How to Stay Motivated to Stay on Your Diet
Dieting is important for several reasons. The first and most obvious reason is that dieting can help you lose weight and maintain a healthy weight. Weight loss is important for many reasons. It will help you feel healthier and more confident, and it will significantly improve your quality of life. A healthy weight will decrease your risk for heart disease, diabetes, and some cancers. Additionally, a healthy weight will help you live a longer, more fulfilling life. That is why the team at Asken Diet built our free nutrition advice app, to help guide users towards a healthy lifestyle. The app is available for download on the Android and Apple app stores here: www.askendiet.com/get
How does dieting help?
Everyone is different so the definition of "healthy eating" can vary from person to person. You might work a desk job and therefore have a bit more of a sedentary lifestyle. That means you might need a bit less calories per day since you are not burning much at work. On the other hand, you might work construction and burn a lot more calories at work than the average person. You'll need to fuel your body with a higher calorie intake. All of these different scenarios (work/lifestyle, body shape, weight goals) can be set in the Asken Diet app so our dietitians can give you the best advice you need regarding your daily intake.
Managing your diet to match your lifestyle and work, is key to maintaining a healthy body. Dieting doesn’t have to mean drastically cutting calories. Dieting doesn’t have to be trendy or follow strict plant-based diets. It means monitoring the calories and nutrients you put into your body to make sure you have a balanced, nutritious diet.
What are the Benefits of Dieting?
Giving your body the healthy fuel it needs through a balanced diet has so many health benefits. Increased energy. Better cognitive function. Happier attitude. Getting depression under control. The benefits of eating right are almost endless. Eating right and managing your diet is a lifestyle choice you are making today, to reap the health benefits over time in the future.
What are the Side Effects of Dieting?
There are different ways dieting can impact you. Sometimes finding and buying fresh vegetables can be more expensive than cheap processed foods. But increased costs in healthy, nutritious foods now, will keep future health costs at bay compared to eating cheap processed foods now.
Other side effects could be in the initial stage of adjusting your diet to a more healthy one. You will likely crave some unhealthy foods you used to eat. Or struggle to cut down on snacks. Try to snack on your favorite fruits or vegetables instead of snacking on chips or cookies. You can do it.
Another side effect could be in the amount of time it sometimes takes to monitor your diet. Logging food in a calorie counter app can take time. But once it becomes routine, and you start to see the payoff as your weight changes for the better, the time it takes to log food each meal will not feel so long. The easiest way in the Asken Diet app is to use the barcode scan. If you have a bunch of packaged goods you are using to cook a meal at home, scan the barcode on the box(es) and our database will instantly find the item so you can log it. Or grabbing a snack on the go? Before you throw away the wrapper, scan the barcode from within the Asken Diet calorie counting app. Done. Simple!
How Can You Diet Without Feeling Deprived?
It can sometimes be hard to hit the recommended servings of fruits and/or vegetables. But calories from these healthy items are the best calories to count. Try to "taste the rainbow". When grocery shopping, try to buy a variety of colors of vegetables and fruits. Leafy greens. Red radishes. Purple cabbage. They all pack different healthy nutrients and taste (and look) good too!
What is a Healthy Diet
In the Asken Diet app, there are a variety of graphs to help you see your calorie intake and calories burned (from physical activity and exercise). But for those looking to better understand their body, our app has a "Net Calorie Balance" graph. This graph fluctuates throughout the day as you eat (calorie intake) and/or exercise (calorie output) to show how balanced your calories in/out are. The net balance goal is the target number representing the difference in the amount of calories taken in versus those that are burned. It’s calculated based on a user’s weight goals. Consistently maintaining this net balance goal each day will allow a user to achieve their weight goals. For example, if you want to gain weight, our licensed dietitians will give you a number for your net calorie balance to monitor. If you eat too much in a day, but also exercise a lot in that same day, your net calorie balance might be ok because you have taken in more calories than you burned (thus gaining weight). If you are trying to lose weight, you’d want the opposite.
Links that can help:
Asken Diet: www.askendiet.com/get
Health Line: https://www.healthline.com/health/balanced-diet
Medical News Today: https://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/322268
Health Line: https://www.healthline.com/nutrition/best-diet-plans