‘Healthy’ is a word that is supposed to be positive but has become rather negative in the recent times. As a tall girl who has always been on the higher end of the weight scale, healthy has been a word that I have grown to dream. You see, when you are not fat enough for people to label you as fat, they label you healthy. A word that would ideally have been a compliment on your good health, becomes a way of measuring you on the scale of thin to fat. And then comes the comments, that are on the line of fat-shaming, the ones that pushed me towards trying dieting for the first time.

There are various methods of dieting that you come across, there is the one where you starve yourself for 18 hours straight (intermittent fasting), the one where you eat less than a child (the cliched diets) and then there are the fancier diets like a juice cleanse and keto diets. However, the form of dieting that I chose was the basic, healthy eating type. This is the diet where you avoid the seemingly obvious unhealthy food like fried items, high-carb food, etc and acknowledge and strive to eat the ‘healthier’ options that are low on carbs, sugar and high on fiber and protein.

stick-to-a-diet-dieting

Source: Blonde & Balanced

However, there are various discoveries that I made in this journey of dieting that I thought more people need to know about. And thus begins this journey of my dieting experience. The first thing that people need to know but is not really stressed is that it is extremely difficult to follow a diet and following a workout schedule is extremely difficult, especially for a beginner. The reason behind this is simple, the whole purpose of your diets is to make force your body into breaking down the fat cells in your body into energy. When this process takes place, your body is almost always low on energy.

This simple deduction is the main reason that people who are choosing to make a lifestyle change need to start with either dieting or working out. This simple choice makes it easier to stay on this path to a better lifestyle, for a little longer. This is also the first mistake that I made. Making a drastic dietary change and adding the physical change at the same time. The biggest drawback of this drastic switch is that you are bound to fall sick. Either because of physical strain or because of the lack of energy, your body will become much more lethargic. The best way to go, according to my tried and tested method is beginning with a workout while making small healthy switches in your diet, like switching from your normal soda to water or diet soda.

In addition to this, there are various different revelations that I faced in this dieting struggle, that we will discuss in the upcoming articles. From a fact check on the health benefits of food that claim to be good for you to the harm that various food items and my personal experience with dieting. If you have any personal experience with dieting, share it in the comments below!

For more Nutrition articles click here.

By: Naina