Make Healthy Eating a Lifetime Habit!

Many of us have gone through the weight cycling process... go on a diet to lose the unwanted weight, gain the unwanted pounds back, then go on another diet.  Unfortunately, over time this seems to lead to additional weight gain since we often seem to regain more than we originally lost.  Additionally, it has been suggested that weight cycling might have negative health effects.  A better approach, of course, is to follow a healthy diet plan to reach a healthy body weight and then maintain that new healthy weight for life.  But how successful are we at doing this?

A research review paper examined the scientific literature on long-term weight loss studies to determine the answer to just that question.  This new study examined long-term changes in the daily intake of fat, fruit, vegetables, and fiber in multiple clinical trials that included over 62,000 study volunteers. According to the study investigators:

• Study volunteers overall were able to maintain a reduction in dietary fat consumption and an increase in fiber and fruit and vegetable consumption for 1 year.
• Each following year showed a reduction in the ability to maintain a healthy diet as dietary choices slowly reverted back to the unhealthy choices made at the beginning of each study.
• Only one study reported successful maintenance of healthy eating habits beyond one year.

It is clear from this study that the majority of us find if difficult to develop and maintain healthy eating habits permanently.  While healthy eating habits need to be a life-long choice, it is a choice many of us find very difficult.  There are many reasons for this including the cost of healthy food choices, the bombardment of advertisements for unhealthy, energy-dense foods, and the comparatively poorer availability of healthy options.  Our inability to develop life-long healthy eating patterns is due to a combination of the choices we ourselves make and the food environment to which we are exposed.  Changes to both of these will be needed if we ever hope to develop better eating habits as a population and reduce the incidence of obesity.

Foods high in protein with a low glycemic index can be healthier options than many energy-dense foods that typically provide little nutritional value.  My protein bars and shakes are a delicious, low glycemic part of my easy diet plan, making them a great way to lose weight without punishing yourself with hunger.