When it comes to losing weight we always seem to have something in our way. From lunch with co-workers to family dinners to weekend hangouts and special occasions, it’s inherent that our general diet involves social interaction outside the boundaries we set for our weight loss efforts. And that thing is the ‘challenged commitment’ to dieting.
It doesn’t matter what diet rules you decide to adhere to, the low carb diet, low-fat diet, vegetable diet or any one of the hundreds of other diets. You will come up against obstacles that will derail your efforts and send you back to your old eating patterns.
The goal is how are we going to adhere to our new dieting rules during times our commitment to the diet is being challenged.
The Social Aspects of Eating
It’s easy to forget when setting up our diet plan that most of the eating we do is in a social setting. Many of us enjoy family meals or intimate couples’ meals to catch up on the happens of the day. How about when a co-worker turns and ask, what are you doing for lunch? Fact is, a lot of times the eating we do is done with other people. Social eating is the reason why it’s strongly recommended to announce to everyone that you’re on a diet. It will persuade them of deterring you from your diet.
Eating socially is a great practice, but while on a diet it can be problematic.
The Solution to the Challenged Commitment
There are several solutions to our challenged commitment to dieting. The top solution is to adjust your non-social eating levels. By reducing what you eat during by yourself, it will be easier to maintain your lower levels when with family and friends.
For example, if on a low carbohydrate diet. If you set your carbs to just 75 grams a day, you can eat an exceptionally low amount of carbs in the morning and chose low carb snacks in between lunch and dinner to compensate for the carbs you may eat at a restaurant. This will provide the flexibility to enjoy ourselves in the social setting and not have to worry about over doing it with our diet.
Another solution is to use the social aspects of eating to our advantage by enticing the usual people you socialize with while eating, to diet with you. Having a significant other on board with the same diet you’re on has countless benefits. This can ease the pain of restricting ourselves if at dinner and weekends are shared with someone with the same dieting goals.
Another solution is enticing your co-workers to do the same. If your significant other will not join you on the diet, maybe the co-workers you normally eat with will be willing to join you. Again, ease the pain of trying to restrict your diet at other times.
The best of both worlds would obviously be to have a significant other and co-workers on board with the diet.
When it comes to special events, like birthdays, weddings and anniversaries. The best solution is to give extreme focus to your diet a few days before and a few days after the event. By doing this you can have fun at the event, eat what you want and get right back to focusing on the diet for the following day. You’ll be amazed at how well this works and almost forget how bad you ate during the event because it doesn’t matter to us!
When you come up against obstacles that will derail your efforts and challenge your commitment to your diet, remember we’re in it for long-term results. The derailment is only temporary, and it only takes one day of effort to get right back on your diet.