“2024: the year without diets”. A really not bad title for a item. Not to mention the first lines, which simply reiterated the concept: “Welcome to the new year! This is the year I call “the year without diets”. And after a title and an attack like this, raise your hand if you would have overlooked it without reading. Impossible, curiosity is human. Personally, this “2024: the year without diets” has doubly captured my interest, as I myself feel like the voice of this thought, as well as an invitation. The reason? It’s very simple. Diets work in the short term, but in the long term they tend to fail. The primary reason is that they are based on restriction and on the idea that to function best we are the ones who have to change, most of the time feeling wrong. It so happens that we start out fast and then falter and abandon everything. Not only. Diets are rarely able to convey nutritional education to us. We follow them like a religious guide without understanding the underlying mechanisms. In most cases we find ourselves under the yo-yo effect.
No diet, but small changes that become habits
What matters is first of all not being at war with yourself. If we are above what we consider our ideal weight, then we start planning goals that are achievable and achievable through small, simple and easy to adopt changes. This is what I call habit accumulation. One step after another will lead us to incorporate these changes into our lifestyle in just over 20 days. To make them become, in other words, habits.
Four small changes to reach (or maintain) your ideal weight
I suggest four small, simple and easy-to-adopt changes that will allow you to get back to your ideal weight:
1. Start a meal with vegetables, raw or cooked, preferably in season, seasoned with a spoonful of extra virgin olive oil;
2. Always include a food source of protein, starting with breakfast: it will help you stimulate satiety, nourish muscles and bones, increase your metabolism and, last but not least, take in less food in subsequent meals;
3. Chew each bite at least 20 times;
4. Get up every 30 minutes. Avoid sedentary lifestyle. Every 12.5 hours (cumulative, not successive) of the day it takes 22 minutes of physical exercise to counteract the harmful effects of a sedentary lifestyle.
Moving: the added value for maintaining a healthy weight
When these choices become part of your lifestyle, as automatisms, then also remember to move methodically:
· Walk, run, cycle by choosing the method HIIT. The ideal would be to start with 2 sessions per week of 30 minutes and one at the weekend (i.e. when you have more time) at lower intensity and at a continuous pace for 50-60 minutes.
· Force. Muscles are organs of longevity. The more active we have them, the better our energy consumption will be even at rest.
2024: the year of achievable goals
2024 is the year to learn to really love ourselves, let’s stop fighting with ourselves and our weight. We choose to nourish ourselves in harmony with our body, to treat ourselves with kindness, the same kindness that we would like to receive from those who live around us, like a caress. Let’s eliminate scales and calorie counter apps. Let’s start with achievable goals, let’s start with a first gesture, it will be the one that will take us far, to earn our goals and above all to maintain them over time. Every day of this new year is an opportunity to activate small – but substantial – changes.
Photo: Marta Baffi
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2024-01-14 12:45:56
#year #diets #Finally
