How quickly should you change to a new diet?

January 4, 2018 Ashley 0 Comments

Here’s a dumb one I heard today:

“Change your diet slowly. You don’t lift 250 lbs on your first day at the gym. So why would you do that with a diet?”

Umm… Maybe because you can’t injure yourself by eating a salad instead of a sausage?

(I know, Louie. Me too.)

Now, I get what they’re trying to say. For some people, dietary habits are difficult to build, much less keep. We’ve stressed before how it takes the better part of a month (all the way up to three, in some cases) to make clean eating a “habit”. And I won’t lie. I was one of those slow people when I switched to the best diet on the planet. I opted to weed out one thing at a time. I sampled subbing in some healthy alternatives for my formerly horrible ones. The creamer. The cheese. The ice cream. I took my time. But you know what? After asking around, I’ve come to notice something.

Not everyone’s the same.

While I myself happen to follow an awesome plant based diet, that’s irrelevant. ’cause I hear it from everyone who’s made the switch to ingesting better quality nosh on the regular. About half switched up their fridge’s contents gradually. And the other half was more rapid. Why? Because some people are the “all in” types. If they’re gonna make the change, they don’t wanna wait around to see whether it’s actually gonna work. They wanna cut the sugar, processed food, and pimple inducing dairy straight away. They want results yesterday. Not the agonizing band-aid rip and the scale taking forever to reflect the effort. For some, going to slow makes it feel like their hard work’s not yielding results. And, seeing as results – not a “gold star for trying” – is what we’re all after, that can generate massive apathy about our goals.

(That’s when we tend to throw in the towel, tuck in the napkin, and get to snacking.)

For some, they need to tweak it all now and reduce the pain of a new change in another couple weeks.

And you wanna know why that works?

Aside from not having to accustom yourself to yet another, new uncomfortable change in a week or three? It’s also because you won’t have to talk yourself into staying the course of not eating five course, five thousand calorie meals. Why? Because, when you do a total, holy mealtime makeover all at once, it doesn’t take as long for the results to be realized. First, you’ll note the internal stuff. Maybe your tummy chases out the wastes bit better than it did on your standard American diet. So you feel a little lighter. And maybe you need fewer naps, as your energy levels are increasing. (Which means you want to work out – which helps build good habits for the other part of weight loss.) Or mayhaps those depressive episodes are abating and your mood’s elevating.

Then, before you know it, the external is suddenly matching that internal change.

And you’re losing weight far faster than you’d imagined you would.

Compare this to the people, like me, who pace themselves as they make changes; the people who pick one vice at a time to smite. That’s a far harder journey. Granted, I didn’t have a ton of weight to lose. (And I also made the switch to the best possible diet there is for weight loss, making even the slightest changes count. #plantbased) And, sure, that worked for me – as it does for many. But we can’t make a blanket statement that that’s the only – or even the best – way to go. That’s not everybody’s blueprint for success. For someone who’s got a way to go – and doesn’t wanna wait to witness their figure morph into a more miniature one – maybe massive action, stat, is the right path. The point is: only you know how you operate.

So, if you’re a “jump and build your wings on the way down” type, try that.

And if fails? That’s fine! Just start over on the ground and build those dietary wing muscles, one at a time.

…’til they can carry you all the way to your weight loss goals.