Family Sports & Fitness

Fitness is a lifestyle, not a diet

To make positive changes in your health you’ll have to do more than just eat better or work out. A healthy lifestyle is the goal – and having a positive outlook and attitude is the first step.

Are you just a dieter or someone on track for a positive lifestyle? Get on that winning path by:
   • Gathering the information you need to improve your body image, deal
     with emotional eating, or define the type of physical life you want.
   • Changing your attitude toward healthy living.
   • Setting goals for why you want a healthy life.
   • Developing a realistic view of your ultimate healthy body type.
   • Understanding that it’s OK to love certain foods without always gorging on them.

There’s a difference between a diet and a lifestyle.

Numbers don’t tell the whole story.
   • A diet is all about numbers – the number of calories you eat and burn, the number
     on the scale, the number of people who compliment you.

How you feel about yourself is key.
   • A lifestyle is about matching your eating and physical activity with your real goals
     and desires.

Your weight is not your goal.
   • The key to finding happiness and solving problems is not in your diet. Missing your
     weight goal on one day does not mean you are a failure in life.

Focus on the whole you.
   • Look at the causes of your over- or under-eating, work on them, and your lifestyle
     can go from tense to happy. Remember to look at what is working too.

Focus on internal, permanent changes, not temporary ones.
   • Following the rules of a diet, then forgetting the rules when you hit your weight
     goal, is a sure path to gaining the weight back. Going on a diet involves an
     external and temporary change in eating technique. Counting and measuring
     new foods in a fad diet is not enough to change you on the inside.

Take care of yourself emotionally, physically and mentally.
   • Change your relationship with food, eating, and physical activity and you
     will change your lifestyle.
   • Recognize how and why you eat: Avoid eating mindlessly and impulsively
     and avoid using food to distract yourself from unpleasant thoughts.
   • Take care of what you can control and let the rest take care of itself.
   • Your genes, your age, and what has gone before are not in your control.
     Today you can change your attitude and behavior. Tomorrow you can repeat
    that positive pattern!

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