Falling off the wagon when trying to maintain a diet is a common experience. Life's challenges, tempting treats, and disruptions to routines can all derail even the most dedicated dieters. The key is not to despair but to have strategies in place to effectively restart your diet plan and get back on track towards your health goals. This article provides a comprehensive guide to help you navigate those moments and re-establish healthy eating habits.
Acknowledge and Accept Setbacks
The first step in restarting your diet plan is to acknowledge and accept that you've had a setback. Don't dwell on your dietary misstep. There’s no benefit to heaping guilt on your plate for past chews. Bad food days are part of life, whether it’s the result of scheduling pressures, stress eating or simply the lure of decadent desserts. Remember that setbacks are a normal part of the process.
Re-Establish Healthy Eating Habits Quickly
Hit the reset button on healthy eating habits as soon as possible after a misstep to get yourself moving in the right direction. Focus on keeping a one-day setback from ballooning into a one-week setback. Consider planning out meals for the week ahead to restore your routine, and maybe add in a new recipe or food item to spice things up. Stock your fridge with nutrient-rich fruits and vegetables for when you crave a midday nibble.
Learn From Your Eating Misadventures
Reflect on what led to the derailment. Understanding the triggers and circumstances that caused you to stray from your diet can help you develop strategies to prevent similar situations in the future. Consider alternatives such as nutritious meals packed in a car cooler or pre-made dishes that can be plated as soon as you get home. Using a food tracking app or journal to better understand your eating routine could help pinpoint and address persistent stumbling blocks to your dietary goals. It’s a great way to understand the ‘why’ behind your behaviors.
Practical Strategies for Getting Back on Track
- Plan Your Meals: Just like anything else you want to achieve, you have to plan for healthy eating. You can also use time-saving tricks like buying pre-cut produce, using a slow-cooker or doubling recipes to ensure you have leftovers to freeze. Try to keep a list of quick, healthy meals and snacks so you don't get stumped when you are shopping and cooking.
- Set Realistic Goals: Don’t try to make too many changes at once. Small changes over time can add up to a big impact, and it is much more doable. By mastering small changes, you will gain confidence and little improvements will slowly become part of your lifestyle. Once you’ve incorporated a new habit, start on another one.
- Practice Mindful Eating: One of the easiest ways to climb back on the healthy eating wagon is to slow it down at mealtime. Gobbling down food often leads to overeating. It takes 20 minutes for your stomach to tell your brain that it’s full. Patton recommends setting down your fork between bites to reduce the plate-to-mouth food transfer pace. Adding in sips of water applies the brakes, too, while also helping to fill you up and curb your appetite. The tactic is especially effective at parties, where tackling a buffet can lead to mass consumption in a hurry. Eating slower is one way to eat healthier. It’s a good habit to build.
- Seek Professional Guidance: The enormous number of fad diets, as well as all the sources of nutrition information can make healthy eating decisions difficult and confusing. A registered dietitian can help cut through the misinformation and provide you with well-researched nutrition guidance that is customized for you and your lifestyle.
- Avoid Deprivation: When you start a healthy lifestyle, it can mean giving up foods you like. But eating healthier doesn’t mean you have to say goodbye to all your favorites. All foods can fit.
Incorporating Healthy Habits
- Emphasize Fruits and Vegetables: Each day should include at least one helping - a small side salad or a half-cup serving of cooked green vegetables - ensuring that you have a dietary source of the B vitamin folate.
- Increase Fiber Intake: Chances are, you don’t eat enough fiber. And that’s only about half of what experts believe we need to eat daily to ensure good health and a leaner, fitter body.
- Choose Healthy Fats: If you’ve been trying to lose weight by eating less fat, we have a word of advice: Stop. Omega-3 fatty acids. These healthy fats - found in salmon, mackerel, sardines and tuna - have been shown to play a role in reducing belly fat and in promoting muscle preservation in older adults. Fruit and nut oils. Olive oil is the go-to here. Studies have shown that extra-virgin olive oil may reduce dementia risk by flushing out the proteins that gum up communications channels between brain cells.Dairy fats. Full-fat dairy has been linked to a reduced risk of obesity.
- Limit Empty Calories: A significant source of empty calories is beverages. Soda, sweetened iced teas, specialty coffee drinks, sports drinks, oversize smoothies and shakes, even fruit juices can be loaded with sugar.
Sample Meal Ideas
- Kale and hearty smoothie: 1 cup 1-percent milk, ½ cup plain low-fat Greek yogurt, 1 cup frozen strawberries, half a small banana, ⅓ cup oats, ½ cup fresh kale, chopped.
- Steak in chimichurri sauce: Use steak cubes marinated in chopped garlic, salt and pepper.
- Nutty sweet potatoes: Baked with olive oil, coconut oil, nutmeg and cinnamon. Dressing includes orange juice and zest, lemon juice and zest, ginger, honey, olive oil and red wine vinegar.
The Body Reset Diet: A Jump-Start Option
The Body Reset Diet is a popular 15-day eating pattern that’s been backed by several celebrities. Proponents suggest that it’s an easy, healthy way to boost metabolism and shed weight fast. However, you may wonder whether its claims stand up to scrutiny. This article reviews the pros and cons of the Body Reset Diet to tell you whether it aids weight loss. The Body Reset Diet promotes weight loss via a smoothie-based meal plan alongside whole foods and exercise. Yet, its extreme calorie restrictions and short-term nature make it largely unsustainable.
Read also: The Hoxsey Diet
The Body Reset Diet was created by Harley Pasternak, a celebrity trainer with a background in exercise physiology and nutritional science. Pasternak believes that you’re more motivated to stick to a weight loss plan when you experience rapid weight loss early on - a theory with some scientific support (1). As such, the Body Reset Diet aims to jump-start weight loss with low calorie meal plans and light exercise over the course of 15 days. Pasternak’s book, “The Body Reset Diet: Power Your Metabolism, Blast Fat, and Shed Pounds in Just 15 Days,” lays out the meal plan, which emphasizes homemade smoothies, high fiber snacks, and simple meals. You’re meant to follow specific recipes from Pasternak’s book and a supplemental cookbook, “The Body Reset Diet Cookbook.” Pasternak suggests that these recipes minimize time and effort in the kitchen, which he believes is key to a successful diet. Though the exact calorie count varies depending on the recipes you choose, you can expect to consume an average of 300 calories per smoothie, 150-200 calories per snack, and 360 calories per meal. This equates to roughly 1,200-1,400 calories per day. The diet suggests light exercise like walking and 5-10-minute bouts of resistance workouts like weight training to burn calories without “supercharging” your appetite.
Phases of the Body Reset Diet
The Body Reset Diet is split into three 5-day phases. Each phase has its own dietary pattern and exercise routine. You eat five times per day, progressing from mainly smoothies in Phase 1 to more solid meals in Phases 2 and 3.
- Phase 1: Replace breakfast, lunch, and dinner with smoothies and eat 2 snacks per day. For physical activity, walk at least 10,000 steps each day.
- Phase 2: Replace 2 meals with smoothies, eat 1 solid meal, and have 2 snacks per day. For physical activity, walk 10,000 steps each day and complete 5 minutes of resistance training using 4 different exercises on 3 of the days.
- Phase 3: Replace 1 meal with a smoothie and eat 2 low calorie meals plus 2 snacks per day. For physical activity, walk 10,000 steps and complete 5 minutes of resistance training using 4 different exercises every day.
After the diet’s standard 15 days, you’re meant to follow the meal plan outlined in Phase 3 with one addition - twice-weekly “free meals” that allow you to eat or drink anything you want. These are included as a reward and a way to avoid feelings of deprivation. Pasternak suggests that continuously depriving yourself of your favorite foods may lead to binge eating (2, 3). After the first 15 days, there’s no official end point to the diet for weight loss and maintenance. According to Pasternak, the routine and habits you’ve formed in the first 15 days are intended to be followed for a lifetime (2).
Potential Benefits
- May Help You Lose Weight: The Body Reset Diet is likely effective for weight loss - at least in the short term. Ultimately, weight loss occurs when you burn more calories than you take in. Since this plan is comprised of low calorie smoothies, snacks, and meals, it will likely put your body in a calorie deficit. The plan’s exercise regimen also helps you burn calories. To put it in perspective, this plan provides around 1,200-1,400 calories per day - far below the standard 2,000 calories recommended for average adults to maintain their weight (4). In one study, dieters on a similar 1,200-1,500-calorie diet consisting of 2 meals and 2 meal replacement shakes per day lost an average of 15 pounds (6.8 kg) (5). However, this was over the course of a 1-year weight loss and maintenance plan. It’s also important to keep in mind that various factors, such as age, weight, height, and sex, factor into weight loss (6).
- May Keep You Motivated Initially: Though 15 days is a relatively short period, any weight you shed during this time may encourage you to stick with the Body Reset Diet longer. Researchers suggest that this discrepancy may be due to motivation levels. Simply put, people who experience immediate results may be more motivated to continue with the program because they believe it works (1).
- High in Nutrient-Rich Foods: The Body Reset Diet emphasizes nutritious foods like fruits, vegetables, whole grains, nuts, legumes, lean proteins, and low fat dairy. These foods make up a well-rounded diet because they provide an array of essential vitamins and minerals (9). What’s more, the Body Reset Diet meal plan is packed with fiber from the numerous whole foods in its smoothies, snacks, and solid meals. Diets high in fiber are associated with lower body weights and a reduced risk of type 2 diabetes, heart disease, certain cancers, and other chronic illnesses (10).
Potential Downsides
- May Overly Restrict Calories: Though the diet offers slight recipe modifications for individuals over 175 pounds (79 kg), it generally provides around 1,200-1,400 calories per day. This is not only too severe of a calorie restriction for some people but also may lead to nutrient deficiencies. Simply put, low calorie diets often lack all the carbs, protein, fat, vitamins, and minerals you need for optimal health (12). What’s more, extreme calorie restriction and rapid weight loss have been shown to slow metabolism - even after you stop dieting - and may result in significantly reduced muscle mass (13, 14, 15, 16). That said, the diet’s protein-rich foods and focus on resistance exercise may mitigate some muscle loss (17, 18).
- May Be Hard to Follow Long Term: Research suggests that any low calorie diet can work for weight loss as long as you can stick with it (1). According to an analysis of over 500 people following weight loss programs, a main dropout predictor is hunger levels (19). The Body Reset Diet is packed fiber and protein-rich foods, which may help curb your appetite. However, its liquid meals, such as smoothies, may be less filling than solid food (20, 21). Low calorie intake also releases hunger hormones, which is a likely reason that people quit weight loss plans (22, 23).
Foods to Avoid
As the Body Reset Diet involves a specific meal plan with recipes, there isn’t much room for deviation. You should always avoid these foods during the diet’s first 15 days:
- Full fat milk, yogurt, and cheese
- Highly processed or fried foods
- White breads, pastas, and other refined grains
- Soda and other sugary beverages
- Alcohol
Pasternak’s rationale is that full fat dairy and processed foods are high in saturated fats, which have long been seen as unhealthy. However, some scientific evidence suggests that the fats in full fat dairy don’t harm heart health - and may even promote it (24). Refined grains are banned because they rank high on the glycemic index (GI), a measure of how quickly blood sugar rises in response to food (25). Furthermore, alcohol isn’t allowed until after the first 15 days, as it’s high in calories. Pasternak also suggests that it decreases your ability to burn fat, and that intoxication may lead to poor food choices.
Read also: Walnut Keto Guide
The Mayo Clinic Diet
The Mayo Clinic Diet is the official weight-loss program developed by Mayo Clinic experts. The program focuses on eating delicious healthy foods and increasing physical activity. It emphasizes that the best way to keep weight off for good is to change your lifestyle and adopt new habits that you enjoy and can stick with.
- Lose It! This two-week phase is designed to jump-start your weight loss, so you may lose up to 6 to 10 pounds (2.7 to 4.5 kilograms) in a safe and healthy way. In this phase, you focus on lifestyle habits that are associated with weight. You learn how to add five healthy habits, break five unhealthy habits and adopt another five bonus healthy habits.
- Live It! This phase is a lifelong approach to health. In this phase, you learn more about food choices, portion sizes, menu planning, physical activity, exercise and sticking to healthy habits. You may continue to see a steady weight loss of 1 to 2 pounds (0.5 to 1 kilograms) a week until you reach your goal weight.
The Mayo Clinic Diet makes healthy eating easy by teaching you how to estimate portion sizes and plan meals. The program doesn't require you to be precise about counting calories. Mayo Clinic experts designed the Mayo Clinic Healthy Weight Pyramid to help you eat foods that are filling but low in calories. Each of the food groups in the pyramid emphasizes health-promoting choices. The program recommends getting at least 30 minutes of physical activity every day and even more exercise for further health benefits and weight loss. It provides an exercise plan with easy-to-follow walking and resistance exercises that will help maximize fat loss and boost mental well-being. If you've been inactive or you have a medical condition, talk to your doctor or health care provider before starting a new physical activity program. The Mayo Clinic Diet provides a choice of five different eating styles at several calorie levels. What about dessert? You can have sweets but no more than 75 calories a day. For practicality, consider thinking of your sweets calories over the course of a week. After that, you transition into the second phase, where you continue to lose 1 to 2 pounds (0.5 to 1 kilograms) a week until you reach your goal weight. Most people can lose weight on almost any diet plan that restricts calories - at least in the short term. The Mayo Clinic Diet is generally safe for most adults. For most people, eating lots of fruits and vegetables is a good thing - these foods provide your body with important nutrients and fiber. Also, the natural sugar in fruit does affect your carbohydrate intake - especially if you eat a lot of fruit. This may temporarily raise your blood sugar or certain blood fats. If you have diabetes or any other health conditions or concerns, work with your doctor to adjust the Mayo Clinic Diet for your situation. For example, people with diabetes should aim for more vegetables than fruits, if possible.
Understanding Your Eating Habits
When it comes to eating, many of us have developed habits. Some eating habits are good, such as drinking water instead of sugary drinks. However, some are not so good, such as rewarding yourself with dessert after a hard day of work. Making sudden, radical changes, such as eating nothing but cabbage soup, can lead to short-term weight loss. However, such radical changes are neither healthy nor a good idea and won't be successful in the long run.
- Track Your Food Intake: For a few days, write down everything you eat and drink, including sugary drinks and alcohol. Write down the time of day you ate or drank the item. This will help you uncover your habits. Note how you felt when you decided to eat, especially if you were not hungry. Were you tired?
- Identify Triggers: Look at the habits you highlighted. Identify triggers that cause you to engage in those habits. This will help you become more aware of when and where you eat for reasons other than hunger. Note how you typically feel at those times. While the Thanksgiving holiday may be a trigger to overeat, focus on cues you face more often.
- Develop Coping Strategies:
- Is there anything I can do to avoid the cue or situation? This option works best for cues that do not involve others. For example, could you choose a different route to work to avoid the habit of stopping at a fast-food restaurant?
- For things I can't avoid, can I do something differently that would be healthier? If you can't avoid the situation, evaluate your options. During work meetings, could you suggest or bring healthier snacks or beverages?
- Minimize distractions, such as watching the news while you eat.
- You may realize that you eat too fast when you eat alone. If so, share a lunch each week with a colleague. Or, have a neighbor over for dinner one night a week.
- This will help you avoid eating when you are tired or anxious. Try to find a non-eating activity to do instead. You may find a quick walk or phone call with a friend can help you feel better.
- If you engage in an unhealthy habit, stop as quickly as possible and ask yourself: Why do I do this? When did I start doing this?
Stay Positive and Persistent
Remember to pat yourself on the back for the things you're doing right. Maybe you started eating more vegetables or drinking low-fat or fat-free milk. Be careful not to berate yourself or think that one mistake blows a whole day's worth of healthy habits. The key to successfully restarting your diet plan is to view healthy eating as a long-term commitment. Building a healthy diet isn’t something that’s done or undone in a single day. Instead, it’s a process best measured over months and years. It’s more important to develop lasting routines then to fixate on a momentary stumble. As long as you understand the bigger goal, you’ll be fine.
Read also: Weight Loss with Low-FODMAP