I would advise a person against going on a diet.
You stop and re-read the first sentence. A dietitian telling you not to diet. Maybe she meant don't do the fad diets to lose weight because of course, when you are done with the fad diet you are going to go back to the way you were eating before, and typically what happens is a person regains the weight that was lost.
Well, even if you think of dieting to lose weight. Think to yourself, this is a six month change. Everything you eat is healthy. At the end of the six months, if those changes don't 'stick,' and you go back to eating larger portions, higher sugar foods, higher fat foods, you will regain the weight.
I saw my mother struggle with her weight. She was always on a diet or off a diet. But the focus was change for a while, and then back to old habits. She learned that to be successful with weight and health, it is necessary to make small changes, and stay with those changes. Then to gradually add in one more small change. It wasn't an overnight transformation of her weight to goal. It was a process just like other things in life.
I play the violin. I will never be asked to join an orchestra and will never play professionally. But even with this love in my life, it is a matter of small changes. And I have to practice the instrument in order to sound better and to play better.
It is the same with the small changes that a person makes to change health, whether it is for weight loss, to obtain better control of diabetes, or to manage high blood pressure. It takes small changes to achieve big results.
Think about your food choices, make small changes to impact portion sizes of foods, but don't diet. I would recommend a healthy balance with the focus on foods that nourish the body.
I would love your comments on the blog. Email me at nutritionandhealthworks@woh.rr.com
Eat well for health.
Juanita