honest with your friends or your family, but you must be honest with yourself. For one week, write on paper everything you eat and all of the physical activities you engage in. Write down everything including those hidden candy bars in your desk at work or that second piece of cake you ate before putting it away for the night. You may also want to write down the day’s occurrences. This will be enlightening. For example, if you ate a candy bar right after getting yelled at by your boss, you’ll realize why you were eating.

After getting a realistic look at yourself, you are going to play the role of teacher and mark red corrections on your own paper. For example, with the candy bar you ate after getting yelled at by your boss, you might begin to brainstorm ideas of what you could have done instead that would be healthier; (e.g. go for a walk with a friend and vent, go to the gym and punch a punching bag, play a favorite active game on the Wii, get a massage), or anything that leaves you feeling ‘truly’ satisfied.

The HeirNext, mark corrective ideas to the foods you ate. For example, if you see that you ate pizza for dinner, insert with the red marker a salad with low fat dressing before hand. If you see a piece of cake after dinner, correct that piece of cake into half a piece of cake and some delicious fresh fruit on top of the cake. Instead of a sandwich (white bread, ham and cheese), make it fiber filled bread, lettuce, tomato, ham and a half slice of cheese. With beverages, add more water or even flavored water to replace a few of your other calorie-laden beverages. Make some of these small changes and it will add up to big rewards both in your self esteem and your waistline.