Reading. Starting a diet (Pre-Int)

Starting a diet is easy. Anybody can do that. Keeping going, however, is a lot more difficult, as we can see from the number of people who give up after a week, a month, or those who move from one diet to another. The important thing is to be realistic and not try to do too much at once. If you do, you might not succeed.

Think about practical goals and write them down. Then look at your first goal. Let’s say, for example, you want to include some green vegetables in your meals once a day. When you have achieved your first goal, you can give yourself a reward – a sensible reward, that is, not a hamburger and chips. Then you can move on to your next goal, for example, reducing the amount of sugar in your coffee. These little things can soon begin to make a big difference.

Sometimes it will go wrong: you’ll have that chocolate cake you know is full of calories. If this happens (and it usually does), don’t give up. Just accept it as one of those things and return to your diet the next day.

It’s important to be positive. You probably eat some healthy things already. Make a list of them and try to eat them more often, perhaps trying to cook them in different ways to add variety. Also, you may not be able to eat as many chips as before, but think about the new things you can start to eat, for example, fruit. You may find after a few weeks that you prefer the taste of fruit to sugary, fatty cakes and chocolates.

You may want to talk to friends. If you do, make sure that they are understanding and good listeners. Avoid people who are going to be critical. And don’t try to compare yourself with other people who are on a diet. If a friend is losing weight more quickly than you are, you may want to give up. Only compare yourself with what you were like last week, last month. That way you will notice even small changes and that will help you to keep going.