The new year has just started. The New Year’s Eve dessert is still digesting, but haven’t you secretly been looking for your new diet that you will start today?
It is therefore that time of the year when the commercials are flying around you.
A shake here, a detox cure there, but which one will you choose for the next three weeks?
Go for a sustainable solution
Are you going for the umpteenth (crash) diet this year or are you opting for a sustainable solution?
Dieticians are familiar with the phenomenon.
Shortly after the holidays, registrations are still not too bad in practice.
First people get started with a diet that seems so easy that it would be crazy not to try it.
February in sight, that’s where the registrations are.
That juice cleanse was not very feasible – or tasty (?) – and the 4 kg you lost on day 19 has now become + 5.
Of course we cannot forbid you to try the latest hype diet and to make your appointment with the dietitian on day 4.
However, be aware that your metabolism has taken a serious hit again.
Your body has rebelled and will now no longer feel like losing some weight in a healthy way.
A sustainable way to slim down
Because you are worth finding a healthy and sustainable solution if you want to work on a healthy lifestyle.
New year and suddenly you think you haven’t tried hard enough in the past year and this year you will really succeed in keeping that diet for longer than 3 weeks.
Think again. Didn’t your good intentions of the past 5 years only lead to weight gain, yo-yo effect and even lower self-esteem ? Every time you failed to persevere and every time you gained more weight afterwards than you lost.
“Unrealistic resolutions can
be a trigger for developing an eating disorder.”
The typical good intentions and also the pressure that you have to have them – ‘ and what are your good intentions’ – mean that you may have developed a bad relationship with food . As a dietician specializing in eating disorders, it is therefore my greatest wish that people stop making unrealistic ‘good’ resolutions.
Dismantle the unrealistic claims
Because what is too good to be true usually is.
Before and after photos do not count as proof
January 2 vs. January 22.
But what will the photo look like on March 22?
Photos are very visual and therefore very credible to us humans.
More credible than the dietitian who explains to you, without photos, how you can lose some weight in a sustainable way.
Losing more than half a kilo per week is not healthy
The neighbor recently lost 7 kilos in 1 month so you want this too.
Healthy weight loss is possible at an average rate of 500 grams per week .
Then you are sure that it is mainly fat mass and not muscles or water.
If you want to burn 1 kilogram of body fat, that equals approximately 7700 kcal.
Eating 500 calories less every day means that you will theoretically lose 1 kg every 2 weeks.
With a crash diet you will be put on a regimen of max 500-600 kcal/day.
With the healthy way you can still eat 1600 kcal and your metabolism will not go into ‘saving mode’ either.
You have to cut out entire food groups
Only if you have been diagnosed with, for example, gluten intolerance, lactose intolerance or a medical reason why you are not allowed to eat certain things, cutting out certain foods can be healthy.
Otherwise, cutting out entire food groups is:
- Not fun
- Not easy
- Not healthy because every food also provides other vitamins and minerals.
It is not feasible in a (social) life
Think of only eating between certain times or eating foods that are only available through American websites.
But also, for example, not being able to participate in team building with an altitude course because you have just reached your 300 kcal/day phase that day and there is a great chance that you will pass out?
Know the difference between a dietician and a weight loss consultant
Weight loss consultant is a liberal profession and you are already after a few hours of training in adult education. Because of this, weight loss consultants are absolutely not trained to treat people with health problems.
This is in contrast to dieticians who received a 3-year training, including medical subjects.
A weight loss consultant may advise a few healthy people, but malpractice often happens here: ‘We see enough people with serious problems because they have been receiving the wrong protein diet from a weight loss consultant for years. Recently I saw a young girl with a severe nerve injury due to a vitamin B deficiency. Afterwards it turned out that a gluten-free diet had been followed for years’, says Callewaert(*), who mainly calls on the government to change the practices. The government recognizes these programs for slimming coaches, creating a professional category that should not exist. In Antwerp, for example, you can follow such a course. But the difference between a dietician and a slimming consultant is big: you only become a dietician after three years of study. You are already a weight loss consultant after training for 12 Saturdays.’
