When you start a diet, the goal is not to lose weight as quickly as possible and then stop. A diet should be a learning process for a healthy diet. The question then is: how long should you follow a diet?
In this article, we tell you how long you should follow a diet and when you should stop. That is necessary to know because many people have no idea. When it comes to diets, people mainly think of
- hunger
- willpower
- fatigue
From the moment we start a diet, we focus on the day we think we can achieve our goal. Then we want to resume our old eating habits. This is of course not wise.
We will therefore not only explain below how long you should follow a diet, but we will also discuss how you can continue your healthy diet after you have reached your ideal weight.
The weight that you should lose
The first thing you should know if you decide to follow a diet is how much weight you should lose. You can calculate this yourself with the BMI. For this, you only need your own weight and height and then you can determine your ideal target weight.
It is also important that you have this checked by a specialist or the doctor. These experts will guide you and help you find your ideal weight.
You should use your BMI as a recommendation and not become obsessed with it. Use it to create a healthy lifestyle and find your own well-being.
Once you start a diet, remember that you should not lose more than a pound a week. So forget all those wonderful diets. Instead, you need to lose weight slowly and constantly. That is the only way to prevent a kickback.
Instead of dieting, just learn to eat healthier
A diet is much more than just losing weight. It is also:
- learn to eat healthy
- sports
- value the benefits of weight loss
You may think that it is difficult to achieve your goal, but in reality, you can continue to enjoy good food. Learn new recipes, find new products and add a routine with exercises to your daily life.
Mind you, we do not mean that you should continue to diet for the rest of your life. Once you have reached your ideal weight, you can relax a bit. You don’t always have to be strict with yourself.
Yet that does not mean that you have to fall back on your old diet, because then your diet will ultimately prove to be meaningless. Try to find the golden mean, so that you can keep your weight and thereby spoil yourself now and then.
Exercise is good
If you start a new sport while following a diet, find a workout that suits you. Then you stay in shape and you escape the daily stress for a while. There are many sports that you can do. So choose one. This is great fun if it is an activity that you can do together with you:
- partner
- friends
- family
How long should you follow a diet?
Do you already know how long you should follow a diet? As we have said, a diet does not have to have a definitive end. However, they do have a point where you must stop and that is usually when you have reached your ideal weight.
We are all different and that is why you can lose more weight one week than the next. If you lose less weight, it could be due to:
- whether your week is busy or relaxing
- hormonal changes
- many other factors
Do not start on a strict diet
In any case, you should never start a strict diet if you want to lose a specific amount of weight per week. The important thing is that you remember to never stop trying to lose weight.
Once you follow a diet, it doesn’t matter if you reach your goal a few weeks later. You should also not follow a too-strict diet whereby you may not, for example, do the following:
- consume different types of food
- eating out with your friends
- visiting family parties
It is not forbidden to stop your diet sometimes, as long as you start again, that is always the most important thing!
Moreover, a strict diet will only discourage you and it will not give you the strength to continue. It may be effective in the first few weeks, but we don’t recommend it. In the long term, it is not sustainable.