“Lose 10 pounds in 6 Days”

“3 Week Diet Plan to your Spring Break Bod”

… we’ve all been bombarded with these “helpful plans” in the media.

A message from our Smart Eats staff: “Diets don’t work.” Evidence shows dieting often leads to “weight cycling” (repeated weight loss-regain). Other negative health effects can include disruption of normal body processes, fatigue, lack of concentration, food preoccupation, and loss of internal hunger and fullness cues.

Instead, Smart Eats recommends making health goals part of a long-term, balanced wellness lifestyle. Check out their healthy lifestyle tips on their latest blog post.

Here are few effective lifestyle tips we recommend:

Start with building a mindset of accepting, loving, and caring for your body. Keep in mind that you will never look like exactly like others around you (it’s genetically impossible).

Throw away guilt and restrictions. Being critical and judgmental towards yourself and your habits will always do more harm than good. That extra slice of cake you’re craving? Nothing to feel guilty about and alone will not result in immediate weight gain.

Find food and physical activity that makes you FEEL GOOD– mentally and physically. Weight loss may result, or not. Your overall well-being is top priority.

Create a healthy relationship with food, mind, and body through intuitive eating. Intuitive eating includes important principles such as rejecting the diet mentality, honoring your hunger and fullness, and being more in tune with the satisfaction of food and exercise. For more information on the principles of intuitive eating, check out: http://www.intuitiveeating.org/10-principles-of-intuitive-eating/